Branding ‘Canadian experience’ in immigration policy ... · immigration policy: Nation-building in a neoliberal era Rupaleem Bhuyan, ... rhetorical tool for nation building. Using

TSpace Research Repository tspace.library.utoronto.ca

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

How to cite TSpace items

Always cite the published version, so the author(s) will receive recognition through services that track citation counts, e.g. Scopus. If you need to cite the page number of the TSpace version (original manuscript or accepted manuscript) because you cannot access the published version, then cite the TSpace version in addition to the published version using the permanent URI (handle) found on the record page.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4

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’

2

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


3

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,


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.


5

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


6

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


7

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


8

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


9

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).


10

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


11

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).


12

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

http://www.cic.gc.ca/


13

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


14

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


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


16

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).


17

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


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


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:


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.


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.


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


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


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.

References

Abu-Laban, Yasmeen, and Christina Gabriel. 2002. Selling diversity: Immigration,multiculturalism, employment equity and globalization. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.


25

Ahmed, Sara. 2000. Strange encounters: Embodied others in post-coloniality. London and New York: Routledge.

Ahmed, Sara. 2004. "Affective economies." Social Text no. 22 (2):117-139. Arat-Koc, Sedef. 1999. "Neo-liberalism, State Restructuring and Immigration: Changes in

Canadian Policies in the 1990s." Journal of Canadian Studies no. 34 (2):31-56. Bakhtin, M.M. 1981. "Discourse in the novel." In The dialogic imagination: Four essays by

M.M. Bakhtin, edited by M. Holquist, 259-242. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bauder, Harald. 2008. "Immigration debate in Canada: How newspapers reported, 1996-2004."

Journal of International Migration and Integration no. 9:289-310. Bloemraad, Irene. 2012. Understanding "Canadian Exceptionalism" in immigration and

pluralism policy. Washginton, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. Brouwer, Andrew. 1999. Immigrants need not apply. Toronto: Caledon Institute of Social Policy

& The Maytree Foundation. Brown, Wendy. 2003. "Neo-liberalism and the end of liberal democracy." Theory & Event no. 7

(1):1-25. Chatterjee, Soma. 2013. "Rethinking skill in anti-oppressive social work practice with skilled

immigrant professionals." British Journal of Social Work:1-15. Critchley, B. 2007. "Canada's disabled need a true leader." Toronto Star, February 10. Dewar, Denise. 2006. "Cro management programs effective." Toronto Star, March 14. Dobrowolsky, Alexandra. 2011. "The intended and unintended effects of a new immigration

strategy: Insights from Nova Scotia's provincial nominee program." Studies in Political Economy no. 87:109-141.

Fairclough, N. 1993. Discourse and social change: Polity Press. Ferrer, Ana M., Garnett and Arthur Sweetman Picot, and William Craig Ridell. 2014. New

directions in immigration policy: Canada's evolvinv approach to the selection of economic immigrants. International Migration Review: 1-22.

Fonow, M., and J.A. Cook. 2005. "Feminist methodology: New applications in the academy and public policy." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society no. 30 (4):2211-2286.

Government of Canada. 2008. News Release: Canada's government to help temporary foreign workers and foreign student graduates become permanent residents. edited by Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Government of Canada.

Government of Canada. 2013. Speaking notes for The Honourable Jason Kenney, P.C., M.P. Minister of Citizenship, Immigrationa nd Multiculturalism. edited by Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Ottawa: Government of Canada.

Hawthorne, Lesleyanne. 2008. "The impact of economic selection policy on labour market outcomes for degree-qualified migrants in Canada and Australia." Institute for Research on Public Policy: Choices no. 14 (5):1-47.

Henry, F., C. Tator, W. Mattis, and T. Rees. 2006. The color of democracy: Racism in Canadian society (3rd ed.). Toronto: Thomson Nelson.

Jakubowski, Lisa Marie. 1997. Immigration and the legalization of racism. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Keung, Nicholas. 2008. "New migrant class draws few." Toronto Star, November 28 Ku, Jane, Izumi Sakamoto, and Rupaleem Bhuyan. Under Review. "Democratic racism in

Canada: The case of Canadian experience."


26

Kukushkin, Vadim and Douglas Watt 2009. Immigrant-Friendly Businesses: Effective Practices for Attracting, Integrating, and Retaining Immigrants in Canadian Workplaces. Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada.

Mintz, J. 2011. "JackMintz: U.S. can learn from our lower taxes." Financial Post, February 23. Nonaka, Ikujiro, and Hirotaka Takeuchi. 1995. The knowledge creating company: How Japanese

companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford University Press. Nupur, Gogia, and Bonnie Slade. 2011. About Canada: Immigration: Fernwood Pub. Oktar, Lutfiye. 2001. "The ideological organization of representational processes in the

presentation of us and them." Discourse and Society no. 12 (3):313-346. Ong, Aihwa. 2007. Neoliberalism as exception: Mutations in citizenship and sovereignty.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ontario Human Rights Commission. 2013a. Policy on removing the "Canadian experience"

barrier. Toronto: Ontario Human Rights Commission. Ontario Human Rights Commission. 2013b. Removing the "Canadian experience" barrier

(brochure). edited by Government of Ontario. Opinion. 2008. "PM unconvincing on immigration." Toronto Star, May 19. Reeves, F. 1983. British racial discourse: A study of British political discourse about race and

race-related matters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reitz, Jeffrey G. 2010. "Selecting Immigrants for the Short Term: Is It Smart in the Long Run?"

Policy Options 4. Reitz, Jeffrey G. 2012. "The distinctiveness of Canadian immigration experience." Patterns of

prejudice no. 46 (5):518-538. Reitz, Jeffrey G., Josh Curtis, and Jennifer Elrick. 2014. "Immigrant skill utilization: Trends and

policy issues." Journal of International Migration and Integration no. 15 (1):1-26. Sakamoto, Izumi, Matthew Chin, and Melina Young. 2010. ""Canadian experience,"

employment challenges, and skilled immigrants: A close look through "tacit knowledge"." Canadian Social Work no. 16 (2):145-151.

Sakamoto, Izumi, Daphne Jeyapal, Rupaleem Bhuyan, Jane Ku, Lin Fang, Heidi Zhang, and Flavia Genovese. 2013. An overview of discourses of skilled immigrants and "Canadian experience": An English-language print media analysis. In The CERIS Working Paper Series. Toronto: CERIS--The Ontario Metropolis Centre.

Sandoval, Chela. 2000. Methodology of the oppressed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Sethi, Bharati. 2009. Exploring newcomer settlement and integration supports in Brantford, and Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk counties: Community-based participatory research, Graduate Department of the Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ottawa.

Sharma, Nandita. 2006. Home economics: Nationalism and the making of 'migrant workers' in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Statistics Canada. 2007. Ethnic diversity and immigration. Ottawa: Government of Canada. Statistics Canada. 2011. Immigration and ethnocultural diversity. edited by Statistics Canada:

Government of Canada. Sweetman, Arthur, and Casey Warman. 2010. "A New Source of Immigration: The Canadian

Experience Class." Policy Options:4. Taylor, Bill. 2009. "She hates the word." Toronto Star, January 15. Thobani, Sunera. 2000. "Closing the nation's doors to immigrant women: Restructuring of

Canadian immigration policy." Atlantis no. 24 (2):16-26.


27

Thobani, Sunera. 2007. Exalted subjects: Studies in the making of race and nation in Canada. Toronto, Buffalo & London: University of Toronto Press.

Triadafilos, Triadafilopoulos. 2012. Becoming multicultural: Immigration and the politics of membership in Canada and Germany: University of British Columbia Press.

van Dijk, Teun A. 1993a. Elite discourse and racism: Sage Publications, Inc. van Dijk, Teun A. 1993b. "Principles of critical discourse analysis." Discourse and Society no. 4

(2):249-283. van Eemeren, Frans H., Sally Jackson, and Scott Jacobs. 2011. "Argumentation." In Discourse

studies: A multidisciplinary introduction, edited by Teun A. van Dijk. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi and Singapore: Sage Publications.

Wingard, Jennifer. 2013. Branded bodies, rhetoric, and the neoliberal nation-state. Edited by Rachel Riedner and Randi Gray Kristensen, Cultural Studies/Pedagogy/Activism. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Lexington Books.


28

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

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282222291

Documents

Branding ‘Canadian experience’ in immigration policy ... · immigration policy: Nation-building in a neoliberal era Rupaleem Bhuyan, ... rhetorical tool for nation building. Using