Canada's Experience with Managed Migration
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300216 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Author | Austina J. Reed |
| Subject Matter | Coming Attraction |
COMING ATTRACTIONS
| 469 | International Journal | Spring 2008 |
Austina J. Reed
Canada’s experience
with managed
migration
The strategic use of temporary foreign worker programs
Austina J. Reed is a PhD candidate in the international political economy program in
McMaster University’s department of political science. The author wishes to thank the
Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work in Montreal,as well as the In-
stitute on Globalization and the Human Condition in Hamilton for their generous fund-
ing of the research. The author also gratefully acknowledges the support of William
Coleman, Richard Stubbs, and Charlotte Yates in the department of political science at
McMaster University.
MIGRATION SYSTEMS, MANAGED MIGRATION, AND TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKER
PROGRAMS
Like international trade patterns between exporting and importing countries,
the movement of people across national-state boundaries follows a similarly-
observable set of patterns. These human migration flows form the basis for
a transnational migration system. A migration system is comprised of the
sending (or home) countries where these migration flows originate, and the
| Austina J. Reed |
| 470 | International Journal | Spring 2008 |
receiving (or host) countries that are the end destination of these flows.1Mi-
gration flows are transnational because they challenge traditional concep-
tions of cultural identity and territorial community. Equally important,
however, are the bilateral linkages created between sending and receiving
countries that preserve national-state boundaries. These bilateral linkages
develop when governments choose to regulate how and when people move.
One type of bilateral linkage forms between two countries when they agree
to a formal labour agreement or temporary foreign worker program.Another
type of bilateral linkage occurs through the strategic use of immigration and
emigration policies to coordinate migration between countries.
In the category of migration systems, Canada represents a receiving (or
host) country of thousands of foreign workers each year.Among these work-
ers, some enter Canada with the full rights, benefits, and responsibilities of
a permanent resident. Others arrive having been issued only a temporary
work permit. In addition to fromal residence rights, permanent residence
status gives new immigrants unrestricted access to Canada’s labour market.
Temporary status has the opposite effect: Temporary employment authoriza-
tion limits the individual’s work to a specific employer and a single work con-
tract. When the contract ends, the work permit is no longer valid, and the
worker is required to either return home or reapply for a new work permit.
Under Canadian immigration rules, individuals holding work permits are
categorized as residents over the entire duration of their employment con-
tract in Canada.
Historically speaking, our thinking on immigration matters has focused
on the push-pull factors that influence the individual’s decision to leave his
or her home country and take up residence in another country.Many of these
push-pull factors are the result of poverty, political instability, and social dis-
content experienced by migrants in their home countries. For these kinds
of reasons, researchers point to the emergence of a new wave in migration
flows. This wave shares two important characteristics.2First, the character-
istics of this new wave show migration flows to originate in many of the
world’s poorer and developing countries and end in some of the wealthiest
and developed countries. Previous migration waves were at one time transat-
1 James T. Fawcett, “Networks, linkages, and migration systems,”
International Migra-
tion Review
23, no. 3 (autumn 1989): 674.
2 See, for example, Thomas Faist,
The Volume and Dynamics of International Migration
and Transnational Social Spaces
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).
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