Development as Remittances or Development as Freedom? Exploring Canada's Temporary Migration Programs from a Rights-based Approach

• Author: Kerry Preibisch
• Pages: 81-108

81

CHAPTER FOUR

Development as Remittances or

Development as Freedom?

Exploring Canada’s Temporary

Migration Programs from a

Rights-based Approach

A. Introduction

Every year, some 40,000 men and women from more than seventy

countries across the world enter Canada on temporary employment

authorizations to work in the country’s agri-food industries. This

particular type of labour mobility is part of a growing global trend

towards temporary and seasonal migration within immigration and

citizenship policies. The re-emergence and rise of guest worker pro-

grams worldwide since the 1990s is supported by a policy discourse

that portrays government-controlled temporary labour migration as

delivering a “triple win” scenario: migrant-receiving countries can

respond f‌lexibly to labour demand using a regularized workforce

while limiting permanent immigration; migrants can travel safely

across borders to access higher wages and contribute to the well-

being of their households; and sending countries benef‌it from the

remittances their citizens send home and the skills they acquire

abroad.1 In particular, a consensus has emerged within policy circles

1 Xinying Chi, “Challenging Managed Temporary Labor Mig ration as a Model for

Rights and Development for Labor-Sending Countries” (2008) 40 NYUJ Int’l L &

Pol’y 49 [Chi]; Nicola Piper, “All Quiet on the Eastern Front?—Temporary Contract

Migration in Asia Revisited From a Development Perspective” (2010) 29 Policy and

Society 399; Martin Ruhs & Philip Martin, “Number s vs. Rights: Trade-Offs and

Guest Worker Programs” (2008) 42 International Migration Review 249 [Ruhs &

Martin, “Numbers vs. Rights”].

Kerry Preibisch

Kerry Preibisch82

that temporary migration programs contribute to economic develop-

ment in sending countries.2 Contributing to this discourse at the

global level is the framing of Canada’s guest worker arrangements

as offering models or “tools” for fostering development and as part

of Canada’s foreign aid efforts, alongside continued references to the

wage differentials between Canada and migrant-sending countries.3

While Canada’s temporary migration programs (TMPs) certainly pro-

vide workers in low-income countries access to the labour market

of a high-income country and the potential to develop new skills, a

growing body of scholarly literature suggests that the opportunities

provided through labour migration to Canadian agriculture come at

signif‌icant cost to migrants’ freedom, security, and human dignity.4

The academic literature, along with scores of policy-oriented docu-

ments, media reports, and other resources, has brought to light the

2 Chi, ibid.

3 Sedef Arat-Koc, “In the Privacy of Our Own Home: Foreign D omestic Workers as

Solution to the Crisis in the Domestic Sphere in Canada” (1989) 28 Studies in Pol-

itical Economy 33; Foreign Agriculture Resource Management Services, Questions

and Answers (Mississauga: 2010) online: www.farmsontario.ca/pages.php?_ID=7;

Ontario (AG) v Fraser, 2011 SCC 20 (Reply Factum of the Appellant—Charter s 15(1)).

4 Tanya Basok, Tortillas and Tomatoes: Transmigrant Mexican Harvesters in C anada

(Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) [Basok, Tortillas and Tomatoes];

Leigh Binford, “Contract Labor in Canada and the United States: A Critical Appre-

ciation of Tanya Basok’s Tortillas and Tomatoes: Transmigrant Mexican Harvesters

in Canada” (2004) 29 Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

289 [Binford, “Contract Labour”]; Kerr y Preibisch & Evelyn Encalada Grez, “The

Other Side of ‘El Otro Lado’: Mexican Migrant Women and Labor Flexibility in

Canadian Agriculture” (2010) 35 Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society

289 [Preibisch & Encalada Grez, “The Other Side”]; Kerry Preibisch, “Migrant Agr i-

cultural Workers and Processes of Social Inclusion in Rural Canada: Encuentros

and Desencuentros” (2004) 29 Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean

Studies 203 [Preibisch, “Migrant Agricultural Workers”]; Tanya Basok, “Mexican

Seasonal Migration to Canada and Development: A Community-based Compariso n”

(2003) 41 International Migration 3 [Basok, “Mexican Seasonal Migration”]; Jenna

Hennebry & Kerry Preibisch, “Deconstr ucting Managed Migration’s Model: A

Critical Look at Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program” (Paper delivered

at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociological Association (CSA), Vancou-

ver, 2008); Janet McLaughlin, “Classifying the Ideal Migrant Worker: Mexican and

Jamaican Transnational Farmworkers in Canada” (2010) Focaal 79 [McLaughlin,

“Classifying”]; Jenna Hennebr y, “Not Just a Few Bad Apples: Vulnerability, Health

and Temporary Migration in Canada” (Spring 2010) Canadian Issues / Thèmes cana-

diens 73 [Hennebry, “Bad Apples”].