Canada's Experience with Managed Migration

Abstract

MIGRATION SYSTEMS, MANAGED MIGRATION, AND TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKER PROGRAMSLike international trade patterns between exporting and importing countries, the movement of people across national-state boundaries follows a similarlyobservable 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 receiving (or host) countries that are the end destination of these flows.1 Migration flows are transnational because they challenge traditional conceptions 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 workers, 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 authorization limits the individual's work to a specific employer and a single work contract. When the contract ends, the work permit is no longer valid, and the worker is required to either return home or reapply for a new work permit.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 contract 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 discontent 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.2 First, the characteristics 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 transatlantic in nature (i.e., between western Europe and North America), and at other times intraregional in nature (e.g., within western Europe). Today's flows are notable for the south-to-north direction that they take. They are also notable because the people who make up these migration flows tend to move to particular places for specific reasons.3Second, the characteristics of this new wave show that crossborder movement is occurring for economic or employment purposes. This type of crossborder movement reveals itself to be increasingly driven by labour market conditions. Workers move for reasons having to do with employment opportunities and/or financial need for a steady source of income, and employers hire them due to labour shortages and costs. Both high- and lowskilled workers are on the move, but the immigration status granted to them reflects an important divide. Citizenship and labour rights are experienced unequally by different groups of workers. Crossborder labour migration is notable because it is highly stratified based on gender, race, and skill level.As a policy prescription, the concept of managed migration turns our attention to the push-pull factors which influence the decisions of governments to support the creation of a migration system between the host and home countries of the foreign worker. …