Fragmented Citizenship: Canadian Immigration Policy and Low-Skilled Portuguese Workers in Toronto

Abstract

This article describes a case study of Portuguese manual trades workers in Toronto to provide an assessment of how Canada's skill-based immigrant selection policies treat workers with low human capital. While government rhetoric and much academic writing has presented skill-based immigration programs as a progressive move away from the racist and particularistic exclusions present in previous policies, the case study presented in this article provides a less optimistic reading of the situation. While workers with high human capital are granted pathways to permanent entry, those with low human capital are restricted to temporary and more precarious legal statuses. The result is a differential access to key social, economic, and civic rights depending on a migrant's skill category. An image of “fragmented citizenship,” therefore, appears more realistic than writings proclaiming an expansion of universal rights and the emergence of a postnational mode of belonging.