Temporary migration and temporary integration: Canada and the UK in a comparative perspective

This thesis aims to compare and contrast the temporary migration policies of the UK and Canada between 1997 and 2014. These policies in the UK include the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Programme (SAWS), the Sector Based Scheme (SBS), domestic migrant workers and the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP). The policies examined in Canada are the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Programme (SAWP), the Temporary Foreign Worker Programme (TFWP), the Low-Skilled Migrant Programme, the High-Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and the Live-in Caregiver Programme. In order to examine these programmes, the websites of the CIC, Annual Reports to the Parliament on Migration, policy papers, public debates in media, fact sheets, and briefing papers have been examined, as well as scholarly articles. Policy changes have been scrutinized in order to understand how the politics of immigration had an effect on the migration and integration policies. Beyond these documents, the main method has been to carry out an analysis of 51 (27 in Canada, 24 in the UK) semi-structured, open-ended interviews with policy-makers, politicians, migrant organizations (advocacy, services), immigrant lawyers, migration experts/scholars and think-tanks. It is argued in this thesis that regardless of the history of integration in a country (i.e. whether or not it is a ‘settlement’ or a ‘guest-worker’ country) it is possible to see that the temporary migration policies and their consequences resemble each other in different contexts, such as in the UK and Canada. These results mostly emerge from the fact that these policies are employer-driven. In order to counteract the logic of these policies there is a need to think about integration as a temporary phenomenon. Only this way can the migrant workers be empowered within this inherent inequality exacerbated by these programmes and what these programmes create in terms of working conditions and rights.