I examine and contextualize the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). I problematize what I suggest is the heightened regulation and subjugation of workers under this labour scheme. I suggest that by more thoroughly understanding the mass exodus of ‘national’, white citizen workers from the Canadian agricultural industry we are better able to problematize this program as a policy that has allowed for the evasion of a critical look into Canadian agriculture. By tracing the legacy of farm worker recruitment schemes and programs that preceded the SAWP, we can also identify this program as part of a legacy of strategically normalizing problematized industry conditions through the exploitation of difference and socio-economic marginalization among groups of people. I discuss how the SAWP worker has been discursively organized and institutionalized as a highly regulated person, and contribute to understanding the various forms of regulation, disciplining and control mobilized on these individuals.