The COVID-19 pandemic has had a paradoxical effect on Canadian immigration policy: while it has brought the entry of high-skilled workers to a halt, it has allowed low-skilled workers, including those often arriving through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program, to continue coming. The federal government has made special arrangements to ensure low-skilled workers can come and work in Canadian farms while those highly skilled outside the country are asked to wait – the border remains closed at the time of writing (17 July 2020).
One would have thought that it is those high-skilled workers that are ‘essential’ to the Canadian knowledge-based economy, however, we have found that those truly ‘essential’ are the low-skilled temporary migrant workers: those that actually find it nearly impossible to access permanent residency and later citizenship. What can the pandemic experience tell us about immigration policy and how can immigration be governed more effectively for both categories of migrant workers during this extraordinary time?
The impact of the pandemic border closures on temporary foreign workers engaged in Canada’s farms and fish plants has received wide media coverage. Concerns have mounted about the consequences of not admitting theroughly 60,000 annual seasonal agricultural workers, whose invaluable labour contributes to the food supply that feeds Canadians. While the Government has encouraged the growing number of unemployed Canadians to apply to work in the agriculture and agri-food sector, these jobs are often avoided by citizens at home.
