Assessing the Impact of Denizenship in the Making and Evaluation of Temporary Foreign Worker Policies in Canada

Despite the larger number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) that are channelled through a long-standing Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), their experience with the program and, more broadly, within the Canadian society has been overlooked. This study examines the ways in which a denizen status coupled with other social factors, such as race and amount of human capital, create marginalizing migratory experience for low-skilled TFWs in Canada. As denizens, these migrant workers are isolated in the geographical, economic, political, and social periphery of Canadian society. The longstanding inequality embedded in the structure of TFWP legitimizes differential entitlements and experiences of TFWs depending on their skill categories. The exclusion not only undermines TFWs’ contribution to Canadian society but also legitimizes the economic and social integration challenges they experience. The critical analysis of the government publications demonstrated the nation’s neoliberal approach to TFWP, exclusively driven by the state’s economic gain. The overwhelming representation of employers’ interests and lack of TFWs’ involvement in the making, administration, and evaluation of temporary foreign worker policies will continue to reproduce the precarity of these workers and the broader racial, social, and political inequality of which they are situated within. I conclude this paper by recommending ways to achieve a more inclusive and equitable TFWP for low-skilled TFWs in the long-term