The Impermanence of Permanence: The Rise of Probationary Immigration in Canada

Abstract

This article engages with arguments that contemporary immigration politics is defined by a "loss of settlement" by examining recent developments in Canadian immigration and refugee policy that have made permanent residence less permanent. We suggest that the rise of probationary immigration has been facilitated by horizontal status stratification within groups that were historically marked by relative status equality. In order to examine this claim empirically in the Canadian context, we analyze the rise of temporary foreign worker recruitment, the move from "one-step" to "two-step" immigration, and changes to refugee policy that, for the first time, linked loss of refugee status to the loss of permanent resident status.

Supporting Canada’s COVID-19 resilience and recovery through robust immigration policy and programs

“…Many are those who initially arrived in Canada as high-skilled temporary foreign workers (TFW) in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) or the IMP, as international students, or as refugee claimants whose asylum claim has been accepted by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) and then made the transition to permanent residence from within Canada through one of the existing pathways to that status. This "two-step" immigration process is a growing phenomenon, especially for three groups of temporary entrants: international students who stay in Canada on post graduate work permits after completing their studies, high-skilled individuals in the TFWP, and temporary entrants in the IMP, which allows certain categories of people to work anywhere they can find a job without requiring the hiring employer to receive a positive Labour Market Impact Assessment indicating that there is no one available to do the work (Ellermann and Gorokhovskaia 2020). Indeed, among economic principal applicants in the 2018 landing cohort, 59% had prior Canadian work experience, compared to just 12% of the 2000 landing cohort (Hou et al 2020b).…”

“…Because most economic immigration programs for permanent residence put such a premium on high human capital, many employers in need of workers who do not meet these criteria resort to hiring staff under the TFWP, even if the work is ongoing and not at all temporary (Ellermann and Gorokhovskaia 2020). In 2017, there were approximately 550 000 TFWs in Canada (Lu 2020).…”

A New Politics? Symposium on Dauvergne’s The New Politics and the End of Settler Societies

“…A third article focuses on Canada, sometimes assumed to be the most resilient of the immigration societies. Ellermann and Gorokhovskaia (2019) document policy changes that contributed to the “loss of settlement” as described by Dauvergne (2016). In settler states, permanent immigration and naturalization were central policy principles driving the immigration regime established in the post‐war period.…”

“…Ellermann and Gorokhovska show that these principles started to erode in Canada as early as the 1980 s, with a clear acceleration since the 2000 s. This erosion has been driven by three main policy changes: the development of temporary foreign worker programmes and the growth in their size as compared to other components of immigration, the establishment of “two‐step” immigration pathways and the increased possibility for cessation of refugee status, coupled with the associated loss of permanent residence status. These developments led them to argue that, indeed, “settlement and nation‐building have ceased to serve as core immigration values even in settler colonial states such as Canada”(Ellermann & Gorokhovskaia, 2019: 1).…”

Migration Labor Laws

“…Thirdly, the probationary immigrant programs can be regarded as such international workers' schemes, as their length of stay grows periodically, while offering further benefits to foreign employees (Ellermann and Gorokhovskaia, 2019;Sirkeci et al, 2018;. Most temporary employment services in Europe in the 1960s originally provided job and residency permits for one year.…”