Flagpoling: Inter‐provincial Mobility of International Migrants within Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Abstract

AbstractThe temporary foreign worker programme (TFWP) is widely used in many sectors in Canada. Research on the TFWP in Canada has documented multiple types of abuse within the programme, often related to worker lack of access to citizenship and social benefits. Less is known about how mobile and often precarious migrant workers are able to navigate negative, challenging situations identified within the Canadian literature. Flagpoling, a process used by international migrants in Canada to gain mobility in situations where their movement may be constrained, is not talked about in the mobilities and labour agency literature. Drawing from a case study of migrant workers in Atlantic Canada's seafood processing plants, this paper pulls together the mobilities, labour agency and precarity literature to explore how migrant workers are able to extradite themselves from workplaces that are less than ideal and better position themselves towards gaining citizenship status.