Staggered Inclusion: Between Temporary and Permanent Immigration Status in Quebec, Canada

Abstract

Pathways to permanent residency among immigrants in Canada have become more often preceded by a phase of temporariness. Research on these processes indicates that a two-step immigration regime is gaining momentum. However, we know little about those who qualify for permanent residency and experience a transition to permanent status inland. This article examines such experience of encountering federal and provincial administrative borders from within Canada. The analysis is based on 43 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted in the province of Quebec between 2016 and 2020 with temporary migrants in the process of transitioning to permanent residency or having recently acquired it. The article argues that migrants find themselves in spaces of ambiguity and in-betweenness regarding their transition process, access to rights and life perspectives over a period during which their status, as a lived experienced rather than strictly an administrative category, is neither temporary nor permanent. It sheds light on how bureaucratic processes that throw people into precariousness produces different shades of inclusion, not only based on the type of residency permit, but on the staggered transition process resulting from Canada’s immigration multi-governance itself. Furthermore, it calls for a rethinking of the permanent-temporary resident binary that structures Canada’s immigration policies.

Notes

1 Catherine Dauvergne, The New Politics of Immigration and the End of Settler Societies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 133.

2 Dauvergne, The New Politics of Immigration and the End of Settler Societies, 124.

3 Michael Haan, Yoko Yoshida, Jonathan Amoyaw, and Natalie Iciaszczyk, “Becoming Permanent: The Transition Characteristics of Temporary Foreign Workers to Permanent Residents in Canada,” International Migration 59, no. 2 (2021): 8–24.

4 Feng Hou and Aneta Bonikowska, Educational and Labour Market Outcomes of Childhood Immigrants by Admission Class. Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series (Ottawa, Canada: Statistics Canada, 2016).

5 Luin Goldring, Carolina Berinstein, and Judith K. Bernhard, “Institutionalizing Precarious Migratory Status in Canada,” Citizenship Studies 13, no. 3 (2009): 239–65.

6 Samantha Jackson, and Harald Bauder, “Neither Temporary, Nor Permanent: The Precarious Employment Experiences of Refugee Claimants in Canada,” Journal of Refugee Studies 27, no. 3 (2014): 360–81.

7 Geraldina Polanco, “Consent Behind the Counter: Aspiring Citizens and Labour Control under Precarious (im)Migration Schemes,” Third World Quarterly 37, no. 8 (2016): 1332–50.

8 Kendra Strauss, and Siobhán McGrath, “Temporary Migration, Precarious Employment and Unfree Labour Relations: Exploring the ‘Continuum of Exploitation’ in Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program,” Geoforum 78 (2017): 199–208.

9 Delphine Nakache and Leanne Dixon-Perera, Temporary or Transitional? Migrant Workers’ Experiences With Permanent Residence in Canada. IRPP Study no. 5 (Montréal: Institute for Research on Public Policy 55, 2015).

10 Kathryn Tomko Dennler, “Uncertain Future, Unsettled Present: Suspending and Embracing Engagement with Life Among Newcomers in Toronto, Canada,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2021): 1–17.

11 Sandro Mezzadra, and Brett Neilson, “Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders,” Theory, Culture & Society 29, no. 4–5 (2012): 58–75.

12 Hélène Pellerin, “De la migration à la mobilité: Changement de paradigme dans la gestion migratoire. Le cas du Canada,” Revue européenne des migrations internationales 27, no. 2 (2011): 57–75.

13 Karine Geoffrion, and Vivane Cretton, “Bureaucratic Routes to Migration,” Anthropologica 63, no. 2 (2021): 1–28; Shanthi Robertson, “Migrant, Interrupted: The Temporalities of ‘Staggered’ Migration from Asia to Australia,” Current Sociology 67, no. 2 (2019): 169–85.

14 Mireille Paquet, La fédéralisation de l‘immigration au Canada (Montréal: Les Presses de l‘Université de Montréal, 2016).

15 Fiona Allon, and Kay Anderson, “Intimate encounters: The Embodied Transnationalism of Backpackers and Independent Travellers,” Population, Space and Place 16, no. 1 (2010): 11–22.

16 Antje Ellermann, and Yana Gorokhovskaia, “The Impermanence of Permanence: The Rise of Probationary Immigration in Canada,” International Migration 58, no. 6 (2020): 45–60.

17 Patricia Landolt, and Luin Goldring, “Assembling Noncitizenship Through the Work of Conditionality,” Citizenship Studies 19, no. 8 (2015): 853–69.

18 Catherine Dauvergne and Sarah Marsden, “The Ideology of Temporary Labour Migration in the Post-Global Era,” Citizenship Studies 18, no. 2 (2014): 224–42.

19 Elke Winter, “Us, Them, and Others: Reflections on Canadian Multiculturalism and National Identity at the Turn of the Twenty‐First Century,”Canadian Review of Sociology = Revue canadienne de sociologie 51, no. 2 (2014): 128–51, 136.

20 Shanthi Robertson, Transnational Student-Migrants and the State. The Education-Migration Nexus (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 84, 85–6.

21 Shanthi Robertson, “The Temporalities of International Migration: Implications for Ethnographic Research,” in Social Transformation and Migration, edited by S. Castles, D. Ozkul, and A. Cubas. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2015), 45–60.

22 Jennifer Hyndman and Wenona Giles, Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge (London: Routledge, 2016).

23 Laurent Vidal and Alain Musset (Ed.), Les territoires de l’attente: Migrations et mobilités dans les Amériques (XIXe-XXIe siècle) (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2015).

24 Yuqian Lu and Feng Hou, Transition de l’état de travailleurs étrangers temporaires à celui de résidents permanents, 1990 à 2014 (No. 2017389f) (Statistiques Canada, Direction des études analytiques, 2017).

25 MIFI [Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration], Document de consultation sur le Programme de l’expérience québécoise (PEQ) (2020), 20.

26 MIFI [Ministère de l’immigration, de la francisation et de l’intégration], “Receiving an Attestation of Learning About the Democratic Values and Québec” (2022). https://www.quebec.ca/en/immigration/receiving-attestation-values (accessed 10 January 2023).

27 Government of Canada, “Check Processing Time” (2021). https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/services/demande/verifier-delais-traitement.html (accessed 25 July 2021)

28 Formerly referred to as implied status, this situation has been renamed maintained status by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) since April 2021. We use implied status in this article, since it was the name in place when we collected our narratives, and this is how participants referred to it.

29 “If a temporary resident also applies for renewal of their work or study permit before the expiry of their existing permit and their permit expires before a decision is made, paragraph R186(u) or section R189 authorizes them to work or study without a permit under the same conditions pending a determination of their application for renewal and only as long as the person remains in Canada;” IRCC [Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada]. (2021). https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/operational-bulletins-manuals/temporary-residents/visitors/implied-status-extending-stay.html (accessed 2 August 2021).

30 Gouvernement du Canada. (2018). Tableau 3 : Résidents permanents admis en 2017, selon la destination et la catégorie https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/organisation/publications-guides/rapport-annuel-parlement-immigration-2018/residents-permanents-admis-destination.html (en ligne, accessed 13 October 2020).

31 Gouvernement du Canada. (2020). “CIMM - Les demandeurs d’asile travaillant en première ligne” https://www.canada.ca/fr/immigration-refugies-citoyennete/organisation/transparence/comites/cimm-17-juin-2020/asile-travaillant-premiere-ligne.html (en ligne, accessed 13 October 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danièle Bélanger

Danièle Bélanger is at Université Laval, Department of Geography.

Myriam Ouellet

Myriam Ouellet is at Université Laval and Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Department of Geography.

Capucine Coustere

Capucine Coustere is at niversité Laval, Department of Sociology.

Charles Fleury

Charles Fleury is at Université Laval, Department of Industrial Relations.