UNI320Y:%20Canadian%20Questions:%20Issues%20and%20Debates

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UNI320Y Canadian Questions Issues and Debates

• Week 3 Non-Citizens and Flexible Citizens
• Professor Emily Gilbert
• http//individual.utoronto.ca/emilygilbert/

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Non-Citizens and Flexible Citizens

• Context
• Non-Citizens Domestic Workers
• Flexible Citizens Business Migrants

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I Context

• Rise in global migration
• 2002 175 million migrants
• Europe 56 million
• Asia 50 million
• Northern America 41 million
• 16 million refugees worldwide
• Reasons for global migration include
• Conflict, ethnic cleansing and statelessness
• Global capitalism, underdevelopment, and the
  export of labour
• Family reunification
• Education

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II Non-Citizens Domestic Workers

• Domestic workers
• Turn of the century British live-in domestics (6
  month term) granted landed immigrant status
• WWII East European refugees and DP 1-year
  indentured contract, but landed immigrant status
• 1950s domestics from Caribbean, given right to
  landed status but
• Subject to medical tests
• Could be returned if unsuitable (Jamaica,
  Barbados)

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• 1973 Temporary Employment Authorization Program
  short-term work permits
• 1981 Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM)
• visitor status but eligible for landed
  immigrant status after 2 years of continuous
  live-in service with designated employer
• self-sufficiency requirements

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• 1992 Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) and new
  requirements
• Equivalent to Canadian grade 12
• 6 months of full time formal training, or
  experience in related occupationlater changed to
  12 months practical experience
• Compulsory live-in requirement

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• Concerns that live-in workers are exploited
• Precarious status and threat of deportation
• Overtime
• Privacy
• Sexual, physical and emotion abuse
• No legal employer/employee contract arbitration
• No legal protection over wages, EI, Canada
  Pension Plan
• Families that have been left behind
• Role of gatekeepers policing role, racism

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• Citizenship
• As dynamic rather than static process
• Hierarchical race, gender and class biases
• Reflects unequal relations between First and
  Third world countries
• Reflects method of entry (legal, illegal)
• Monitored by gatekeepers

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III Flexible Citizens Business Migrants

• Aihwa Ong on flexible citizenship
• refers to the cultural logics of capitalist
  accumulation, travel, and displacement that
  induce subjects to respond fluidly and
  opportunistically to changing political-economic
  conditions. In their quest to accumulate capital
  and social prestige in the global arena, subjects
  emphasize, and are regulated by, practices
  favouring flexibility, mobility, and
  repositioning in relation to markets,
  governments, and cultural regimes. These logics
  and practices are produced within particular
  structures of meaning about family, gender,
  nationality, class mobility, and social power
  (Ong, Flexible Citizenship, 19996)

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• Business Immigration Program
• 1978 Entrepreneur category business experience
  and net worth of 300,000, with 1/3 ownership of
  business and creation of one job
• 1986 Investor category business experience,
  net worth of 800,000, and investment of
  400,000
• Increase in number of business migrants in 1990s,
  especially from Asia (and Hong Kong)

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• Can apply to be Canadian citizens 3 years after
  permanent residency is granted (half time can be
  spent overseas)
• Importance of cultural capital (Bourdieu) to
  migrants
• Importance of family (familial loyalty)
• Education opportunities
• Language skills
• Security of Canadian passport

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• Experiences of astronaut families and satellite
  kids
• Participation in schools, community
• Appreciation of Canadian way of life
• Flexible citizens and multi-national allegiances
• Impact on sovereignty?
• Impact on citizenship?