Legislated Inequality: Temporary Labour Migration in Canada ed. by Patti Tamara Lenard, Christine Straehle (review)

The first edited book to compare various temporary labour migration streams in Canada, Legislated Inequality offers a timely and comprehensive analysis of current trends in Canadian immigration policy from a multidisciplinary perspective. Two recent scandals have made the issues raised in this book particularly relevant. The first erupted in response to the Royal Bank of Canada’s April 2013 decision to replace 45 Canadian employees with foreign workers. The second involved a British Columbia mining company that hired 201 Chinese workers for a Murray River underground coal mine project and refused to hire Canadian workers, stating that it was a requirement for the workers to speak Chinese. Although BC unions lost their May 2013 attempt to overturn these contracts, the court’s decision generated public debate about the temporary foreign workers program. The backlash prompted by both scandals has made it abundantly clear that the Canadian public has become progressively more concerned about temporary migration programs. Indeed, there are reasons to be alarmed. While the public is mainly worried that Canadian workers are being displaced by temporary migrants, the conditions under which migrant workers work and live in Canada are also a major concern.

Legislated Inequality argues that, by treating lower-skilled migrants as commodities and denying them the opportunity to access citizenship in Canada, Canadian immigration authorities are institutionalizing practices that deny workers their labour and social rights. The book questions whether Canada lives up to its liberal-democratic commitments; namely, that all individuals are of equal moral worth, and that all individuals—migrants or not—have a right to participate equally in political structures and processes that shape their lives (p. 22). The book discusses all four of Canada’s temporary migration streams: the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), the Live-in-Caregiver Program (LCP), the Low-Skill Pilot Project (LSPP), and the Provincial/Territorial Nominee Programs (PTNP).

As the authors illustrate, some problems are shared by all programs. For instance, all programs are employer-driven and, as such, their main goal is to provide cheaper and more efficient workers. Thus constructed, these programs undermine Canadian state policies established to select potential citizens willing to make various contributions to Canada’s social, political, and economic life. Isolation, fear of repatriation, and the short duration of their stay make it difficult for workers employed through temporary worker programs (with the exception of PTNP) to demand their rights, as discussed in Chapter 11 (by Hanley, Shragge, Rivard, and Koo) and in Chapter 6 (by Hughes).

At the same time, the authors also point out how some programs compare more favourably to other programs in terms of migrants’ rights. For instance, LCP and PTNP migrants who meet the necessary requirements can become permanent residents in Canada, an opportunity that does not exist for migrants working in Canada under the SAWP and LSPP programs. The treatment of migrants under PTNP varies, however, from province to province; as Nakache and D’Aoust (Chapter 7) and Carter (Chapter 8) agree, only Manitoba makes it possible for low-skilled workers to become permanent residents. By comparison to temporary worker programs, PTNP (as with the skilled foreign workers program) allows selected workers to bring their families to Canada. For agricultural workers, SAWP’s program design appears superior to the LSPP because the sending state agencies are responsible for SAWP workers’ recruitment, and the Canadian government is involved in overseeing the program (at least potentially, although in practice the partial privatization of the program undermines this commitment; see Chapter 2 by Preibisch and Hennebry). Nevertheless, both LCP and SAWP have a live-in component that restricts migrants’ mobility and enhances employers’ disciplinary power over them (see in particular discussions in Chapter 3 by Tomic and Trumper and Chapter 9 by Bakan and Stasiulis).

As various authors point out, in comparison to countries in the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and South East Asia, Canada provides more protections, is less...