Social citizenship in an age of temporary flows: migrant workers in British Columbia’s immigrant settlement sector

Abstract

This study examines the lack of adequate support systems available to a growing number of “temporary” newcomers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Over the past decade, Canada has consolidated significant changes to its immigration program, resulting in a sharp increase in the number of migrants classified as temporary. While Canada has an institutionalized system for supporting newcomers through its immigrant settlement sector, the majority of those with temporary status (including “low-skill” temporary foreign workers) are considered short-term residents and hence denied access to public settlement services and related social rights. However, given pressing needs, many settlement agencies and frontline workers continue to respond to the needs of temporary foreign workers, leading to degenerating working conditions for those in this sector. Empirically this illustrates the inadequacy of welfare models under changing migration flows, the impacts of neoliberal restructuring, and changing conditions of inequality at the nexus of work, migration and social citizenship.

Keywords:

• immigrant settlement services
• temporary foreign workers
• migration policy
• social policy
• neoliberal restructuring
• social citizenship
• British Columbia

Notes

1. An important exception in British Columbia are live-in domestic migrant workers recruited under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP), discussed below. Those recruited under the LCP are generally considered to be would-be immigrants, because there is a two-step (Hennebry, 2010), institutionalized path toward permanent residency through the LCP. They also have the right to initiate this process after meeting a set of criteria, yet in spite of this exception, research shows there is insecurity associated with this pseudo-immigration program, as not all workers manage to obtain permanent residency and there are widespread instances of employment violations (e.g. Oxman-Martinez, Hanley, & Cheung, 2004; Valiani, 2013).

2. As Gillian Creese (2006) observes, the settlement sector has been restructured in a manner that encourages competition amongst agencies for increasingly scarce resources. Out of concern that settlement agencies may be penalized for providing settlement support to TFWs when mandated not to do so, I do not attribute quotes to specific agencies.

3. In 1885, the Chinese Head Tax was introduced to exclude those of Chinese descent from entering and settling in Canada. As the name suggests, under this policy Chinese migrants had to pay an additional fee, which was initially $50CDN, increasing progressively to $500CDN by 1903 (Li, 2003, p. 19).

4. The Continuous Passage Act was introduced to exclude nationals from India. As the name implies, only those who migrated by continuous passage from India to Canada would be granted the right to set foot on Canadian soil. Given the geographical distance between India and Canada, this served to exclude migration from India, and, like the Chinese Head Tax, was a race-based policy to deter racialized subjects from entering (and by extension, settling) in Canada (Simmons, 2010, p. 56).

5. An important exception is those who come under International Mobility Programs.