|
The detentions are the result of coordinated raids conducted last month across southwestern Ontario to arrest and detain undocumented workers. In Leamington, in Windsor, even Danforth, dozens of undocumented people were rounded up.
Interestingly, however, no charges have been laid against the employers.
It is a moment reminiscent of Bush era’s worst anti-racialized worker policies, where chasing, arresting, detaining and eventually deporting undocumented workers had turned into a national past time.
But even in US, the anti-immigrant, anti-racialized worker rhetoric has quieted. The events this week, however, show that Canada seems to be arriving at the party a little late!
In this age of globalization, we are quick to celebrate the movement of ideas, money and trade that produce multicultural and hybrid new realities. Yet, we are almost contradictory, in increasingly asserting the right to stop people precisely for crossing borders in pursuit of the very work that calls for being filled.
To treat people who are seeking work as criminals, and not prosecute the employers and recruiters who lure them for profit into precarious employment, is indeed a far cry from the days of nation building.
But it is entirely consistent with our federal government’s general approach to immigration and racial equity in the recent past.
Recent amendments to the Immigration Act (Bill C50), slipped through the 2008 budget, are now having far reaching effect.
Firstly, these amendments turned a relatively neutral system of immigrant determination into a discretionary one where the Minister of the day is given unprecedented discretionary powers, without parliamentary oversight, to issue “instructions” about who should be selected or rejected.
This makes the system arbitrary and subject to vagaries of political whim. It also allows the Minister to identify the so-called 38 occupations to be given precedence.
However, this mechanism to fast track people into landed status only applies to certain types of international students and temporary foreign workers. Given the notorious gap between labour market needs and government response, this seems like a dubious stratagem to meet our economic needs.
It is clear from recent amendments to the Immigration Act that Canada’s approach will be to focus on economic immigrants, such as made evident by the introduction of the Canadian Experience Class (CEC).
However, according to the government’s own estimates, CEC would fast track 12,000 to 18,000 people in the first year and 25,000 in the second year. Given that Canada is letting in more than 165,000 temporary workers per year, it is clear that our immigration ethos has changed from seeking citizens and nation builders to becoming a temp agency for short-term workers.
In fact, according to these changes introduced recently, the number of temporary foreign workers being introduced into our society is almost on par with the national targets for immigrants. As Professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi says: “enacting Bill C-50…has made it possible to transform an immigration system focused on citizenship development into one whose priority is commodified labour through the expansion of the Temporary Worker Program …”
What is even more telling is that the amendments have also brought a particularly non-humanitarian tone to the immigration process.
For example, the bill changes the language from “visa shall be issued” to “visa may be issued” with regards to those who in the past qualified for permanent residency but were denied or their claim was being delayed. This apparent minor change replaces a legal right to appeal with one that lacks legal basis. Amendments also eliminate the right to an overseas application for humanitarian and compassionate consideration (e.g. separated families like overseas parents of children who are refugees in Canada). Now such applications can be returned unexamined or shredded.
In fact, it is ironic that as Europe tries to move away from foreign worker programmes to developing a more equitable and sustainable immigration policies, we are moving the other way from immigrants as citizens to a cruder policy of seeing immigrants as ‘capital on two legs’.
Immigration is the cornerstone of our national lore – a land built by immigrants.
To turn that national narrative, no matter how flawed, from seeking nation builders to recruiting insecure, unprotected and exploitable temp workers is a sign of our collective descent into intolerance and systematic suspension of humanitarian principles.
Albeit under the radar, we can see the unraveling of our social contract in terms of spirit and form.
As conscious citizens of a society worth fighting for, we must raise our voices and stop our country from sliding into a place we may not have reason to value.
Remember the chilling warning recently issued by James Tavares in the Toronto Star:
“…10 years of close observation and some 1,500 Star columns lead to an unsettling conclusion: Africa, despite popular perception…is moving in one direction, Canada in another… as Africans – from turnaround Ghana to impoverished Malawi – struggle to strengthen their democracies, Canadians are letting theirs slip”. (IN4, April 4, 2009)
Uzma Shakir is an Atkinson Economic Justice Fellow | 
