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government to fill the gaps in EI during the pandemic. Anyone
without a valid Social Insurance Number, including undocumented
migrants and foreign workers with expired permits, is ineligible for
the new benefit.35 Apparently, these migrants lack the right documen-
tation to make them part of us and to deserve our aid.
Problems With a Us-Versus-Them Approach
People who embrace a cosmopolitan worldview often find it mor-
ally problematic to distinguish individuals based on citizenship and
immigration statuses.36 Many of them have pointed to international
law’s guarantee of universal human rights to demand the provision of
health and social care by governments to everyone within their respec-
tive jurisdiction.37 Others, by contrast, have defended the right of
national communities to define who they are and whom they allow to
join them.38 From such a perspective, some degree of us-versus-them
in public policy making is said to help bind a community together
and facilitate resource sharing among community members.39 It is
not my intention to resolve this long-standing debate here. Instead,
I argue that even without resorting to cosmopolitan ethics, the line
drawing between citizens and migrants embedded in Canada’s pan-
demic responses falls short, as it contravenes the dictates of equality
and reciprocity, as well as public health objectives.
Citizenship as a legal regime recognizes and protects the inter-
ests of individuals who belong to a specific community on such bases
as their personal ties and social participation.40 As made plain by the
pandemic, many migrants who are currently denied health care and
income supports in fact closely resemble their citizen counterparts in
terms of their belonging to the Canadian society. Far from strangers
to us, they are our coworkers, caregivers, families, neighbours, and
march/1420/The-Great-Canadian-Rip-Off-An-Economic-Case-for-Restoring-
Full-EI-Special-Benefits-Access-to-SAWP-Workers.pdf>.
35. Meyer, supra note 33.
36. Thomas W Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty” (1992) 103:1 Ethics 48 at
48–49.
37. See e.g. Cécile Rousseau et al, “Health Care Access for Refugees and Immigrants
With Precarious Status” (2008) 99:4 Can J Public Health 290.
38. See e.g. Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality,
(New York: Basic Books, 1983).
39. David Miller, “In What Sense Must Socialism Be Communitarian?” (1989) 6:2
Social Philosophy & Policy 51.
40. Joseph Carens, TheÂ
EthicsÂ
ofÂ
Immigration, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
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