Apples Will Never Taste the Same: Canada's Migrant Farmworkers

📚Lecture: "Apples Will Never Taste the Same: Canada's Migrant Farmworkers"
🎤Speaker: Sebastian Lopez (Resident Doctor, University of Ottawa)

Every apple, strawberry, and tomato on your plate has a story behind it but chances are you've never heard it.

Nearly half of Canada's agricultural workforce is made up of migrant farm workers who travel thousands of kilometres to harvest the food that keeps our grocery stores stocked and our communities fed. Yet many face dangerous working conditions, barriers to healthcare, precarious immigration status, and systemic inequities that remain largely invisible to the public.

Through the stories of migrant farm workers and the policies that shape their lives, this lecture explores how Canada's temporary foreign worker programs impact health, why these inequities persist, and what they reveal about the true cost of our food system. You'll leave with a new perspective on the people who make our meals possible and an understanding of why, after this talk, an apple may truly never taste the same.

Sebastian Lopez Steven (he/him/el) is a first-year resident doctor in the University of Ottawa’s psychiatry program, having completed medical school at UBC and a prior Master of Science in health policy at Carleton University. He has a special interest in migrant farm worker health after working as the Coordinator of the Bici Libre Program at the UBC Bike Kitchen, refurbishing and donating bicycles with the aim to empower workers. Outside of these spaces, you can usually find him on a field hockey pitch consistently choosing the wrong pass to make in the moment.