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"Today the temporary agricultural workers program has become a model for international cooperation. For this reason we have taken the first steps to extend it to other sectors of the economy." (President Vicente Fox, at a formal banquet with the Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, February 27, 2003)(1)

The facts speak for themselves: the population of developed countries is rapidly aging and there is a need for abundant, cheap labor to keep entire industries from losing vitality. The United States Chamber of Commerce calculates that in the next 10 years there will be a need for between 10 to 15 million new workers for low income jobs in the US, a labor force that can only be found abroad.(2)

In Canada an important part of the agricultural sector depends "structurally" on labor from Mexico and other poor countries. The production of tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, bell peppers, tobacco and apples in Canada would not exist, or would have languished, were it not for foreign workers. Thanks to temporary agricultural workers in Canada, 45% of whom are Mexican, the country is an important world producer of fruit and greenhouse vegetables.

The almost 14,000 Mexican campesinos (rural workers) who arrive each year to work in Canadian agriculture participate in the Mexican Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (MSAWP). The MSAWP has distinctive features. On the one hand it is a legal opportunity for poor campesinos to earn in eight months what they might earn in Mexico in five years doing similar work. But at the same time, the Mexicans who participate in the Program are "unfree", according to Doctor Tanya Basok, researcher at the University of Windsor in Canada.(3)

This Mexico-Canada Program, that creates legal unfree workers, is what President Vicente Fox would like to see at the negotiating table in his never-ending flirtations with the US government on migratory issues. Fox likely knows the Program well, since a considerable number of people from his home state of Guanajuato participate in it. In fact, more campesinos from San Cristóbal (municipality of Irapuato, state of Guanajuato) participate in the program than from any other town.

Should a migratory agreement be reached with the US, similar to the one Mexico has with Canada, it would have the advantage of being legal. Those who participate in the Program would not be subject to manhunts by the US Border Patrol, since they would cross the border with proper documents and a work contract in hand. Yet they would become legally unfree workers, precisely the kind that certain industries are looking for, and whose profitability and sustainability depend on available, immobile, and dependent workers.