Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada

Abstract

Using the results of ethnographic research and focus group interviews with Filipino temporary foreign workers in Alberta, Canada, the goal of this article is to bring temporary foreign workers into academic and policy discussions by critically assessing how they fare at different stages of the migration process. Such analysis shows the strengths of ideational, affective and structural factors in determining temporary foreign workers’ motivations and goals. Ultimately, this article shows that temporary foreign workers reconstruct belonging and remake citizenship by making membership claims in Canada on the basis of their economic and social contributions to the country. Such claims, however, are grounded in dual modes of belonging in both Canada and in the Philippines. Their participation in migrants’ rights organizations that endeavour to provide temporary foreign workers with pathways to permanent residency shows their belief in their ‘right to have rights’ (Isin, 2008).

Keywords

Activism belonging citizenship migrant workers migration

Introduction

Initially established as a ‘pilot project’ to temporarily meet labour market shortages in Canadian industries such as manufacturing and the trades, Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) has evolved into a programme that has become indispensable for employers. Since the Liberal Government created the TFWP in 2002, multiple attempts to prolong the programme occurred, from the Conservative Government’s decision in 2006 to extend the pilot project to encompass more labour sectors and its decision in 2007 to expedite the processing of TFWP applications to hasten the entry of temporary foreign workers into the country (Foster, 2012; Fudge and McPhail, 2009). As a result, there were yearly increases in the number of temporary foreign workers under the low-skilled pilot project entering the country. In 2002, there were 2268 temporary foreign workers in Canada, whereas in 2013, this number ballooned to 23,414 (Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), 2014: 3).

Pressures on Canada’s economy, particularly in the province of Alberta, drew negative attention to the TFWP, as did media investigations of workplaces where local workers were replaced by temporary foreign workers (Tomlinson, 2013). This increased attention to the TFWP led academics, journalists, labour unions and advocacy organizations to criticize the creation of a temporary foreign worker ‘pipeline’ that has led to depressed wages, temporary foreign worker abuse and underinvestment in job training for vulnerable groups such as underemployed youth (Canadian Labour Congress, 2013; McQuillian, 2013). In response, in 2011, the Canadian government passed the ‘4 Years In, 4 Years Out’ cumulative duration rule, which held that temporary foreign workers could only be in Canada for 4 years. If you have worked for 4 years in Canada as a temporary foreign worker, you will not be eligible to work in Canada again until another period of 4 years has passed. Although the cumulative duration rule was revoked in December 2016, it continues to impact workers who have lost status because they have been in Canada for longer than 4 years. They were not ‘grandfathered’ into the new policy. In 2014, the Canadian government passed further restrictions by mandating that employers could not hire temporary foreign workers if provincial unemployment rates were 6% or higher and by placing a cap on the percentage of temporary foreign workers that certain businesses could hire (ESDC, 2014). In doing so, the Canadian government believed that it was able to ensure that ‘Canadian workers come first’ (ESDC, 2014: 7).

The Canadian government’s policy changes resulted in massive changes to the TFWP and magnified further temporary foreign workers’ vulnerability. Migrant advocates argue that these policies create a backlash against temporary foreign workers who are scapegoated for purported job theft (cf. Hussan, 2014). In fact, the TFWP is ripe for abuse by employers. Because employers can sponsor temporary foreign workers for Canadian permanent residency through Provincial Nominee Programs (PNPs), effectively creating a ‘two-step’ immigration programme whereby migrants first enter the country as temporary foreign workers and then become permanent by becoming provincial nominees, employers can use the carrot of potential citizenship to keep temporary foreign workers compliant (Gates-Gasse, 2010).

In addition, while temporary foreign workers are theoretically entitled to the protection of their labour rights, in practice, these rights are difficult to enforce because the terms of the TFWP bind them to their employers through the provision of employer-specific work permits, which means that they can only work for the employer who sponsored them. The absence of robust employment-standards legislation protecting temporary foreign workers exacerbates their vulnerability. Temporary foreign workers facing abuse can only transfer employers if they find someone else willing to hire them and pay the appropriate sponsorship fees. If they are unable to find new employment after leaving their abusive employers, they will have to leave the country. Unsurprisingly, many temporary foreign workers opt to stay with abusive employers rather than risk losing their jobs and their immigration status. The new regulations put temporary foreign workers in competition with each other because of the severe limits in the number of workers that can be present in a given workplace, creating further disincentives for temporary foreign workers to be vocal about abuse. Although the Canadian government’s new policies aim to protect temporary foreign workers from abuse by creating a hotline that temporary foreign workers can call for support, by placing fines on employers found to be abusing their workers and by instituting random and unannounced inspections of workplaces hiring temporary foreign workers (ESDC, 2014), many temporary foreign workers see these measures as insufficient. Records from 2015, which show that the federal government has yet to make any on-site workplace inspections despite promising to do so, would seem to justify temporary foreign workers’ scepticism of these protections (Curry, 2016).

What is missing in policy and academic discussions on the TFWP are the perspectives of temporary foreign workers themselves. Much has been written about the TFWP and yet they have hardly been asked about how policy changes affect temporary foreign workers. That the Canadian government did not consult them when drafting changes to the TFWP when it consulted other stakeholders such as employers and representatives of industry group is especially egregious, given that temporary foreign workers are the ones who will arguably be the most affected by new restrictions. Understanding exactly why they decided to migrate to Canada, their ambitions and their experiences under the TFWP will bring them back into public discourse. As such, in this article, I analyse the results of my focus group interviews with Filipino temporary foreign workers in Alberta, Canada. I argue that temporary foreign workers’ claims to membership in receiving states are grounded in their unwillingness to return to the economic uncertainty facing them in the Philippines, the strengths of pervading imaginations that see life abroad as indicative of success, the complex negotiations they have made to carve spaces of belonging in Canada and, ultimately, their convictions that their economic and social contributions to Canada justify their claims to formal citizenship. While temporary foreign workers’ decision to leave their home countries affirm cosmopolitan and global egalitarian theorists’ espousal of programs that enable the free movement of people in order to reduce economic inequalities and while temporary foreign workers’ claims to membership affirm liberal theorists’ justifications for extending citizenship rights to temporary foreign workers on the grounds that they are members of national communities, what these theorists do not quite capture are the complex motivations underpinning temporary foreign workers’ desires, namely, ideational (i.e. colonialist ideologies), affective (i.e. emotional ties) and structural factors (i.e. global structural inequities).

I develop these arguments in three sections. The first section briefly discusses methods and methodology. The second section critically analyses the literature on membership and citizenship. The third section delves into temporary foreign workers’ experiences in the migration process, assessing their reasons for coming into Canada, their goals and their ambitions. It also discusses migrant activists’ many efforts to contest existing policies by asserting temporary foreign workers’ membership claims. Rather than accepting the status quo, these activist efforts show temporary foreign workers’ ability to show agency even amid debilitating conditions.

Methods and Methodology

The material for this analysis is derived from working with different Filipino migrant communities across Alberta and with the grass-roots Filipino migrants’ organization, Migrante Alberta, from March 2014 to January 2015. Migrante Alberta was established in Alberta in 2014. It has links with other Migrante chapters worldwide and with Migrante Philippines, which was first founded in 1992 in the wake of the controversy surrounding Filipino migrant worker Flor Contemplacion’s execution in Singapore, resulting in an awakening of Filipino migrant workers’ consciousness about their specific circumstances (Tungohan, 2016). As a member of Migrante Alberta, I participated in its campaigns to protect temporary foreign workers in the province, which I describe in greater detail below. In my capacity as an academic based at that point at the University of Alberta, I also led workshops for Migrante Alberta on topics that ranged from the policy changes discussed earlier to the history of migrant labour in Canada to migrant workers’ labour rights.

Because Alberta receives the largest number of temporary foreign workers in Canada – with 46% of all temporary foreign workers came to Alberta, amounting to 14,307 individuals in 2013 (ESDC, 2014: 11) – Migrante Alberta’s membership primarily consists of temporary foreign workers who, at the time of my field work, found their lives affected dramatically by the policy changes discussed earlier.

When working with different Filipino communities in Aberta and with Migrante Alberta, I used critical ethnography, which, like conventional ethnography, ‘relies on qualitative interpretation of data, core rules of ethnographic methods and analysis, adherence to a symbolic interactionist paradigm, and a preference for developing “grounded theory”’ (Thomas, 1993: 3). However, critical ethnography is unlike conventional ethnography in that it uses research to instigate ‘social consciousness and societal change’ (Thomas, 1993: 4). The need to use knowledge for political change is a tenet that has also come to define feminist methodology (Harding and Norberg, 2005). An adherence to using research for social good meant that I did not separate myself as an ‘objective’ researcher but that I worked with Migrante Alberta to support migrant workers.

My immersion in different Filipino migrant communities in Alberta through the use of critical ethnography enabled me to form close ties with Filipino migrants who came into Canada through the TFWP. I used convenience and snowball sampling when conducting my research, first by contacting temporary foreign workers who were part of my social networks to see whether they would be willing to participate in my project and then by asking them to give me referrals to other communities of migrant workers who would be willing to participate. I chose to only interview Filipino workers because of their dominance within the TFWP. After all, in 2014, the Philippines was the top-source country for temporary foreign workers in Canada in 2014 (Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), 2015), with many Filipinos recruited by labour brokers, employment agents, multinational companies and Canadian government representatives. My participation in Filipino community gatherings and Migrante Alberta allowed me to observe dynamics and norms, whereas my focus groups provided context. Rather than undertaking one-to-one interviews, I opted to do focus groups because of the rapport that participants could establish with each other, which I anticipated would help participants delve more deeply into the themes emerging from our conversation. I held focus groups in Edmonton, Calgary, Fort Saskatchewan and Red Deer, all of which are medium-sized and large cities. My focus groups had two to five participants, included roughly the same numbers of men and women and featured migrants who have been in Canada from 2 to 8 years. Everyone I interviewed worked in the food and hospitality industry as either fast-food counter attendants or as cleaners. I interviewed 25 Filipino migrants. Half of the people I interviewed (12 respondents) had spouses and children with them in Canada. Eight respondents were single and five left their spouses and/or children behind. My sample ranged in age from 25 to 40 years. To ensure that the confidentiality of all of the participants were maintained, in the beginning of each focus group, I emphasized the importance of ensuring that they do not speak about the content of our discussions outside the room. Furthermore, because of the vulnerable situations many of my respondents were in, I have omitted identifying information in all analyses emerging from this project.

Temporary Labour Migrants and Citizenship Theory

The conundrum posed by temporary labour migrants’ presence in receiving states is one that has been extensively discussed by citizenship and immigration theorists. There is a consensus among theorists on how the presence of temporary migrants within liberal-democratic states points to the paradoxes faced within liberal democracies (Abizadeh, 2008). On the one hand, liberal ethos promotes free trade, which entails not only the free movement of goods but also the free movement of people. On the other hand, democratic norms uphold states’ sovereign right to determine who enters (and stays) within their borders, which justifies immigration restrictions and nullifies free movement. Simply put, ‘while liberalism may require open borders, democracy requires a bounded polity whose members exercise self-determination, including control of their own boundaries’ (Abizadeh, 2008: 38). Further compounding this dilemma is the question of what, exactly, liberal states – with their commitment to individual human rights for everyone present in their territories – owe the temporary labour migrants who are present within their borders.

While all theorists agree that temporary labour migrants should not be exploited, the types of rights they should have are subject to debate. Those who take a ‘global egalitarian’/‘cosmopolitan’ perspective argue that temporary labour migration programmes are imperfect but are necessary to provide poor people from the Global South a foothold (albeit temporarily) in rich countries. They provide a way for these migrants to enter rich countries despite citizens’ opposition to increased immigration. Because public sentiment is skewed against the presence of more immigrants, who citizens see as diluting their welfare-state benefits and as competing against them for jobs, temporary labour migration programmes are a compromise: migrants are allowed entry, but only temporarily, and are forbidden from accessing the same welfare-state benefits (Chang, 2003: 774–777). Even though they face many restrictions and are treated differently compared to citizen-workers, they are still better-off now than they were when they were living in their home countries (Bell, 2008). Indeed, the higher wages they receive, coupled with the improved standards of living that their families enjoy because of the remittances they send, make questions concerning the rights they receive in receiving states inconsequential. After all, global egalitarian/cosmopolitan theorists hold that temporary labour migrants themselves consent to working in poorly paid, precarious, ‘low-skilled’ jobs because the alternative of staying in their home countries, where they face abysmal economic conditions, is worse. In other words, when making ‘hard choices in a non-ideal world’ (Bell, 2008: 99), temporary labour migrants would opt for the opportunity to economically uplift themselves and their families. For these theorists, asking what rights temporary labour migrants are entitled to in receiving states ignores stark global realities.

Liberal theorists repudiate these arguments. They argue that the values in liberal-democratic states necessitate the fair and equal treatment of all, even non-citizens such as temporary labour migrants:

If this society is committed to domestic standards of social equality and non-discrimination, then it cannot take the situation in the migrants’ countries of origin as reference point…. Their apparent consent cannot be a sufficient reason for tolerating exploitative and discriminatory treatment of temporary migrants. (Baubock, 2011: 666–667)

Extending liberal theory to apply to the situation of temporary labour migrants leads invariably to the realization that immigration restrictions are unjust. According to these arguments, people do not choose the circumstances into which they are born. It is only through good fortune that citizens in rich countries are able to enjoy more opportunities than citizens born in poor countries (Carens, 2013). It thus follows that people should not be stuck in the circumstances they were born into, which means that they should be allowed to leave their countries to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

Liberal theorists, however, disagree on exactly what rights temporary labour migrants should enjoy in receiving states. Some hold that ‘special rights’ recognizing temporary labour migrants’ distinct situations should be given, which will not only serve to protect them from abuse but will also give them access to specific programmes befitting their situations. Valeria Ottonelli and Tiziani Torressi (2012: 219) see these ‘special rights’ as including the right for temporary labour migrants to exit their situations at ‘any stage in their migration project’ and the right to have their ‘particular conditions and life plans’ recognized. While Ottonelli and Torressi (2012: 220) are ambiguous on which rights are part of the latter, they emphasize that these rights should be geared towards making temporary labour migrants similar in standing to ‘tourists, diplomats, or business people’. In other words, rather than being seen as ‘second-class citizens’, temporary labour migrants should instead be seen as inhabiting a special space within receiving societies that mandate special rights.

Yet others hold that temporary labour migration programmes can be just, provided that pathways to permanency are given to temporary labour migrants. Joseph Carens (2008) believes that the length of time spent by migrants in receiving states means that they are able to build important social ties, which means denying them the right to live there permanently is unjust because they are essentially members of their communities. Harald Bauder’s (2012) arguments in favour of jus domicile, which upholds the provision of citizenship rights on the basis of residence, reject the use of jus sanguinis (citizenship on the basis of blood) and jus soli (citizenship on the basis of ‘place of birth’), both of which Bauder (2012: 187–188) sees as unjustly conferring citizenship through an ‘accident of birth’. Echoing Shachar’s (2009) arguments against ‘birthright lotteries’, which she sees as causing vast global inequalities, Bauder (2012: 188) believes that jus domicile’s emphasis on presence within the country ensures that temporary migrants are treated justly because ‘all de facto members of the community are included, obtain citizenship, and need to receive equal treatment’.

Patti Lenard and Christine Straehl (2012: 218) agree with these stances but also recognize the need to acknowledge temporary migrants’ specific situations when assessing citizenship claims through jus domicle. They state that temporary migrants can ‘accumulate residence (even if it transpires in small periods, say, by a migrant who spends multiple summers in a receiving country) towards their right to apply for permanent status in a receiving country’, a system similar to attempts to institute ‘earned legalization’ for migrants in the United States, whereby all migrants can use the work they did to ‘count towards their bid to legalize their status’(Lenard and Straehl, 2012: 218). Lenard and Straehl’s theory therefore makes allowances for circular migrants such as seasonal agricultural workers in Canada, some of whom have been working in Canada on ‘short-term’ 6- to 8-month-long contracts for decades (see, e.g. Preibisch, 2010).

Carens’, Bauder’s, Shachar’s and Lenard and Straehl’s arguments point to their acute awareness of temporary labour migrants’ situations. They understand that even if temporary labour migrants made the hard decision to accept temporary employment contracts, many would prefer permanent immigration if this was available to them (Lenard and Straehl, 2012: 214).

Nevertheless, the temporary foreign workers in my study show that the division between the theorists noted above can be bridged when considering their particular situations. On the one hand, as global egalitarian/cosmopolitan theorists observe, they left the Philippines out of economic necessity. Although they were more ambivalent about their decision to leave the Philippines when asked during focus groups about the hardships they faced upon moving to Canada, they probably would not disagree with global egalitarian/cosmopolitan theorists’ contention that, on the whole, their economic situations upon leaving the country improved. On the other hand, as liberal theorists note, their everyday practices highlight that they embody principles of jus domicile in that they carve their own spaces of belonging in Canada and are effectively part of Canada because of their economic and social contributions to their communities. They work, they pay taxes, they go to church and they are part of different community gatherings. They are effectively Canadian, except that they do not have formal Canadian citizenship. Hence, existing theories do not easily reflect the negotiations they make to ‘belong’. More crucially, these theories do not attend to their complex realities and to the role played by imagination and by affective ties in determining the decisions migrant workers make (Briones, 2009), eliding consideration of the myriad ways in which migrant workers, much like the South Asian women in Dwyer’s study (2000), ‘articulate diasporic identities across fixed notions of belonging’ (p. 475). Migrant workers, as the next section shows, have dual realities that encompass not only their transnational existences in the Philippines and in Canada but also include everyday maneuvering and ruminations on the possibilities of what could be.

Temporary Labour Migrants in Canada

This section shows that temporary labour migrants seek the opportunity to stay permanently in Canada, not only because of the economic advantages they would enjoy but also because of the ties they form in receiving states. Nevertheless, what further complicates these claims is the role imaginations and affective ties play in temporary labour migrants’ desire to stay, as well as the economic disadvantages they face in sending states, two factors that are missing in existing citizenship theories.

All of the people who I interviewed cited economic needs as a major reason for why they left the Philippines. While everyone completed at minimum a bachelor’s degree, the absence of economic opportunities in the Philippines motivated their departure. Four of the 25 people I spoke to had work experience abroad. The four of them, however, believed that it was important to find a more permanent job abroad and so actively looked for opportunities that allowed them to permanently work in another country. The rest worked in the Philippines but were dissatisfied with their earnings.

Interestingly, 13 respondents claimed that they chose what to study in college on the basis of whether these degrees will enable them to find jobs in another country. One of them, who obtained a degree in business administration, said:

Growing up, we’d hear all of these success stories and we’d actually see how working abroad improved the lives of those at home. You’d see them buy expensive appliances, wear new clothes, buy new tricycles and cars and jeepneys. I wanted that too and I decided that if I did a degree in Business, it would be easier for me to go to another country and find work there.

Another respondent, who earned a nursing degree, said:

I’d hear from friends and neighbors who moved abroad that their lives just got better. It’s not even really just about the money but that your life gets better when you leave the Philippines. You leave the heat, the corruption…everything. I had an aunt who was a nurse who was able to find work in the States so I thought that I could do what she did and get a degree in nursing too. The funny thing is that I never really wanted to be a nurse. If I were given a choice, I probably would’ve studied literature. But what do you do with that degree? And can you go abroad? [emphasis added]

When prompted, the same respondent acknowledged that she was unable to find a job as a nurse in the Philippines. In fact, it was her job in managing a restaurant and not her educational credentials that allowed her to get hired by a restaurant in Canada.

Further examination reveals that for most of my respondents, the desire to earn more money to support themselves and their families drove them to leave the Philippines, yet the belief that life abroad was just better was a less tangible but equally significant factor. The response above indicates a desire for escape, a belief that ‘life gets better’ upon departure. And while all of my respondents have clear ties to the Philippines, which they see as their home or at least one of their homes, their reflections indicate that their ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1983), even before leaving the Philippines, includes an as-yet unidentified community abroad. Five respondents were adamant that the only reason they left the Philippines was because of economic factors, although one man maintained that the possibility of severing his ties to the Philippines for an indeterminate period of time almost compelled him not to leave; the rest alluded to the influences wrought by colonialist ideas–life in a rich country is preferable to life in the Philippines. Although none of these respondents have ever been to Canada, they already felt affective ties to the country because of their belief that their destiny was to live abroad.

Imagining Canada as home became possible for my respondents once it became clear that the TFWP was a way for them to realize their ambitions of moving abroad. Sixteen of my respondents were aware of Canadian migration programmes. Ten of these individuals either knew people or had relatives and friends who immigrated to Canada either through permanent immigration programmes or through programmes such as the Live-in Caregiver Program. Two respondents knew people who initially entered Canada through the TFWP but got permanent residency after applying through Canada’s PNPs. Tales of life in Canada from friends bolstered their imagination (cf. Polanco, 2016). Furthermore, the juxtaposition of their lives in the Philippines with their friends’ lives in Canada prompted a desire to go to Canada. As one man said:

I would see pictures of my friends in Canada and I noticed how, unlike in the Philippines, the streets look clean, there are pictures of them playing in the snow, and everything just looks calmer. And they all looked so happy living in their nice houses, enjoying new clothes, and being ‘Canadian’.

A female respondent said

I look at the economic situation here and see how hard it is for people to get jobs, to get promoted, to get a better life. When I think of how fast my cousin was able to get a job, buy a car, buy a house, then get promoted after moving to Canada, I realize that I want this’.

Recruitment efforts by labour brokers from employment and recruitment agencies further instilled in my respondents the idea that life in Canada presented untold opportunities. Thirteen of my respondents indicated that they paid money to labour brokers in order to come into the country through the TFWP, with two people indicating that they paid upwards of CAD$7000 for their placement. At that point, the fees they paid seemed worthwhile in order to be able to come into the country.

The Canadian government also encourages positive depictions of life in Canada. Seven of my respondents attended recruitment fairs in the Philippines, which were sponsored by either the Canadian Federal Government or by different Canadian provincial governments. These recruiting missions were designed to market Canada, selling the idea of a better life and instilling in potential migrants the hope of immigrating. Provinces with small populations that are experiencing strong economic growth such as Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan have been particularly proactive in encouraging immigration into their province (Leo and August, 2009; Paquet, 2014). Memorandums of Agreement between the Philippines and the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba entrench the exchange of labour information and facilitate the recruitment of Filipino workers into these provinces (CIC, 2008). A government minister from Saskatchewan justifies these trips by saying that ‘this mission to the Philippines is an example of the type of public-private partnerships that are key to increasing immigration, building our communities, and sustaining our economy’ (Government of Saskatchewan, 2008). Similarly, the province of Alberta’s Immigration Minister, Hector Godreau, argues that ‘the Philippines has been a significant contributor to the economic success of Alberta as a major source of workers to the province’ (CIC, 2008).

For my respondents, hearing government officials and employers talk about the possibility of moving to Canada permanently solidified their conviction that the Canadian dream was within reach. In these instances, Canadian officials have successfully ‘sold diversity’ by imparting the belief that if one is self-sufficient and a hard worker, one can succeed in Canada (cf. Abu-Laban and Gabriel, 2002). As one woman told me poignantly, ‘I came because I heard someone from the government of Canada actually say that Canada wants us to come, that they welcome us. They wouldn’t come to the Philippines if they didn’t really want to invite us, right?’

The sad reality for the majority of my respondents, of course, was that these invitations were only ever conditionally given depending on their ability to transition to another immigration programme that accepts permanent residency applications such as PNPs. In fact, much of our conversations during my focus groups and in subsequent encounters delved into issues of alienation and grief as well as the difficulties of settlement.

Many of my respondents expressed the difficulties of adjusting to new cultural norms, to new food and to being thrust into an employment situation where they did manual labour. One man who used to work in an office environment in the Philippines disclosed how he spent the first few months in Canada lamenting the loss of his previous status as an office worker:

In the Philippines, I was the boss. Here, it’s so hard. I have to get up early in the morning and listen to customers talk to me like I’m stupid because they think I don’t understand English. I have to listen to my manager, who I don’t think even finished high school, tell me to mop the bathroom floor because a teenager vomited. When I experience these things, I think to myself, ‘why did I move to Canada?’ A lot of people here think I am less than nothing. When they order coffee, some of them don’t even see me. But then I remind myself that unlike the people I meet, I have an education, I work hard, and I have the right values. It’s all for my children.

Abysmal labour conditions intensified feelings of isolation. The non-payment of wages, long working hours, their employers’ refusal to pay for overtime work and a racially segregated work environment whereby temporary foreign workers fared worse compared to Canadian workers are but a few examples of labour abuse shared by all of my respondents. None of them, however used legal mechanisms to challenge this abuse directly out of fear. However, a third became part of migrant advocacy organizations to draw attention to their plight, as will be discussed later. Many respondents additionally indicated that the abuse they faced extended beyond the workplace because their employers found ways to extract money from them by, for instance, making it mandatory for all staff members who are temporary foreign workers to live in apartment buildings they owned. One respondent stated:

Our boss told us that part of the condition of our employment is that we’d have to live in an apartment he owns. This would be fine but I know he’s overcharging us. Why is it that there are five of us in the apartment but there are only two bedrooms? And we each have to pay $600 per month? Where we live, this is too much. Our neighbors who live in the same two-bedroom apartment tell us that their monthly rent is $900.

Because their work permits and immigration visas were tied to their employers, my respondents were reluctant to talk to their employers. In fact, since some of their employers hinted that they would be able to nominate ‘a few’ temporary foreign workers for Canadian permanent residency through PNPs, there is little incentive to voice opposition to abuse. Holding up the carrot of potential Canadian citizenship was clearly meant to keep my respondents compliant, which they were aware of, but which they felt powerless to contest. As one woman said:

I know what my employer is doing. I know that by saying that he will nominate one temporary foreign worker for citizenship, he was able to get us to compete against each other and shut up about how he wasn’t paying us the right wages. I know exactly what he is doing but what can I do? I want citizenship.

It is not surprising that the people I interviewed experienced integration and settlement issues. Undergoing difficulties is par for the course for immigrants (Bauder, 2003). The difference, though, is that temporary foreign workers do not have security of status, thereby compounding their vulnerability. The ever-present realization that only a select few could get nominated for Canadian permanent residency through the PNP make it even more difficult to challenge their working conditions. The promise of permanent residency remains elusive for many, despite my respondents’ belief that the amount of time they have spent in Canada has effectively made them part of the country, even as they simultaneously feel ongoing ties to the Philippines. As one woman who has lived in Canada for 7 years explained:

It is tough living here but then you get used to it. You start making connections. You start seeing Canada as your home. You make friends, you find a good church, you send your kids to school here, you have another kid here. This is what happened to me. I made a life here. So even though I don’t have Canadian citizenship, I still feel Canadian. Or at least, I feel like I’m both Canadian and Filipino.

These sentiments were echoed by another respondent, a man in his late 30s who has lived in Canada for 4 years and who got married to another Filipino temporary foreign worker. When asked about his life in Edmonton, he said:

The work is hard. When I got here, I soon understood that Canada wasn’t the Promised Land. But you know it’s nothing we Filipinos aren’t used to. I moved here to work hard and support my family. I met my wife here, we had a child here, we pay taxes, we go to church, we have a community here full of people from back home who also moved here and also full of people – non-Filipinos – who we became friends with. My son, who is two years old, has never even been to the Philippines. I love the Philippines but after living here for so long, I’ve also become Canadian. I’m both, I guess.

Another woman, who has been in Canada for 2 years, said, ‘I still get homesick. Of course I do. But I’ve gotten so used to life here and I can imagine my future here. I feel Canadian even without the passport’ [emphasis added].

Other respondents affirmed that earning money and feeling more ‘in charge of my destiny’, as one person succinctly put it, were reasons for liking Canada despite the hardships that they faced. A few respondents even mentioned feeling ‘liberated from’ restrictive social and cultural norms, with one woman mentioning that she appreciated coming to Canada because she was able to escape an abusive marriage. Additionally, one man said that while he did not hide being gay in the Philippines, he felt more comfortable being gay in Canada (he did, of course, mention that this is in part explained by the fact that he lives in Edmonton; he wondered during our interview whether he would feel as comfortable if he were living in a rural town in Canada).

That all of the people I interviewed saw themselves as becoming ‘Canadianized’ while still feeling close ties to the Philippines is worthy of further scrutiny. Assessing the aforementioned narratives shows that all my respondents, including those who have only lived and worked in Canada for 2 years and those who said that leaving the Philippines was at first traumatic, believed that they had the right to stay in Canada permanently. All of their accounts showed that my respondents felt like they belong in Canada by virtue of the time they have spent in Canada, the ties they have formed and the economic and social contributions that they have made, thus illustrating the relevance of Bauder’s (2012) jus domicile in justifying their claims to Canadian membership. That is to say, although the people I interviewed lacked formal Canadian citizenship, they felt that their presence and contributions in Canada make them, to quote an earlier respondent, ‘Canadian without the passport’. In doing so, my respondents ‘allude to a broader conception of national community, one based on the indubitable fact that…[they] are full-fledged participants in social and economic life’ (Brubaker, 1989: 162).

Whether my respondents truly ‘feel’ Canadian or whether they are making these claims instrumentally because they want access to Canadian permanent residency is an issue that some have brought up when assessing these claims. In short, do my respondents truly belong in Canada or are they merely making these claims because they dislike the alternative of returning to the Philippines, facing economic hardship and not adhering to colonialist notions of success? Are they strategically deploying narratives of belonging without actually feeling like they do? I recognize the validity of these questions but nevertheless believe that queries delving into the ‘authenticity’ of these claims are beside the point. Although Filipino migrants’ claims of belonging in Canada may in part be instrumental because they ultimately want to stay, their involvement in Canada shows that they are substantive citizens.

Of course, claims to substantive citizenship are ultimately inconsequential. The importance of formal, legal citizenship has never been more apparent following policy changes to the TFWP, which limited temporary foreign workers’ ability to stay. Out of all of my focus group participants, only two were able to acquire Canadian permanent residency through the Alberta PNP. One said, ‘It was through the grace of God that we got through and received permanent residency. Many others with the same qualifications got rejected or are still waiting’. Fourteen had permanent residency applications through the Alberta PNP that were still pending, placing some in a legal grey zone where they needed to have their PNP applications processed before their work permits expired. The rest found their permanent residency applications rejected. They were weighing the risks between going back to the Philippines, going undocumented or appealing these decisions by applying to stay in Canada, either by procuring another temporary work contract or by getting permanent residency on ‘humanitarian and compassionate’ H&C grounds. The latter entails asking the Canadian government to consider their case on the basis of how much the applicant has ‘settled’ in Canada, whether living in Canada is in the ‘best of interests of [the applicant’s] children’, and what will happen to the applicant if they cannot live in Canada (CIC, 2017). Despite its reportedly low success rate, many permanent residency applicants, including all of the people in my sample, see this as one of their last shots to be able to stay in Canada though later conversations with these respondents show a willingness to consider less ideal scenarios such as going back to school as international students just so they could keep living in Canada.

Follow-up conversations show their increased fear. One woman’s lamentation that she ‘gave everything to Canada and am upset that I am being asked to leave’, is representative of how temporary foreign workers in the same situation are feeling. Another respondent, a man who has been in Canada for 5 years, points to perceptions of betrayal and being deluded: ‘I came here because I was told I could get Canadian citizenship. Everyone said this – my agent, my employer, my friends, even the Canadian government said this could happen. Everyone’s turning their backs [and] forgetting the promises they made’. Another woman, who has been in Canada for 5 years and who gave birth to her daughter in Canada, said:

This has been our home for the past eight years. I am so afraid of what will happen to my daughter. She has never been to the Philippines. To her, Canada is home. For us, too, of course, but especially for her. And because my contract expires in April, I hear that she will be asked to leave school since only children whose parents have ‘status’ can go to school. This is heartbreaking.

Although the Alberta government successfully negotiated with the Canadian Federal Government to give a select few temporary foreign workers whose PNP applications were still pending 1-year extensions, it is unclear what process was used to decide who received an extension (Stephenson, 2015). Furthermore, while the revocation of the cumulative duration rule meant that there are no time limits to the amount of time that temporary foreign workers could work in Canada, this policy change did not cover my respondents because their contracts has since lapsed. What is evident, then, is that, despite my respondents’ claims to citizenship on the basis of jus domicile, formal citizenship requirements render these claims irrelevant.

Consequently, temporary foreign workers who are seeking recognition for their claims choose to become part of a migrants’ rights movement in Canada that draw attention to the inequities of existing policies. Migrante Alberta, as well as other organizations that are part of the Temporary Foreign Worker Support Coalition, for example, regularly convenes workshops with temporary foreign workers informing them of their legal options. Migrante BC even supported temporary foreign workers’ successful class-action lawsuit against the restaurant chain Denny’s in Vancouver for charging them illegal recruitment fees and for exploitative treatment, resulting in a CAN$1.3 million settlement given to the workers (Griffin, 2013). The absence of employment-standards legislation protecting temporary foreign workers across Canada, however, means that temporary foreign workers’ ability to take their employers to court are limited, as observed by British Columbia Federation of Labour’s Jim Sinclair, who also assisted the temporary foreign workers in suing Denny’s (Griffin, 2013).

Because of the lack of legal recourses available to temporary foreign workers, migrant organizations focus much of their work on lobbying to change existing policies. Most notably, many migrant organizations are part of a larger national coalition – the Coalition for Migrant Workers Rights Canada – that lobbies government officials to provide pathways to permanent residency for all temporary migrants present in the country. CMRWRC justifies their demands by arguing that temporary foreign workers’ contributions to Canada justify their continued presence in the country and their claims to Canadian citizenship. Borrowing from the slogan used by migrant domestic workers in the late 1970s, who campaigned and received the right to apply to become Canadian citizens at the end of their work contracts (Tungohan, 2013), migrant activists insist that if they are good enough to work in Canada, they are good enough to stay here permanently. In doing so, they insist that temporary foreign workers, ‘regardless of status or substance have the right to have rights’ (Isin, 2008: 18), not least of which are the rights conferred by legal citizenship. In making these claims, migrant activists repudiate the belief that only the state has the ability to confer citizenship. Instead, they show that their activities, their contributions and their very presence mean that they are effectively citizens of receiving states and therefore deserve to be formally recognized as such.

Conclusion

Returning to the theories discussed earlier, it is likely that the temporary foreign workers that I interviewed for my study would agree with cosmopolitan theorists’ claims that the ‘hard choices’ they made involved leaving the Philippines to seek greener pastures abroad and with liberal theorists’ belief in jus domicile, which emphasizes that the length of time they have stayed in Canada and their presence enabled them to form important community ties that have made them members of the country. The two theories are not mutually exclusive. These theories, however, would do well to take into account migrants’ own perspectives by examining how migrants’ feelings of belonging in receiving states like Canada are complicated by pressing economic needs, the affective ties they have formed and colonialist ideologies. Of course, the fact that these factor into their desire to come and to stay in Canada does not undermine their claims that they deserve Canadian citizenship because of their economic and social contributions. If anything, these reveal the complex lives led by migrants, lives that cannot be easily reduced to simple explanations that evaluate their membership claims from a mindset divorced from ideational influences, affective ties and structural realities.

What, then, is the policy solution to temporary foreign workers’ situations? Heeding the calls of temporary foreign workers, the Canadian government in 2016 has promised to examine the TFWP, with Immigration Minister John McCallum indicating that ‘[Canada] wants people who become Canadians, not guest workers’ (Government of Canada, 2016). How exactly the Canadian government would implement this policy – in light of the reality that it would also have to answer to a competing demand to restrict its borders by tightening immigration policies – remains to be seen. What is nevertheless clear is that temporary foreign workers’ demands to stay permanently should be reflected in policy if the Canadian government wants human rights abuses against temporary foreign workers to be curbed and for there not to be any discrepancies in its stated adherence to permanent immigration programmes as opposed to its guest worker programmes.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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