Tolerated, threatening and celebrated: How Canadian news media frames temporary migrant workers
| Published date | 01 August 2023 |
| Author | Ethel Tungohan,Jon Careless |
| Date | 01 August 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.13086 |
Department of Politics, York University,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Correspondence
Ethel Tungohan, Department of Politics, York
University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Email: tungohan@yorku.ca
Funding information
Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, Grant/Award Number:
Insight Development Grant
Abstract
Immigration scholars have long observed that migrant work-
ers are paradoxically both welcomed and deemed threaten-
ing within the nation state. In this paper, we investigate the
extent to which mainstream media outlets reinforce these
perceptions. Using critical discourse analysis, we analysed
561 articles in three mainstream newspapers to ascertain
the various discourses used to describe migrant workers and
migrant work. Our analysis specifically found that a cluster
of ‘hiring scandals’ led to an increase in coverage on migrant
work, and affected the types of discourses used in reference
to migrant workers. Prior to these scandals, migrant work
generated minimal media coverage. Ultimately, we find that
migrant workers are deemed tolerable to the nation-state at
certain time periods, deemed as threats in other time peri-
ods, and, in the current moment of the global health crisis,
are deemed absolutely essential. Migrant workers are thus
only 'conditionally included' in the state.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Tolerated, threatening and celebrated: How
Canadian news media frames temporary migrant
workers
Ethel Tungohan | Jon Careless
DOI: 10.1111/imig.13086
Received: 20 August 2021 Revised: 27 September 2022 Accepted: 1 November 2022
INTRODUCTION
Nation-states have an ambivalent relationship towards migrant workers. Although multiple migration streams exist
for migrant workers to fill labour shortages in industrial countries, there is still the pervasive belief within these coun-
tries that migrant workers are ‘permitted outsiders’ who should have limited access to citizenship rights (Hackl, 2022).
Even countries with established narratives of being multicultural, immigrant-receiving states treat migrant work-
ers with ambivalence, running counter to established tropes. In Canada, the national narrative that Canada is a safe
haven welcoming people from different parts of the world is enduring. Yet those who are marked as ‘other’—whether
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© 2022 International Organization for Migration.
Int Migr. 2023;61:120–138.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/imig
CANADIAN NEWS MEDIA AND FOREIGN WORKERS121
they are part of Indigenous communities, racial and religious minorities and non-citizen workers—find themselves
constantly at risk of being treated differently (Abu-Laban et al., 2022; Dhamoon & Abu-Laban, 2009; Thobani, 2007).
Various policies regulate these communities, leading to their ongoing stigmatization. In Canada, different groups of
migrant workers have differential access to rights and entitlements, depending on perceptions of their economic and
social value.
The extent to which discourses affect perceptions of who belongs and who does not, who are threats and who
are not, and whether and what events drive these perceptions of belonging is the larger question animating this
paper. By focusing on the experiences of non-citizen workers—that is to say, migrant workers—our paper analyses
media depictions of migrant work and of migrant workers to illuminate how communities that are marked as different
are only ever conditionally included into the country. Understanding variations in media discourses is crucial in that
such discourses are a ‘mirror on society’ (Bleich et al., 2015: 861). They can explain changing attitudes and policies
towards migrant workers (Triandafyllidou, 2017).
We assess different media discourses on migrant work and migrant workers in Canada from 1 January 2010 until 31
December 2020 in three of Canada's most prominent periodicals: The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and the National
Post. The articles we examined featured migrant workers recruited into three schemes: the low-skilled temporary foreign
workers in the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP), the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and
the Live-In Caregivers Program (LCP). Our examination of media discourses on migrant work and migrant workers affirms
what critical immigration scholars have long observed: migrant workers are paradoxically sought after yet also excluded
within the nation-state (Coloma, 2013). Nevertheless, our study also finds that these opposing convictions operate within
a larger framework of conditional inclusion that invariably affects the way migrant workers are constructed. Our analysis
reveals that key events affect the way migrant workers are constructed, with discourses depicting migrant workers as
threats and as figures to be tolerated and celebrated occurring throughout 2010–2020. While research has made clear
that migrant workers are paradoxically both included and excluded in the nation-state, as seen in media depictions
(Hari, 2018; Inouye, 2012), our analysis makes clear that Canadian media tends to classify migrant workers under these
three different frames, frames that are in turn affected by key events and by policies that are subsequently passed.
In our analysis below, we first discuss how conditional inclusion is embedded in Canadian policies towards
migrant workers and how media discourses, in turn, reinforce narratives of migrant workers' conditional inclusion. In
sections three and four of the paper, we present our findings and provide a discussion of the different frames and
key events that we found that marked media depictions of migrant work and migrant workers. Ultimately, our paper
shows that media discourses and policy developments are intertwined, with both creating narratives that only ever
see migrant workers instrumentally. We conclude by reflecting on why it is important for various stakeholders—from
journalists to migrant workers themselves—to understand how migrant workers are depicted in the media.
MIGRANT WORKERS AND CONDITIONAL INCLUSION
Researchers agree that migrants face myriad pressures to show that they belong in host countries. Policies regu-
lating migrant behaviour range from restrictions to migrants' religious and cultural practices to regulations against
overt political activism to requirements that they pass tests proving that they abide by nation-states' values. These
co-exist with expectations that migrants remain economically productive and self-sufficient, that is to say, that they
do not become ‘burdens’ to countries' welfare-state systems (De Waal, 2020; Hackl, 2022, 990). Migrant worker
programmes globally, in fact, place multiple conditions on migrant workers' ability to work in host countries, with the
threat of deportation an intrinsic component of these programmes (Vosko, 2019).
To make sense of the restrictions migrant workers face, the notion of ‘conditional inclusion’ (De Waal, 2020;
Inouye, 2012) is useful. It reveals the extent to which migrants' acceptance and inclusion into the country depends on
factors outside of their control. Factors such as the political ideologies of the government in power (Carlaw, 2022),
key events such as economic crises, and a ‘myriad of [other] inclusionary and exclusionary practices and discourses’
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