Page - 409 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
Image of the Page - 409 -
Text of the Page - 409 -
409Migrant
Health in a Time of Pandemic: Fallacies of Us-Versus-Them
these government measures are directed at migrants, they have been
primarily aimed at regulating migrants’ admission into the country,
as opposed to safeguarding migrants’ health and well-being.4
The suggestion that migrants are “of risk,” despite their being “at
risk” in actuality, both reflects and reinforces the “othering” of migrants
in receiving societies.5 Through the process of othering, an in-group
exploits its privilege to define who belongs and rationalize the status
loss of those deemed deviant.6 With regard to migrants, this process
is advanced by the narrative of public health threat, which pits them
against the native-born: allegedly, their exotic diseases endanger our
health. This notion of us-versus-them in turn dulls receiving societies’
sense of responsibility for the protection of migrants and instead steers
public health policies toward the protection of society from migrants.
In this essay, I set out to problematize the othering of migrants
amid Canada’s COVID-19 responses. I begin by offering a counter-
narrative to the typical portrayal of migrants as a threat, in which I
lay bare migrants’ heightened risk of COVID-19 infection in Canada.
Next, I show that irrespective of migrants’ vulnerability, many con-
tinue to be excluded from government health care and income sup-
port programs in the wake of the pandemic. Even when migrants do
qualify for these programs, there remain concerns about accessibility
because of the government’s insufficient assurance that service utili-
zation will not negatively affect migrants’ ability to stay in the coun-
try. Such an insistent divide between citizens and migrants as us and
them, I argue, is especially problematic in a time of a pandemic. Not
only does it disregard migrants’ belonging in Canadian society, but it
also undermines the pursuit of public health.
Migrants as a Vulnerable Population
Canada has long relied on migrants, including an increasing num-
ber of temporary foreign workers, to alleviate its labour shortages.7
4. See e.g. MinimizingÂ
theÂ
RiskÂ
ofÂ
ExposureÂ
toÂ
COVID-19Â
CoronavirusÂ
DiseaseÂ
inÂ
CanadaÂ
Order (Prohibition of Entry into Canada), PC 2020-0157.
5. Natalie J Grove and Anthony B Zwi, “Our Health and Theirs: Forced Migration,
Othering, and Public Health” (2006) 62 Social Science & Medicine 1931.
6. Ibid at 1933.
7. Alan G Green & David A Green, “The Economic Goals of Canada’s Immigration
Policy: Past and Present” (1999) 25:4 Can Public Policy 425; Myer Siemiatycki,
“Marginalizing Migrants: Canada’s Rising Reliance on Temporary Foreign
Workers” (2010) Can Issues 60.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International