At the temporary–permanent divide: how Canada produces temporariness and makes citizens through its security, work, and settlement policies

Abstract

This paper explores the production of temporariness in Canada, and its implications for the citizenship rights of migrants. It investigates the production of temporariness within three policy fields that are typically not examined together – security, work and settlement. Within these three fields, it considers public policies concerning: (1) security of presence; (2) access to paid employment for spouses of migrants; and (3) eligibility for settlement services. It argues that temporariness is being institutionalized in new ways, producing a hierarchy of categories of migrants ranging from the temporarily temporary to the permanently temporary and temporarily permanent, shaped by entry category, legal residency status and socially recognized skills. The paper advances a multidimensional conception of temporariness, and contends that the temporary-permanent divide is constructed through the enforcement of different entry categories and forms of legal residency status, which create ‘paper borders’ that are made up of the increasing number and range of restrictions, limits and containments regarding legal residency status, access to employment and settlement services.

Keywords:

• temporariness
• security
• work
• settlement
• immigration

Acknowledgements

This paper is the product of equal authorship. We are grateful to the reviewers, the editors, and participants in the seminar series entitled ‘Liberating Temporariness: Imagining Alternatives to Permanence as a Pathway for Social Inclusion’ – Professors Abigail Bakan, Luin Goldring, Eve Haque, Gerald Kernerman, John Shields and Cynthia Wright – for their helpful comments, and for funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation, and the Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation, York University.

Notes

 1. Although other researchers (e.g., Goldring et al. 2009) helpfully examine the implementation and lived experience of policies in these fields, our analysis focuses on the form and content of the policies themselves.

 2. We recognize that our analysis does not apply to elite migrants such as transnational executives who enjoy relatively unfettered mobility.

 3. We place ‘high skill’ and ‘low skill’ in quotation marks to acknowledge that skill is a socially constructed category which, in the case of immigration policy, is linked to education level and labour market needs, as well as to other social markers, such as gender and nationality. On the social construction of skill, see for example: Phillips and Taylor (1980), Steinberg (1990), and Scott (2006). At any point in time, either or both ‘high skill’ and ‘low skill’ workers may be in demand in the Canadian economy.

 4. Current federal policies define Skill Levels A and B that refer to managerial, professional and technical occupations as ‘high skill’ occupations (Fudge and McPhail 2009), while Skill Level D refers to manual occupations. They are not necessarily the occupations listed at any point in time on the federal government's approved list of occupation in ‘high demand’.

 5. We concentrate on the security of migrants themselves rather than state fears regarding terrorism, crime and violations of immigration law that are the other facet of security and migration policies.

 6. The ensuing analysis focuses narrowly on the relationship between insecurity and temporariness rather than the broader concept of precarity.

 7. For other examples, see Basok (2002), Dauvergne (2007), Albiom (2009), Fudge and MacPhail (2009).

 8. Permanent residents are ineligible for citizenship if they have been in prison, on parole or on probation, or were so for a year in the four years preceding the citizenship application; convicted of an indictable offence or crime, or an offence under the Citizenship Act in the three years preceding the application; under removal order; or under investigation for, are charged with, or convicted of a war crime or a crime against humanity (CIC 2010b).

 9. Refugee claims can be denied if the claimant is facing a removal order; is recognized as a Convention refugee by another country that they can return to; is granted protected person status in Canada; arrived via the Canada–US border; is inadmissible to Canada on security grounds, or because of criminal activity or human rights violations; had a previous refugee claim found ineligible for referral to IRB; had a previous refugee claim rejected by IRB; or abandoned or withdrew a previous refugee claim; subject to extradition; is a repeat refugee claimant being removed less than six months after having previously left Canada; is ineligible for PRRA, or PRRA claim is rejected, or Federal Court, following a rejected PRRA claim rejects a federal court appeal or rejects the case; or Humanitarian and Compassionate H&C application is rejected (wherein the claimants must leave Canada as per removal order, and CIC will process their case in absence (CIC 2010i).

10. We use the term undocumented, which is synonymous with ‘san papiers’, to describe the situation of migrants who do not have legal papers that grant them residency rights and access to social and labour protections.

11. High-skill occupations are defined by the federal government as those in Skill Levels A and B (Fudge and McPhail 2009).

12. Open work permits do not require a LMO, indicating there is no qualified Canadian resident available for the job (HRSDC 2010b).

13. It is important to note, however, that there are significant barriers for LCP workers wanting to become permanent residents. Currently, only 28% of LCP workers stay on in Canada to become permanent residents because of stringent requirements, and that figure is dropping (Valiani 2008). Many LCP workers who do not qualify for permanent residency often reapply to the LCP and return to Canada under the program, which further makes their temporariness permanent.

14. In this regard, our analysis extends Dauvergne's (2007) argument that immigration policy reinforces the valorization of citizenship.