Branding ‘Canadian Experience’ in Immigration Policy: Nation Building in a Neoliberal Era

Rupaleem Bhuyan (), Daphne Jeyapal, Jane Ku, Izumi Sakamoto and Elena Chou
Additional contact information
Rupaleem Bhuyan: University of Toronto
Daphne Jeyapal: Thompson Rivers University
Jane Ku: University of Windsor
Izumi Sakamoto: University of Toronto
Elena Chou: York University

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2017, vol. 18, issue 1, No 3, 47-62

Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the branding of ‘Canadian experience’ in Canadian immigration policy as a rhetorical strategy for neoliberal nation-building. Since 2008, the Canadian government has introduced an unprecedented number of changes to immigration policy. While the bulk of these policies produce more temporary and precarious forms of migration, the Canadian government has mobilized the rhetoric of ‘Canadian experience’ as a means to identify immigrants who carry the promise of economic and social integration. Through a critical discourse analysis of Canadian print media and political discourse, we trace how the brand of Canadian experience taps into the affective value of national identity in an era of global economic insecurity. We also illustrate how the discourse of Canadian experience (CE) remains ideologically deracialized, such that the government’s embrace of CE as an immigrant selection criterion dismisses the discriminatory effects that this discourse is shown to have for racialized immigrants in Canada.

Keywords: Immigration policy; Canadian experience; Nation building; Skilled immigrant; Racialized immigrants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joimai:v:18:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s12134-015-0467-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-015-0467-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().