Your search
Results 4 resources
-
Temporary workers come to Canada under the auspices of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and specifically, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). They are unfree in the sense that they are unable to circulate within the labour market due to legal constraints. This article contextualizes Canada's TFWP within the global political economy in terms of flexible labour, racialization and genderization. Temporary workers are flexible; they provide "j ust- in- time" labour to meet what are perceived to be shortages of workers in the labour market. While this labour is flexible from the point of view of the employer, it is "precarious" from the vantage point of the worker. Employers use the TFWP to have direct power over who immigrates to Canada, slowly eroding the goals of meritocratic fairness that have supported Canadian purported efforts to make (im)migration an impartial process. Although global political economy is a good starting point for framing temporary labour in Canada, it is not sufficient. Since Confederation, Canada has always had some type of temporary worker process. The ideal of creating a British settler community was Canada's original nation-building goal, but the reality was that the Canadian capitalist class preferred temporary workers for agricultural and industrial work, infrastructure and railway construction, and domestic work; Asian and Southern and Eastern European males filled many of these positions. In railway construction and mining, for example, there were racialized labour segments with distinct groups of workers: "Whites" in higher paid and "safe" occupations, and "foreigners" who were in lower-paid and dangerous jobs (Vosko 2000) - the latter group often being hired as temporary workers. There is also a long history in Canada of foreign domestic workers serving middle- and upper-class families dating back to the late 180Os and early 1900s. Formally, under the strict logic of the immigration legislation that vows to bring to Canada the "best and the brightest" (or the very skilled), the "unskilled" workers should not be allowed to stay in Canada. However, as the work of researchers at Brandon University points out, after six months, many temporary workers arriving in Manitoba who labour in unskilled or semi-skilled occupations apply to the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). In this sense, temporary migrants become "transitional" foreign workers (Annis 2008, Bucklaschuk 2008). Unfree labour becomes both a vehicle for a probationary period for migrants and for a new style of immigration that is driven by employers rather than the state, allowing for unsupervised racial, geographical, or gender bias.
-
Over the past century agriculture in the Okanagan has relied heavily on low cost ethnic labour. The historical documentation of this ethnic agricultural labour is fragmented occurring primarily in photographs, personal diaries, minutes of organizations, newspaper articles, and in some journal articles and books where there is specific mention of a particular ethnic group. This research compiles some of this documentation and synthesizes it into a single document which provides an overall account of the presence and role of ethnic agricultural labour in the Okanagan Valley. More specifically, this research substantiates and examines the presence of the early British settlers and five ethnic groups. They are the First Nations people (1880s - early 1900s and 1940s to 1960s), Chinese (late 1800s to 1930s), Japanese (1942 - late 1940s), Doukhobor (early 1930s - late 1950s), and Portuguese (1955 - early 1960s). --From authors' introduction. Contents: Introduction -- The Early British Settlers: 1860s - 1920s -- The Chinese: Early 1900s-1930s -- The First Nations People: 1880s-present -- The Doukhobors: 1930s-1950s -- The Japanese: 1940 -- The Portuguese: 1940s -- Conclusion -- References.
-
The aging workforce poses perplexing policy challenges, even in Canada, which is demographically young among comparable countries. We ask what the evidence shows about whether there are, or will be, labour or skills shortages as the workforce ages. Highlighting the challenges of measuring labour/skills shortages, we explore peer-reviewed research in the 2000–2013 period. No evidence is found of a national labour shortage in the foreseeable future. In fact, the workforce is predicted to grow for the coming two decades with less shrinkage than in the past as a result of retirements. Regional and occupational shortages occur at times, as well as underutilized skills.
-
Recent demographic projections based on Statistics Canada data indicate that persons designated as belonging to a visible minority group will comprise 20 per cent of the Canadian population by 2017. In Canada's major cities, the proportion of persons classified as visible minority is expected to exceed 50 per cent. What is race, and how should racism be studied sociologically? What differences exist in patterns of structural incorporation within and among ethno-racial groups in Canada? What factors influence upward social mobility? Are Canadian institutions capable of meeting the needs of the country's increasingly diverse ethno-racial population? These are some of the questions that this volume addresses. This collection of original articles identifies future research directions for racism in Canada based on important changes taking place in the country. It also offers the basis for a more complete understanding of racism and social change in Canada.
Explore
Resource type
- Book Section (1)
- Journal Article (2)
- Report (1)