The Migrant Monsters of Multiculturalism in Andrew Currie’s Fido

On June 9, 2008, the Canadian House of Commons passed an amendment to the Immigrant and Refugee Protection Act. Titled Bill C-50, the amendment shifts discretionary powers from Parliament to current and future immigration and citizenship ministers. Touted by the Conservative Party as an expedient remedy to the 900,000-applicant backlog and an estimated labour shortage of 300,000, Bill C- 50 raised immediate concerns within immigrant and activist communities (CBC News, 2008). Critics contend that the bill caters to the interests of Canadian employers and business lobbyists in its provision of “disposable” and inexpensive labour, while “family” and “refugee” applications may be deferred indefinitely and without recourse. In some ways, the changes under Bill C-50 are redolent of the Live-in Caregiver Program in Canada as well as the Bracero Program (1942-1964), Guest Worker legislation and H-2A initiatives in the US, all of which offered temporary visas to migrant workers but resembled what Gilbert Gonzalez calls “an imperialist schema of colonial labour” (2006, p. 2). Whereas government policies in North America continue to reduce migrants to economic figures, other conservative discourses depict migrants as self-identical foreigners who flood the economy with cheap labour, deplete welfare resources reserved for “native”citizens and present a possible threat of terror in the “post-9/11” era. If “the socalled invasion of immigrants is the exaggerated rhetoric” of political pundits, however, “the increase in global migration within and from Third World countries is real” (Bakan and Stasiulis, 1997b, p. 30).