The EMPP: A Critical Review

Introduction

In 2018, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) began the initial phases of the Economic Mobility Pathways Project (EMPP), which sought to “identify approximately 10 to 15 skilled refugees in the Middle East and East Africa who meet the requirements of Canada’s economic immigration programs” (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020:1). With its partner organizations, IRCC sought to expand the number of pathways for refugee resettlement within Canada (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). IRCC notes that by the end of phase 1 of the pilot they had proven there are refugees who exist that meet the “existing economic immigration criteria and who potentially represent an untapped talent pool”¹ (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020:4). Phase 2 of the project began in December of 2021, and will end in December of 2023 (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2022).

The EMPP represents a shift in direction from many of the existing refugee resettlement programs, , with a direct focus on the economic ability of the primary applicant to the refugee program and their ability to meet the needs of Canadian business (Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). In this paper, I argue that the Canadian State, as a political institution, represents the primary means by which the normative values of capitalism are enforced, through an economic assimilationist program, onto refugees. The specific language of the policy itself is a concern as well, with heteronormative assumptions of primary-applicant-masculinity and dependent-femininity being shown throughout the existing policy framework. I seek to undertake a critical examination of the discourse of the EMPP, using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis Methodology, particularly with regards to how the policy allows the colonial project of Canada to enforce the normativization of able-bodiedness, heteronormativity, and economic assimilation upon refugee families.

Literature Review

Scholarship within the field of migration studies has largely focused on binaric differences between immigrant families and mainstream Euroamerican families (Kibria 2023), however, there is a clear need to challenge assimilationist discourses (Kibria 2023; Nawyn 2010; Purkayastha 2012), particularly within public policy, as a means to challenge the dominant, extractive methodologies typical of academic. The analysis of these assimilationist narratives must come not only from a place of anti-coloniality, specifically by centering the voices of minoritized or invisibilized people within colonial structures in the same vein as decolonial scholars like Banerjee (2023) or Bejarano et al. (2019). However, within anti-colonial work, it is important likewise to analyze the policy directing and enabling capitalistic domination in order to fully understand the machinations of institutions that create these policies (Newman 2007; Jeff Shantz and Williams 2013).

Purkayastha (2012) notes that the centering of these experiences becomes increasingly important in a transnational world, though the understanding of intersectional forms of domination must be done contextually. In their example, Purkayastha (2012) notes that the racism experienced by a Ugandan Black immigrant and a Ugandan Indian immigrant to the US, both forcibly evicted by Idi Amin, would experience racism in divergent ways. Likewise they would experience different racisms and privileges if they immigrated to India or back to Uganda (Purkayastha 2012). These insights are extremely valuable given the nature of the transnational world that currently exists, with multiple socially constructed hierarchies in the sphere of ‘race’ leading to differing forms of domination applied to members of different communities. It is important to analyze the experiences that immigrants experience within the contexts that they exist, rather than homogenizing their experiences as one monolith.

To better understand the experience of migrants, it is important to center more than just the voices and experiences of the principal applicant to any given program within migration scholarship. For example, the recipients of H-4 dependent visas in the United States are often constructed in discourse as a monolith, with the voices of men who hold H-4 visas largely excluded from public discourse (Banerjee 2022). This is not to say that male privilege is absent in male H-4 dependent visa holders, as Banerjee (2022) notes “Male dependents also suffer but find ways of reasserting their male privilege” (224), but rather the ongoing discourse that, through omission, constructs dependent visa holders as necessarily “women” presents a normalized understanding of who legitimate dependent visa holders are. Similarly invisiblized within dominant discourse, was the everyday violence experienced by international graduate students during the period of mandated COVID-19 pandemic measures. This was exacerbated, especially amongst families (Fandino and Banerjee 2022), with families not only experiencing increased isolation due to the separation from existing support structures, but also due to the strain on financials during the pandemic (Fandino and Banerjee 2022). The intersection of the absence of some voices within larger discourse about immigration (Banerjee 2022) and the increased strain of world events, such as a pandemic, on immigrant families (Fandino and Banerjee 2022) points to a need to explore the underlying power within the discourse about immigration. The exploration of these power dynamics could then act as a means to challenge the power structures that enable everyday violence against immigrant families.

It is difficult to write within the academy, as a political institution, in a manner that challenges the inherent coloniality of that institution, which itself stands within a colonial state while practicing disciplines steeped in colonial acts (Bejarano et al. 2019). The act of critical scholarship should therefore not only be one that notes the power dynamics underlying any given subject, but also engages in scholarship that may directly influence change in those relationships of domination (Bejarano et al. 2019; Eby 2022; Fairclough 2023; Lazar 2014). In their community driven ethnography with undocumented immigrants in the United States, Bejarano et al. (2019) noted repeatedly that a project can act not only as a means of elevating the voices of undocumented immigrants, particularly that of undocumented immigrant families, but also that participants within the project could use the foundation provided to bring about positive change in their communities. With this understanding, it is necessary to further explore the concept of relationships of domination, as it pertains to policies of refugee resettlement.

A Brief Theory of Relationships of Domination

Hierarchy is an inherent feature of both capitalism and the state (Jeffrey Shantz and Williams 2013), with the ongoing colonial history of North America (Collins 2015) contributing to the further stratification of people through intersecting hierarchies of race, sex, gender, sexuality, etc. For Shantz and Williams (2013), domination is predicated upon “The successful use of Hierarchical power” (107), which in turn results in a knock-on effect of negative consequences for those who are placed in lower rankings in the social hierarchies. These structures of hierarchies, enforced by both normative practices of society and forms of violence, both formal and informal, manufacture relationships of domination, such as racial capitalism, which reinforce inequalities perceived to be due to race, gender, class (Jeffrey Shantz and Williams 2013). It is important to note that these outcomes are perceived to be caused by these intersecting identities, rather than to say that they are caused by these identities; because the outcomes are not caused by a person’s race, for example, but rather the ways in which hierarchical power is inflicted upon that person, and the ways in which relationships of domination reinforce negative outcomes for them (Jeffrey Shantz and Williams 2013). These relationships of domination intersect, with Shantz and Williams (2013) noting “immigrants regularly must deal with their outsider racial or ethnic status in the face of white supremacy… as well as the threat of state capture and violence if they are caught violating a law (or even crossing a border). In other words, inequality results from multiple forms of hierarchical domination and the multi-dimensional character of these forms add layers of disadvantage, restraint, and punishment upon those who find themselves at the bottom of such hierarchies” (119).

Methodology

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a methodology that uses a “three-dimensional framework for conceiving and analyzing discourse” (Blommaert and Bulcaen 2000:448), through the analysis of 1.) Discourse as Text, 2.) Discourse as discursive practice, and 3.) Discourse as social practice. (Blommaert and Bulcaen 2000). In his chapter Critical Discourse Analysis, Fairclough (2023) describes the means by which the critical analysis of discourse acts as a necessary part of critical social analysis, in particular how the analysis of semiotics present in dominant truth regimes constructed by political institutions can reveal the means by which discourse ideologically contributes to sustaining “relations of power and domination” (Fairclough 2023:17). Blommaert and Bulcaen (2000) note that CDA is particularly well suited for analysis of topics of political discourse, ideology, racism, and economic discourse, (among other topics not listed); for the purposes of this paper, I will be examining the intersection of these topics, as well as the topic of ability/disability, within the context of the EMPP.

Building upon the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) draws upon the critical feminist theorization, in particular feminist poststructuralism and postcolonialism, as a means to engage in praxis-oriented research (Lazar 2014). Within this expanded framework, FCDA seeks to challenge deep seated androcentrism within academic theorization, and act as a form of academic activism both in terms of “Critical awareness raising” (Lazar 2014:185) that may act as an “action that enables one to begin to see things differently than before” (Lazar 2014:185), and also as a means to inform further activism through the mobilization of critical awareness of underlying ideology within given political discourse (Lazar 2007). To this aim, I will draw upon critical feminist perspectives to explicitly critique and analyze the underlying ideology of Euroamerican racial Capitalism within the EMPP.

To collect data for this paper, I collected all documentation on the EMPP available on the Government of Canada website on or prior to the 17th of November, 2023. From this, I analyzed the text of these documents for discussions of ability/disability, credentials/”skill”, gender, family, and queerness, and discussed the underlying forms of domination this discourse reinforces. All sources discussed in the Analysis section are primary documents from the Government of Canada, either from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or from Parliamentary debates on the topic of the EMPP. My search was limited to specific mentions of the program, and mentions of economic migrations or economic refugees within parliamentary debates are beyond the scope of this paper.

Analysis

The EMPP states that its role is to provide further options for refugee resettlement within Canada, combining economic immigration and refugee resettlement (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2021a). The criteria for the pilot makes this clear, with applicants required to either already have a full-time, non-seasonal job from a Canadian employer; or have at least 1 year of full-time work experience (or the equivalent amount of part-time work) in a career in TEER category 0, 1, 2, or 3 in the National Occupational Classification (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2021b). These categories are defined as management occupations, occupations usually requiring a university degree, occupations requiring a college diploma or apprenticeship (2 or more years), or occupations that require a college diploma or apprenticeship (less than 2 years) respectively (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2013). The second stream, capped at 150 applicants, has greater language proficiency requirements, requiring an approved language test and proof of “settlement funds”, determined by the size of family. (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2021b). This compares to the first stream which is eligible to use a test that is less than 2 years old and has no settlement fund requirements (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2021b). While regional options established by provincial partners are available, the policy itself is concerning; with much of the focus on economic assimilation rather than humanitarian efforts.

In the 2020 release, IRCC laid out the ways “labour mobility” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020) might be a way in which “skilled” refugees might be able to address “long standing Canadian labour market needs” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). The emphasis on economic assimilation is extremely troubling, with the potential for economic exploitation being particularly high with the first stream discussed previously. Similar to how immigrants in the United States on work visas for highly skilled workers and their family members on dependent visas were highly reliant on the employment status of the principal applicant (Banerjee 2022), the construction of a refugee resettlement program highly reliant on the employment of the principal applicant creates opportunity for employers to exploit refugees with the threat of losing residency (Banerjee 2022). Furthermore, within the page “The Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot: Exploring labour mobility as a complementary pathway for refugees” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020) there is an explicit focus on skill and credentials: with the words “Skill” (or derivations thereof) appearing 23 times, “economic” appearing 25 times, and “Job” appearing 5 times; compared to “Humanitarian” appearing 2 times, and “Asylum” not appearing at all. This is further problematized by the context the word “Humanitarian” appears in, with it only being used to refer to opportunities refugees may have to immigrate to Canada “outside of traditional pathways” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). Further, IRCC states explicitly “Under these programs, immigrants are selected based on their human capital or ability to fill Canadian labour market needs rather than their vulnerability and need for protection” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). It is clear, then, that the policy presents first and foremost the economic interests in Canada rather than that of refugees seeking asylum, without regard for the safety or potential for the exploitation of refugees

The families of Primary applicants face further challenges, with the only references to the family of the primary applicant being in the capacity of dependents (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023). Further complications for the family of the principal applicant are who is considered family, with only a spouse, a dependent child, and the dependent child of a dependent child being defined as family (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023b). Any other family, for example chosen family or people whose marriage is not recognized in the state they are leaving, are ineligible to be included on the documentation. The definition of “dependent child” is also of particular interest, with them being defined as under 22 years old without a spouse or a common-law partner, or as being 22 years or older while dependent on their parents for financial support since before the age of 22 and are unable to support themselves due to a mental or physical condition (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023b). This is of particular note for a few key reasons: 1.) there is a possibility that a person becomes financially dependent on their parents due to a condition they acquired after they turned 22, and 2.) because of the medical examination requirements that are not waived for applicants of the EMPP.

According to Guide 0196 (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023), all accompanying applicants must undergo a medical examination that the applicant should not pay for. The guide further says that the medical examination must be conducted by “panel physicians approved by IRCC” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023b). The guide makes it clear that the medical examination is a step towards establishing the admissibility for both the principal and accompanying applicants under existing regulation. However, this is complicated by a number of factors. Firstly, the guide also notes that “All family members must be declared in the application, even if they are not accompanying the principal applicant to Canada” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023b) as a means to enable the sponsoring of family members in the future. However, not mentioned in the guide, but rather mentioned on the “Determining Admissibility Page”, ““Federal EMPP candidates who are applying for a permanent resident visa as well as their family members, whether accompanying or not, must submit to a medical examination for the purpose of paragraph 16(2)(b) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), unless they fall under 1 of 2 medical exemptions” (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023a). It is evident then that the requirement to include all members on the initial application is to ensure that all members of the family, as defined by IRCC, undergo the required medical examination. Secondly, the guide does not note that the costs associated with the medical examination are only covered if all applicants have met the eligibility requirements for the EMPP, of which showing that none of the applicants exceed the “excessive demand threshold” is one (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023a). Finally, the page “determining” admissibility” states that there are 2 medical exceptions that allow an applicant to not undertake a medical examination (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2023a), however on neither the determining admissibility page nor the page it links to are the exemptions listed. It is clear that the kafkaesque web of admissibility pages presents the family as a potential burden, limiting the economic exploitation of the principal applicant.

Applicants for the EMPP are expected not only to submit themselves to economic exploitation as a means to fill Canadian labour demands, but also to subject themselves to medical examinations that may or may not be covered by the Canadian government. For those with complex care needs, for example a dependent child with a mental or physical condition that forces them to be financially reliant on their parents, they may find themselves inadmissible and required to pay the cost of the medical examination. The EMPP as a whole represents a refugee policy that, as IRCC noted, strays outside of the typical bounds of humanitarianism  (Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada 2020). However, this pilot program has firmly positioned itself into a state where principal applicant refugees with credentials friendly to Canadian labour markets are biased regardless of humanitarian need, where the families of principal applicants are required to subject themselves to medical examinations regardless of whether or not they will be accompanying the principal applicant, and one where the process of application may end up financially exploiting the refugee as they attempt to enter Canada.

Conclusion

The EMPP represents the distillation of capitalistic domination (Jeffrey Shantz and Williams 2013) into refugee policy. The opening of a pathway for refugee resettlement that biases Canadian markets is deeply problematic, and can put refugees into a precarious situation where economic exploitation becomes far easier; with refugees being reliant on employment to remain in Canada. Greater exploration is needed into the direct effects of this policy on refugees resettled under the early phases of the pilot program, however the language of the EMPP shows that the policy exists as a means to benefit forces of capital first and foremost. The policy reinforces Euroamerican class divides by requiring experience in careers that are only attainable through access to education systems friendly to Euroamerican labour markets. The Policy further reinforces entrenched ableism within Canadian society at large by explicitly stating that a family can be refused entry based on the level of care needed. The EMPP represents a large step back in refugee resettlement policy, and itself shows the profound lack of care in the construction of government policy with regards to refugee resettlement.

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1. Emphasis my own ↩︎