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Branding ‘Canadian experience’ in immigration policy: Nation-building in a
neoliberal era Rupaleem Bhuyan, Daphne Jeyapal, Jane Ku, Izumi Sakamoto &
Elena Chou
Version Post-Print/ Accepted Manuscript
Citation (published version)
Bhuyan, R., Jeyapal, D., Ku, J., Sakamoto, I., & Chou, E. (2017). Branding “Canadian Experience” in immigration policy: Nation building in a neoliberal era. Journal of International Migration and Integration 18(1): 47-62. doi: 10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4.
Publisher’s Statement The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4
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Branding ‘Canadian Experience’ in Immigration Policy:
Nation-Building in a Neoliberal Era
Authors: Rupaleem Bhuyan, Daphne Jeyapal, Jane Ku, Izumi Sakamoto and Elena Chou
*This is the accepted manuscript version of an article that has been published by the Journal ofInternational Migration and Integration. Advanced Online Publication. DOI: 10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4?wt_mc=internal.event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst
Rupaleem Bhuyan
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Daphne Jeyapal
School of Social Work and Human Services, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada
Jane Ku
Women’s Studies/Sociology & Anthropology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada
Izumi Sakamoto
Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Elena Chou
Department of Sociology, York University, Toronto, Canada
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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Abstract
This paper examines the branding of ‘Canadian experience’ in Canadian immigration
policy as a rhetorical strategy for neoliberal nation-building. Since 2008, the Canadian
government has introduced an unprecedented number of changes to immigration policy. While
the bulk of these policies produce more temporary and precarious forms of migration, the
Canadian government has mobilized the rhetoric of ‘Canadian experience’ as a means to identify
immigrants who carry the promise of economic and social integration. Through a critical
discourse analysis of Canadian print media and political discourse, we trace how the brand of
‘Canadian experience’ taps into the affective value of national identity in an era of global
economic insecurity. We also illustrate how the discourse of CE remains ideologically
deraciailzed, such that the government’s embrace of CE as an immigrant selection criterion
dismisses the discriminatory effects this discourse has shown to have for racialized immigrants
in Canada.
Key words:
Discourse analysis, immigration policy, media rhetoric, racism, skilled immigrants, integration
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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Branding ‘Canadian Experience’ in Immigration Policy:
Nation-Building in a Neoliberal Era
Introduction
In 2008, Canada introduced the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) as a new immigration
stream for skilled temporary foreign workers and/or international students who have a record of
employment in Canada. In August 2012, emphasis on ‘Canadian experience’ was further
institutionalized in a major overhaul of the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), Canada’s
main economic immigration class. The revised FSWP, commonly known as ‘the points system’,
reduced the value of international education and work experience but added ‘Canadian
experience’ as a key criterion for immigrant selection. Québec, the sole province with
administrative control over immigrant selection, launched a comparable program to CEC in
2009, called ‘Programme de l’expérience québécoise’, or the ‘Quebec Experience Class’. The
Quebec Experience Class similarly selects international students or temporary foreign workers
who have either studied or worked in Quebec. Due to the unique context of immigration into
Quebec, this paper will focus on the broader concept of ‘Canadian experience’ (herein referred to
as CE).
Both the CEC and revised FSWP are promoted as a remedy to the documented decline in
labor market outcomes of recent skilled immigrants (Reitz 2012). Although Canada’s human
capital approach to immigrant selection is known for its relative success, in recent decades,
immigrants have earned lower incomes and have higher rates of unemployment, despite higher
levels of education than Canadian born workers (Ferrer, Picot, and Ridell 2014, Reitz, Curtis,
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
4
and Elrick 2014). Many aspects of the CEC were modeled on recommendations from a report by
Lesleyanne Hawthorne (2008) who compared labour market outcomes for migrant professionals
in Canada and Australia. Hawthorne was commissioned by the Government of Canada and
reported that while both Australia and Canada have a high percentage of foreign-born and focus
on recruiting immigrants with ‘skills’, immigrants in Canada have higher levels of
unemployment due to a misfit between immigrants’ skills and the job market. Hawthorne
concluded that Australia’s two-step migration process, where temporary migrants apply for
permanent residence after accruing a host-country degree or work experience, produces better
labour market outcomes.
By emphasizing work experience in Canada, Sweetman and Warman (2010) note that the
concept of ‘skilled worker’ in the CEC differs in important ways from how ‘skilled workers’
were previously defined in immigration policy. Under the previous FSWP, ‘skilled worker’ was
a ‘prospective’ designation for applicants who demonstrated high levels of education, language
ability, and professional work experience outside of Canada at the time of their application. The
‘skilled worker’ in the CEC and revised FSWP is a ‘retrospective’ demonstration of an
individual’s employment history in Canada and language proficiency in one of Canada’s official
languages (Sweetman and Warman 2010).
Within Canada, the concept of ‘Canadian experience’ plays a controversial role as an
employment barrier for skilled immigrants. As early as the 1970s, media reported cases where
immigrants were denied jobs because they lack ‘Canadian experience’. Research on the
discriminatory effects of CE on immigrants led the Ontario Human Rights Commission to
formerly recognize the use of CE by employers as a form of discrimination in 2012.
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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In this paper, we examine the concept of CE as it appears in public policy and media
representations of skilled immigrants. As a background for our analysis, we review literature on
Canadian nation building and the discourse of ‘Canadian experience’ prior to its appearance in
immigration policy. We then present a conceptual framework to examine the branding of CE as a
rhetorical tool for nation building. Using semiotic theories of language and discourse, we
examine broadcasted political discourse and mainstream print media as two sets of public
articulation where social actors use and manipulate discourse to harness power. Our analysis
traces the ways in which CE emotes a compelling national identity in an era of global economic
insecurity; one that usurps the discriminatory and assimilationist effects this discourse has for
racialized immigrants in Canada.
The Context of Canadian Immigration and Nation Building
As a prototypical ‘nation of immigrants’, Canada has historically relied on immigrants to
fuel economic and population growth, while adjusting immigration controls to preserve the
‘whiteness’ of the nation. From the outset, Canada established its sovereignty by constructing the
‘white’ settler (i.e. immigrants from Great Britain, the United States, France and some northern
European nations), over ‘non-preferred’ (e.g. immigrants from Italy, Poland, Greece), or
historically excluded groups (e.g. First Nation, Inuit, Métis and indigenous groups; Japanese,
Chinese and Indian immigrants; and African slaves who were barred from citizenship)
(Jakubowski 1997, 11-12). Canada’s ‘white policy’ is exemplified in a post-World War II speech
by Prime Minister Mackenzie King who defended Canada’s sovereign right to select British and
northern European immigrants as ‘preferred’ citizens: ‘I wish to make quite clear that Canada is
perfectly within her rights in selecting the persons whom we regard as desirable future citizens. It
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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is not a ‘fundamental human right’ of any alien to enter Canada. It is a privilege. It is a matter of
domestic policy’ (quoted in Triadafilos 2012, 15).
Today, Canada is viewed as ‘exceptional’ among immigrant receiving nations, due to
large numbers of ‘skilled immigrants’, its geographic isolation (which helps deter unauthorized
immigration), and relatively high public support for immigration (Bloemraad 2012)
Significant shifts in Canadian nation-building began in the 1960s, when Canada eradicated
national-preferences and introduced a ‘universal’ point system for recruiting skilled workers
(Nupur and Slade 2011). The ‘points system’ replaced race-based preference with indicators of
human capital that responded to Canada’s labour market needs (Reitz 2010). It proved effective
in recruiting skilled immigrants from around the world, contributing to dramatic shifts in the
demographic profile of the nation. Since 1970, half of all immigrants arrived from previously
‘excluded’ nations in the Caribbean, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America (Statistics
Canada 2007). By 2011, one in five people living in Canada were ‘foreign-born’ (originated
outside of Canada) and 19% identified themselves as a visible minority (Statistics Canada 2011).
The creation of Canada’s Non-immigrant Employment Authorization Program (NIEAP)
(the primary mechanism to permit temporary foreign workers in Canada) in 1973, also signalled
Canada’s move towards a ‘globally competitive’ economy, marked by the erosion of Keynesian-
type welfare programs, an emphasis on labour market flexibility, and international
competitiveness (Sharma 2006, 33). Sharma (2006) theorizes the construction of migrant worker
within the nation as an excludable ‘other’, whose foreignness justifies their exclusion from the
social contract of the nation in which they reside: ‘Not only are migrant workers denied the legal
entitlements and protections of being classified as citizen or permanent residents but by being
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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seen as foreign workers, they are also seen as the legitimate objects of the national state’s
coercive powers’ (p. 53).
The influx of immigrants from around the world spurred another restructuring of the
Immigration Act in the 1990s, during which time immigration was framed as too costly to
‘Canadians’ (Arat-Koc 1999, Thobani 2000). The federal government began shifting
responsibility for settlement to the private sphere and increased surveillance of migrants’ use of
social security programs. Even though immigration was considered necessary to counter
Canada’s flat population growth, the concurrent danger of overpopulation as a result of
immigration was emphasized. During this period, Thobani (2007) argues that public
consultations specifically mobilized a white ‘Canadian’ identity to protect Canadian enterprises
against competition from ‘literally billions of people in what we once called the Third World
[who] are now joining the global economy’ (2007, 302).
Neoliberalism and Immigration Policy
Neoliberalism is commonly characterized as a bundle of social and economic policies
that emerged as a response to globalization (Brown 2003). In this sense, neoliberal ideas value: a
smaller welfare state, whereby governments do less, and individuals and families are responsible
for their own social welfare; the commodification of social goods (e.g. health care, education,
and welfare services); and economic efficiency to enable an unfettered ‘free’ market (Abu-Laban
and Gabriel 2002). In addition to the practical application of neoliberal ideas in state policy, we
pay attention to the political rationality of neoliberalism and its reach beyond the market (Brown
2003). Drawing upon Foucauldian notions of governmentality we explore how neoliberalism
informs modes of governance ‘which produces subjects, forms of citizenship and behavior, and a
new organization of the social’ (Brown 2003, ¶ 2). Ong (2007) similarly conceptualizes
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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neoliberalism as, ‘a new relationship between government and knowledge through which
governing activities are recast as nonpolitical and nonideological problems that need technical
solutions. Indeed, neoliberalism considered as a technology of government is a profoundly active
way of rationalizing governing and self-governing in order to “optimize’”’. (p. 3).
Trends in Canadian immigration policy align closely with neoliberal political rationalities
outlined above. Firstly, commodification of immigrants through neoliberal values reconstructs
preference based on ‘who can contribute to national economic growth and either cost less, or pay
for their own settlement’ (Dobrowolsky 2011, 113). Secondly, the shift from a publicly
determined immigration system to one driven by private interests enables Canadian companies to
remain competitive in the global market by keeping wages low and avoiding the costs of labor
organizing and public benefits (Thobani 2000). The influx of temporary foreign workers, which
has grown since the 1990s, now outnumbers permanent residents. Though Canada continues to
accept an average of 250,000 new permanent residents each year (the majority of whom are
economic immigrants), Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) reported over half a million
international students (396,202) and temporary foreign workers (176,613) held a valid visa in
2014. Employers and institutions of higher education, thus, are playing a more direct role in
immigrant selection. The CEC relies on employers to screen for potential immigrants through
their hiring practices, thus privatizing the first round of immigrant selection. In 2015, Canada
took further steps to privatize immigrant selection through the Express Entry program. New
applicants to the CEC or Federal Skilled Worker Program must now submit their applications
through Express Entry, which ranks applicants relative to their skills and employer interest.
Branding and Ideological De-Racialization as Rhetorical Tools for Nation-Building
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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In our analysis of neoliberalism as a form of governance we draw upon Wingard’s (2013)
theory of ‘branding’ in immigration policy. Wingard theorizes branding as a process of ‘affective
identification’ with an imagined national identity. ‘Affect’ here, refers to the meanings and
values that are attributed to an object, including bodies and social identities. For Ahmed (2004),
“emotions do things, and they align individuals with communities—or bodily space with social
space—through the very intensity of their attachments’ (119, emphasis in original). Affective
identification with national unity, positions the government as in control and capable of
managing economic and security threats.
In the context of immigration policy, branding fuels a national identity as willing to
accommodate immigrant ‘others’, yet requiring the exclusion of ‘other-others’ for the good of
the economy. Building upon Sara Ahmed’s (2000) critique of multiculturalism, Wingard
observes:
‘Others’ are the people the nation can ‘save’ or show ‘benevolence’ to by allowing them
into the economy and culture of the nation, thus allowing the nation to become
multicultural. The ‘other-other’ (on the other hand) is the one who cannot be interpolated
into culture. He/she must be expelled, sent away, deported in order for the nation to
define and imagine itself, its borders, and its citizenry (Wingard 2013, 5).
For Wingard, the practice of ‘branding’ upholds the myth of national unity, compelling subjects
who may not benefit from the global economy to nonetheless be invested, emotionally and
politically, in nationhood. Branding, thus, ‘redirects the anxieties that the material conditions of
neoliberal capital’ produced through unemployment, economic disenfranchisement and changing
demographics (Wingard, 2013, p. ix).
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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Branding also relies on what Jakubowski (1997) refers to as ‘ideologically deracialized’
public discourse, whereby ‘discourse makes no explicit use of racist or racial categories, but
which nevertheless may, and often does, have racist effects’ (43). Jakubowski asserts that the
removal of race-based discriminatory laws in Canada were an administrative, rather than populist
policy response. Canada sought to position itself as more humanitarian and economically
competitive in relation to the United States and as part of the multiracial Commonwealth nations.
Canada has since maintained an image as a welcoming nation for immigrants and is regularly
lauded for its multicultural policies, which promote equality and tolerance for cultural diversity.
The construction of ‘Canadian experience’ as a prerequisite for skilled immigrants requires
English or French language proficiency, but otherwise makes no explicit reference to ethnic or
racial preference. This policy also avoids direct reference to the discriminatory effects CE has
been shown to have for racialized immigrants on the job market.
‘Canadian Experience’ as a Prerequisite of Inclusion
Research has documented the lack of CE as an employment barrier for skilled
immigrants, leading to high rates of deskilling (i.e. employed in a job that is below one’s level of
education or training) and underemployment (Chatterjee 2013, Sakamoto, Chin, and Young
2010, Brouwer 1999, Sethi 2009). A longitudinal survey of immigrants from 2001-2005
identified a lack of CE as skilled immigrants’ most common barrier to meaningful employment
(Kukushkin 2009). In a 2009 study of hiring practices, the employer callback rate for résumés
that list only foreign job experience was 6.2 per cent lower than for résumés that included prior
Canadian employment (Kukushkin 2009, 16).
Sakamoto and colleagues (2010) documented different meanings associated with the
concept of ‘CE’ in the Canadian labour market. While employers deem ‘soft skills’, including
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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values, behaviors, identities and forms of communication, necessary to operate in so-called
‘Canadian workplace culture’, the discourse of CE discursively intertwines ‘soft skills’ with
explicit knowledge. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), explicit knowledge signifies
recognized forms of training, or what is commonly referred to as ‘hard skills’ in the Canadian
workplace (e.g. educational credentials, certificates or license that are issued by recognized
institutions; Sakamoto et al., 2010). In contrast, ‘soft skills’, which are a form of tacit knowledge
that is context-specific and difficult to formalize, are also viewed as essential to perform in the
Canadian marketplace (Sakamoto et al., 2010). Among employers and settlement service
providers, skilled immigrants are often framed as possessing ‘technical’ or ‘hard’ skills, but
lacking appropriate ‘tacit’ knowledge (Sakamoto, Chin, and Young 2010). This legitimizes CE
as a prerequisite for successful employment in Canada (Sakamoto, Chin, and Young 2010).
The discourse of CE, however, constructs immigrants as deficient without referring to
their racial or social characteristics: their problems are seen as a result of their ‘lack of skills’.
The racist effects associated with CE are thus difficult to measure, much less remedy. In 2013,
the Ontario Human Rights Commission became the first government body to formally recognize
the discriminatory effects of CE as ‘prima facie discrimination (discrimination on its face)’ in the
Canadian labour market (Ontario Human Rights Commission 2013a). The Ontario Human
Rights Code explicitly links racism with the use of CE in hiring practices stating that, ‘Not hiring
someone because of where they worked before may be discrimination based on race, ancestry,
colour, place of origin or ethnic origin’ (Ontario Human Rights Commission 2013b, ¶ 5). Even
before Ontario amended its human rights code to address CE, Canadian corporations began
moving away from using CE in their hiring strategies to instead focus on transferrable skills that
qualified applicants bring from working in Canada or abroad (Sakamoto et al. 2013).
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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Considering the broad recognition of CE as a discriminatory discourse for racialized immigrants,
we ask, what does it mean for the Canadian government to use CE as a criterion for immigrant
selection?
Methodology
We employed methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine how language use
by political institutions and the media play a critical role in expressing, changing and
reproducing ideologies and social relations (van Dijk 1993b, Fairclough 1993, Oktar 2001).
According to van Dijk (1993a), political discourse exemplifies how powerful elites ‘play a role
in the reproduction of racism, and do so, sometimes subtly, through the respective discourse
genres to which they have access’ (265). Policy documents issued by CIC are a vehicle for elites
to construct national interests and national belonging. Our analysis examines how media
represents, transmits and at times critiques political discourse, while simultaneously upholding
the ideological investments of elites (Bauder 2008).
Data
The data for this study included policy documents and English-language print media
coverage that appeared two years before and three years after the introduction of the Canadian
Experience Class (2008-2011). Policy documents were drawn from the Ministry of Citizenship
and Immigration Canada’s website (www.cic.gc.ca) including: official press releases, speeches
made by the CIC Minister, and regulations and ‘backgrounders’ directed to ministry staff. We
selected print media articles from Canada’s three largest English daily newspapers: Toronto Star,
Globe & Mail and the National Post. Articles were retrieved through Canadian Newsstand
Database using the key words ‘skilled immigrant’ and ‘Canadian experience’. Our search
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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identified 756 media articles that appeared between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2011.
After the government featured CE in their overhaul of the Federal Skilled Worker Program in
2012, we conducted a separate headline analysis of 113 articles that appeared between January 1
and December 31 of that year (2012), using the same sampling criteria. In our total sample of
869 articles, we focused on: 1) articles that included the phrase ‘Canadian experience’ (n=139);
2) articles that included representations of tacit knowledge (n= 51), and 3) articles that discussed
the Canadian Experience Class stream (n=40). We also examined representations of CE in
articles that did not address the labour market, immigrants or immigration (n=316).
[Insert Table I here]
Analysis
Our analysis of CE employs semiotic theories of language as multi-vocal and intertextual.
Kristiva (1966), who is credited with coining the term ‘intertextual’, drew upon Bakhtin’s
analysis of language as heteroglossic; texts signify multiple meanings to different audiences and
in different contexts. Furthermore, texts build upon and are shaped by the historical use of
language, such that texts are inherently intertextual (Bakhtin 1981, Fonow and Cook 2005).
Using Sandoval’s (2000) decolonizing approach to semiotic analysis, we consider in what ways
the historically produced sign may be reinterpreted (or coopted) to produce a new signification
that reifies dominant ideologies. For example, we ask, in what ways do representations of CE in
the media and public policy correspond to previous critiques of CE as a form of discrimination?
We also note that political discourse is highly equivocal ‘producing different effects for
different audiences’ (van Eemeren, Jackson, and Jacobs 2011, 159). As Reeves suggests,
‘equivocation’ allows for the ‘sanitary coding’ of discourse, which refers to ‘the ability to
communicate privately racist ideas with a discourse publicly defensible as nonracist’ (Reeves
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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1983, 190). We thus identified examples of ‘equivocation’ and ‘sanitary coding’, to chart the
misleading or ambiguous meanings attached to the uses of CE in political documents and the
media. We examine ‘traces’ of ideological racism within the discourse of CE by exploring how
CE is picked up in unique, overlapping and contradictory ways. How is CE double-voiced as a
category that both racializes and marginalizes work experience? In what ways is CE presented as
a strategy to select future Canadians who will perform successfully in the labour market, while
erasing how this discourse discriminates against and excludes racialized immigrants? This
framework allows us to examine ‘equivocation’ and ‘sanitary coding’ (Jakubowski 1997) as
discursive features that deracialize CE in political discourse, while leaving insidious traces of
race and class preference.
Results
‘Canadian Experience’, an Ambiguous yet Beholden Signifier
Representations of CE appeared in half our sample of English print media and were
spread out evenly from year to year. One third of media’s attention to CE referred to the labour
market or skilled immigrants in particular. The other two thirds of CE media representations
covered a broad range of topics including: agriculture, technology, finance, advertising, tax
policy, health care, and the military. Across these diverse contexts, CE signifies distinct
knowledge or practices within Canada that can be instructional to the global community.
Extract 1:
As Canadian farmers have increasingly embraced biotech crops, farmers have also
continued to grow organic acres, expanding market opportunities for Canadian
farmers. The Canadian experience has shown that there are ample markets for
crops from all production systems to provide choice for both producers and
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
15
consumers (Toronto Star, March 14, 2006, emphasis added).
Extract 2:
The overwhelming acceptance by Canadians of business tax reforms in the past 11 years
should be an important signal to the United States that such reforms can be politically
acceptable. The U.S. economy needs a jolt of tax reform that reduces business taxes,
especially the corporate income tax rate. This will be important to it and the rest of North
America as a competitive region. Let's hope U.S. politicians learn from our rich
Canadian experience (National Post, February 23, 2011, emphasis added).
In extracts 1 and 2, CE brands certain business practices (i.e., farming, tax reform) as emblematic
of Canadian distinction. This discourse is transnational and most often implies Canada’s
superiority. CE becomes a vehicle for global competition, especially with the United States,
which is Canada’s largest trading partner.
Media presentations of the ‘more noble’ qualities of CE are also used to critique the
Canadian government. The following Op-Ed in the Toronto Star refers to Canada’s humanitarian
reputation as the premise for why the federal government should sign the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Extract 3:
… Canada has a long history of making human-rights protections meaningful to people
with disabilities. With pride, we further noted that Canada's delegation effectively
brought this Canadian experience to the UN and, more importantly, that many countries
listened to what we had to say. This convention, we said, came about because of Canada's
30 years of leadership and innovation on disability issues…. What has happened to this
leadership? We urge the Prime Minister to step up to the plate and reclaim Canadian
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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leadership by signing the new convention on March 30 in New York (Toronto Star,
February 10, 2007, emphasis added).
In extract 3, CE represents Canada’s leadership in international human rights as a source of
national pride. In this example, CE is mobilized to challenge the Conservative government’s
reluctance to uphold the rights of people with disabilities. The use of this iconic symbol as a
moral imperative illustrates the affective identification of CE, consistently a symbol of Canadian
excellence on the international stage.
‘Canadian Experience’ as a Deficit for Skilled Immigrants
Media representations of CE in the labour market make up a smaller proportion of our
total sample (n = 139) and diverge considerably from non-labour market references to CE.
Within this context, media accounts pay specific attention to ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills immigrants
must demonstrate for successful employment (cf. Sakamoto et al., 2010). In line with the
analysis by Sakamoto, Chin and Young (2010), CE has multiple meanings in the labour-market
including: paid or unpaid work experience in Canada; ‘hard skills’ (i.e. explicit/codified
knowledge about Canadian regulations, certifications, English or French language skills); and
‘soft skills’ (i.e. tacitly understood and exchanged knowledge in specific workplace or
occupation – interpersonal skills such as how to carry out ‘small talk’ or operate in the ‘Canadian
workplace culture’). The following extracts illustrate multiple meanings produced in media
representations of CE as: a) a necessary employment barrier that protects Canadian jobs and
ensures immigrants’ labour market success (see Extract 4), b) an employment barrier that can be
overcome with training (Extract 5), c) an employment barrier that represents a form of
discrimination (Extract 6), and d) a practice that devalues international experience and leads to
deskilling, underemployment and unemployment among immigrants (Extract 6).
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
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Extract 4:
Let's face it. These people are trying to get into entry-level jobs. Few of them have the
Canadian experience they need and they will be competing with Canadian workers who
have been laid off,’ said lawyer Sergio Karas, chair of the Ontario Bar Association
(Toronto Star, November 24, 2008).
Extract 5:
Haya counts herself lucky to have landed a job with an affiliate of a company she'd
worked for in Israel, albeit at a much lower level. She then studied for her Canadian
chartered accountant designation and built up the necessary 30 months of Canadian
experience. It's paid off. She's now chief operating officer of the North American
offshoot of a top Israeli investment group (Toronto Star, January 15, 2009).
Critics and proponents of the practice of requiring CE tie this phenomenon to Canada’s broken
immigration system.
Extract 6:
Canada's immigration system isn't perfect. If it were, highly educated immigrants
wouldn't be waiting years to get into the country or, once here, floundering in
low-wage jobs while struggling to get their credentials recognized or the
Canadian experience employers demand (Toronto Star, May 19, 2008).
The ongoing popular exchange reinforces an evolving understanding of CE as a requirement for
success in the labour market. In each of the above excerpts, CE can be quantified and recognized
by employers, but the qualities or skills that constitute CE are not defined. The tacit nature of this
discourse masks the ease at which employers can and do require CE as a means to maintain
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
18
homogeneity in the workplace while marginalizing newcomers, without the use of explicit racial
or ethnic preferences.
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’ in Immigration Policy
Making Canada More Competitive
When introduced in 2008, the federal government promoted the CEC as a means to ‘fix’
Canada’s broken immigration system. Drawing upon neoliberal logics, Finance Minister Flaherty
framed the CEC as a ‘key tool’ for ‘modernizing the immigration system’ (Toronto Star, 26,
March 2008). The CEC departed from the ‘points system’ by requiring potential applicants to
demonstrate: 1) prior work history in Canada in a ‘skilled’ occupation (originally set as 2 years
but later reduced to 1 year of work experience) and 2) moderate proficiency in one of Canada’s
official languages (English or French). Both the CEC policy and related media coverage
emphasized the ‘hard skills’ immigrants need to be successful. Neither the policy discourse nor
the media representations of the CEC mention ‘soft skills’ nor do they refer to discriminatory
practices that are noted elsewhere in media representations of CE in the labour market.
Both media and policy accounts represent changes introduced through the CEC as
necessary for Canada to secure its place as a leader in the world economy. The potential for
Canada to falter in the global marketplace is cause for concern: ‘Immigration Minister Diane
Finley claimed that Canada is losing out in the global competition for talent to the United
Kingdom and Australia where applicants are processed much faster’ (Toronto Star, May 26,
2008). Similarly, Margaret Wente, a columnist for Globe & Mail, reminds us that, ‘Australia is
simply out-competing us for human capital. They process applications in six months. Our
backlog is so huge that here it takes as much as six years. If I were a smart young IT guy from
Bangalore, guess where I'd go. Wouldn't you?’ (Globe & Mail, May 17, 2008). Canada’s
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
19
necessity to ‘keep up’ with other global players justifies the introduction of CE as a requirement
for immigrant selection.
Fixing Canada’s Immigration Problems
While making Canada more ‘attractive’ for desired economic migrants, policy rhetoric
assures the public that the CEC will effectively address the problem of immigrant ‘integration’:
Extract 7:
Through the Canadian Experience Class, newcomers will be more likely to make the
most of their abilities while undergoing a more seamless social and economic transition
to Canada. And, in turn, their cultural and economic contributions will enrich Canada
(Government of Canada, August 12, 2008).
The policy announcement avoids direct reference to the context of increased temporary
migration to Canada, which makes the CEC and use of CE in the revised Federal Skilled Worker
Program possible. Since the early 2000s, Canada has accepted more temporary than permanent
residents; hundreds of thousands of people enter Canada as temporary foreign workers or
international students without the security of permanent residence. The ‘two tier’ option for
immigrants, who may ‘opt to first come here as temporary workers’, obscures the vulnerabilities
associated with temporary migration. Thus, the ‘efficiency’ of this modern approach is
predicated on the potential exploitation of temporary migrants who must demonstrate their
capacity to settle in Canada, without the use of public support that was historically provided to
newcomers.
CIC Minister Jason Kenney also invoked neoliberal principles of flexibility, efficiency
and effectiveness as key ingredients to ‘fix’ Canada’s problem of attracting too many people:
Extract 8:
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
20
… In a world with almost infinite desire to immigrate to Canada, you might well imagine
that every single year we received more applications than there were positions available
for immigration to Canada in our levels plan. You see the endless infinite billions of
prospective immigrants… So we would then process applications towards our target. A
certain number would be accepted, a quarter of a million on average. A certain number
would be rejected as being not qualified. But every year, year after year, we had a surplus
of immigration applications over our capacity to admit people based on our immigration
plan. That’s what led to the backlogs…
As the result of the strong measures that our Government has taken since 2009, we have
seen a very steep decline in Canada’s immigration backlog, helping us to move towards a
just-in-time fast and flexible system where we will be able to admit applicants for
immigration less than a year after their application’ (Government of Canada, March 26,
2013, emphasis added).
While Minister Kenney’s rhetoric above is notably sanitized of racial or ethnic coding, his
reference to ‘infinite billions’ of people seeking to enter Canada, harkens back Thobani’s (2007)
analysis of the perceived threat immigrants pose to Canadian whiteness in the 1990s. Between
2001 and 2007, more than two thirds of economic migrants originated in Asia, the Pacific,
Africa, the Middle East or South America; many more applicants were turned away or had their
applications returned. Given the demographic profile of economic migrants under the ‘old
system’, the ‘infinite billions’ in Kenney’s speech represents as a de facto racialized marker.
Thus, while Kenney may employ deracialized terms when he constructs the immigration as a
national concern, CE is constructed as a recognizable ‘brand’ that binds the nation around a
shared value of excellence.
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
21
By emphasizing the recruitment of immigrants who can demonstrate CE, this policy taps
into the ‘affective identification’ of what it means to belong in Canada. CE ensures that only
those who are ready for a ‘seamless social and economic transition’ (extract 7) will be accepted
as permanent residents. Additionally, CE reinvigorates Canadian exceptionalism without using
racist or racial categories, such that the public discourse remains, in Jakubowski’s terms,
‘ideologically deracialized’ (Jakubowski 1997). CE consolidates attachment to this particular
construction of national identity. In immigration policy, the discourse of CE undermines and
even rejects the scholarly and media critiques of CE as a form of exclusion and an employment
barrier to newcomers. Instead, the implementation of CE in immigration policy justifies market
logic to distinguish between the neoliberal citizen and the undesirable and thus deportable
migrant.
Discussion
Our analysis of CE in immigration policy and media representations illustrates how this
discourse operates as a racial project that belies overt racist connotations. Consistent with Henry,
Tator, Mattis and Reese’s (2006) conceptualization of ‘democratic racism’, the government’s use
of CE embodies the competing principles of egalitarianism on the one hand with racist
perceptions that construct the ‘other-other’ as bodies that need to be managed (Ku, Sakamoto,
and Bhuyan Under Review, Ahmed 2000). The Canadian government’s strategic embrace of CE
as a brand unifies the nation’s interests in selecting the ‘right’ immigrants who will ensure
Canada’s economic growth; immigrants who are capable (and personally responsible) of
smoothly integrating into society. Emphasis on CE avoids overtly racist preference in
immigration selection, yet ensures that those deemed worthy of inclusion will easily assimilate
and thus will not threaten the established norms of whiteness.
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
22
Our analysis also delineates the multiple effects of branding ‘Canadian experience’ in
immigration policy; CE a) taps into the affective identification with Canadian excellence and
national pride, b) identifies potential immigrants who are ready to be employed and thus
contribute to Canada’s economy, and c) regulates immigrants to align more precisely with
neoliberal values, while d) obscuring processes of racial discrimination that persist through
employer driven immigrant selection. Through representing CE as a skillset, the brand of CE is
mobilized to ‘fix’ Canada’s immigration problems, while deferring to employers’ capabilities (in
terms of who they do or do not hire) to distinguish the acceptable and tolerated ‘other’, from the
‘other others’, who should remain outside the body politic.
Fulfilling these criteria, however, involves the context of the labour market, where CE
functions as a form of discrimination. The federal governments use of CE in immigration policy
masks growing inequalities and privileges among people entering Canada as temporary vs.
permanent residents; and the persistent deskilling and downward economic trajectory for
racialized immigrants. Even though the concept of CE in immigration policy focuses on ‘hard
skills’, looking closely, this immigration class delineates the ‘other’ from the ‘other other’.
Immigration selection sorts through those who are permitted to earn CE through skilled
employment in Canada vs. the majority of temporary foreign workers and international students
who are precariously employed or struggle to find employment, even when they have the ‘right’
qualifications, education, and language proficiency.
Recent recognition of the discriminatory effects of the CE requirement by the Ontario
Human Rights Commission (2013a) suggests a conceptual divide between immigrant selection
and immigrant integration policy. Ideologies that drive immigrant selection continue to reinforce
the sovereign right to discern who may enter Canada and have access to permanent residence and
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
23
citizenship. Within this arena, the prerequisite of CE sanctions discriminatory selection as an
entitlement of state sovereignty. In contrast, immigrant integration policy in Canada is governed
by discourses of rights and equality, such that CE signifies a violation of equity principles in the
labour market. The use of CE in immigrant selection policy endorses a highly prejudicial and
discriminatory discourse, while diverting our attention away from a revisionist agenda for
Canadian immigration; one that is producing a temporary and deportable labour force.
In the past several decades, a vast settlement service industry—primarily funded by the
Canadian government—has supported the integration of new permanent residents through
language and employment services. Thus, settlement has been a public policy issue and
complement to the aggressive recruitment of economic migrants. Under CEC and FSWP,
potential candidates for permanent residence (i.e. temporary foreign workers and international
students) are presumed to have already ‘settled’ in Canada. Thus, the costs associated with
moving, getting oriented to the social and health systems and learning how to operate in the
labour market are by default absorbed by the individual/family, their
schools/colleges/universities, or their employer. For individuals who entered as TFWs, their
settlement costs are off-set by an employer or by the worker themselves (i.e. neither province nor
federal government is responsible for settlement services to TFWs), thus recruiting permanent
residents from this pool of workers reduces the cost of ‘settlement.’ It remains unclear how
permanent residents who entered as TFWs fare in the long-term as their settlement needs may
persist despite their success at securing employment.
Privatizing integration and settlement, through selecting already settled temporary foreign
workers who meet desirable traits and a proven employment record that is ‘good’ for the
economy, achieves the transition from liberal to neoliberal status. Through relying on employer
Branding ‘Canadian Experience’
24
practices to select immigrants, Canadian immigration policy seeks to reward the ‘neoliberal
immigrant’ who can ensure employability and take care of their own settlement (prior to
applying for permanent residency). By only admitting economic migrants who can demonstrate
CE, the government legitimizes the indefinite precarity and exploitation of temporary foreign
workers.
Through mobilizing the ‘Canadian experience’ brand, we argue that both public policy
and media rhetoric participate in the guise of ‘ideologically deracialized’ nation-building;
whitewashing the racist undertones that have always been fundamental to both immigrant
selection policy and the structural barriers that racialized immigrants face in Canada. The brand
of CE serves to re-envision Canada’s white policy within a neoliberal context. Rather than
selecting immigrants based on physical traits within the logic of biologically-based racism, the
discourse of ‘Canadian experience’ relies on the capacity of immigrant ‘others’ to embody traits
of whiteness in a neoliberal era: self-sufficiency, autonomy, flexibility, and utility in the market
place.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Standard Grant and an award from CERIS: The Ontario Metropolis Centre. Thanks to Heidi
Zhang for her research assistance.
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Table I: English Print Media – Articles under Each Analytic Theme, 2006-2012
Analytic Theme Year
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total
Total articles per year 153 155 130 130 94 94 113 869
1. Uses the phrase ‘Canadian
Experience’
22 23 19 22 18 17 18 139
2. Canadian Experience Class 0 1 11 8 5 3 12 40
3. Representations of tacit
knowledge in the workplace
7 12 11 5 4 5 7 51
4. Representations of CE outside
the labor market; not related to
immigrants
52 59 45 45 58 24 33 316