At the temporary–permanent divide: how Canada produces temporariness and makes citizens through its security, work, and settlement policies

Abstract

This paper explores the production of temporariness in Canada, and its implications for the citizenship rights of migrants. It investigates the production of temporariness within three policy fields that are typically not examined together – security, work and settlement. Within these three fields, it considers public policies concerning: (1) security of presence; (2) access to paid employment for spouses of migrants; and (3) eligibility for settlement services. It argues that temporariness is being institutionalized in new ways, producing a hierarchy of categories of migrants ranging from the temporarily temporary to the permanently temporary and temporarily permanent, shaped by entry category, legal residency status and socially recognized skills. The paper advances a multidimensional conception of temporariness, and contends that the temporary-permanent divide is constructed through the enforcement of different entry categories and forms of legal residency status, which create ‘paper borders’ that are made up of the increasing number and range of restrictions, limits and containments regarding legal residency status, access to employment and settlement services.