Conceptual Framework – To Know is Not Enough

My research closely follows the impact of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) on the immigrant settlement services and public legal education sectors. Currently I am focusing on the experiences of PLE programs for migrant workers in British Columbia, where I live and work.

As a PLE practitioner and analyst, I have been witness to the challenges that the omnipresence of TFWs represent for ISS providers all over BC, but more dramatically in rural and remote areas. As (temporary) migrants, TFWs are quite often driven to seek the culture and language-appropriate, free and professional, help and information from ISS organizations. Information about their legal rights is at the top in the list of services frequently sought by TFWs. A major obstacle arises, nonetheless, when ISS organizations are forced, by conditions set by their funders, to deny services to TFWs. Somewhere else (Contreras-Chavez, 2010) I have discussed the impact of Canada’s acts and regulations concerning citizenship and immigration, which makes most TFWs ineligible for Canadian permanent resident visa and the prospect of applying for Canadian citizenship. Further, because Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) is the principal funder of ISS services, and because TFWs are not considered by CIC as “citizen material”, ISS are not authorized to serve TFWs. In my research, I argue that Canada’s citizenship and immigration law are very much out of synch with the current realities of global or transnational migration and citizenship. That asynchrony, I believe, is a major contributor or catalyst to the rising need for PLE services for migrant workers, many of whom may indeed, not think of themselves as temporary but as permanent residents and de-facto Canadian citizens.

Understanding the concept of legal immigration status applicable to TFWs, and the kind of legal rights and responsibilities TFWs are entitled to in Canada, is of extreme importance in my research. Academics, policy analysts, legal professionals, PLE and ISS workers, and TFWs themselves, each has their own perspective of that understanding and the logic residing therein. The following is an excerpt from my earlier literature review regarding the concept of citizen(ship):

UBC Law professor Catherine Dauvergne (2008) argues that by creating the TFWP and other temporary immigration programs to fill a permanent labour need with temporary migrant workers is responsible for generating an increasing population of illegal or undocumented immigrants. Canada’s current immigration system won’t allow these undocumented migrants to become eligible to apply for or to regain legal immigration status. Dauvergne is not advocating for the deportation of illegal migrants, she rather argues but for legal reforms that will facilitate permanent resident status, and a pathway to Canadian citizenship. Her position echoes that of many other critiques of the TFWP and its seemingly illogic way to meet permanent labour markets needs. As Aiwa Ong et al. (1996) would have it, undocumented migrants often contribute more to the social and economic development of their host country than many of that country’s formal citizens. I also want to draw from Audrey Macklin’s approach to contemporary citizenship debates when she suggests that theorizing about “Who is the citizen?” has neglected certain social and legal realities. Theoretical work, she posits, needs to be done to understand “Who is the citizen’s Other?” (Macklin 2007, p. 335). The legal exclusion of low-skilled TFWs from citizenship status and from better employment opportunities inspired Audrey Goldring et al., (2009) to coin the term “precarious migration status” which I favour over that of “illegal immigrant”. People with precarious migration status are marked by “the absence of any elements normally associated with permanent residence (and citizenship) in Canada” (pp. 240-241), yet these are people who proactively contribute their skills and build new ones with which they participate in the social and cultural lives of their host communities. And as legal advocates in BC will attest (AWA 2012), the level of interest and need to learn about the legal and judicial systems of Canada is very high among people with precarious migration status that dominant assumptions about migrants as unlawful need to be questioned.

In my experience, program managers and funders are the only two stakeholders who are not only familiar with the term public legal education and information (PLEI), and who also have integrated the term to their discourse. PLE or PLEI are acronyms used in regulatory documents, public policy and funding agreements between service provider (non-profit organizations) and their public and/or private funders. At the frontline, or among people who provide direct services to the public or program beneficiaries, however, the initial concept of PLE or PLEI is somehow reinterpreted; the concept and the theories that informed it becomes praxis.

In my research, I analyze the praxis of, and philosophies (i.e., ideologies) behind, concepts such as the following one derived from the Federal Department of Justice when it states the purposes of PLE:

“People who come in contact with the system for whatever reason – as an offender, as a victim, as a witness – may not be aware of their obligations or where to get information about their situation. In our justice system, the public is expected to know the law. Knowledge about the law can help people better identify the kind of legal advice or assistance they may require. Public legal information is not intended to replace the services of a lawyer where it is required, but often it is helpful to have information about the law in question, in addition to seeking advice. [And] having access to information about the law and how to access legal and social resources in the community can be especially important to people who are vulnerable because of language barriers, economic reasons, reasons of discrimination, etc.” (Ibid, para 6-10).

Defining PLE is neutral or universal terms is not easy task. Behind a concept there is a philosophical and ontological orientation. The following is one of my earlier attempts to define PLE:

PLEI began as a movement within the law schools of Canada during the mid-1970s and spearheaded by a group of lawyers, educators and librarians. A national scope for PLEI in Canada was created in the 1980s with funding from the Department of Justice for province based PLEI organizations. Patti Pearcey1 (1979, p. 131-132) posits that “in an effort to alleviate the sense of helplessness which assails citizens in their attempts to contend with the law”, public legal education and information programs and services were created. PLEI thus, “help[s] to demystify the law” (Ibid). From the point of view of PLEI providers, the central tenet of public legal education, is that “an informed person can better deal with the complexities of modern life and and informed public can better understand and participate in the evaluation and the formation of law” (Ibid; see also Wurman, 2009, p. 61). Funding reductions of the past two decades require that PLEI be understood for its potential rather than what actually is. The potential of PLEI “lays in the public being engaged with the Canadian legal system as a proactive measure against social injustice” (Wurman, 2009, p. 61).

1In 1972 she co-founded and was Executive Director of British Columbia’s The People’s Law School, one of the several non-profit PLEI organizations formed all over Canada and the USA during that period.

Category: Conceptual Framework

(Legal) Canadian Citizenship

PLE or PLEI?