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Permanently Temporary

The Vulnerable Status of Temporary Foreign Workers in Canada

By Hannah Mankalanayagam

“The love is [...] dead” (Martin, 2018, 264). These are the words of Joseph, a Nigerian asylum seeker in Canada who had to leave his wife and children back home, talking about the damaged remains of the emotional bond between his children and himself (Martin, 2018, 260, 264). Gabriel, a Saint Lucian migrant worker, was forced to leave his children behind in order to provide for them (Di Cintio, 2026, 122). While Gabriel experienced difficult and exploitative working conditions, he knew that returning to Canada year after year was the best way he could financially support his family. Unfortunately for Gabriel, it was too late to salvage his relationship with his children when they finally reunited on Canadian soil after years of separation (Di Cintio, 2026, 122) Just like Joseph and Gabriel, thousands of temporary workers and migrants come to Canada knowing they are sacrificing their close relationship with their families in order to provide for them. Unlike Joseph and Gabriel, who eventually had the opportunity to live in Canada with their wife and kids, many temporary foreign workers come to Canada knowing the program will not allow their families to accompany them.

This paper will argue that temporary foreign workers working and living in Canada are vulnerable because of their status as non-citizens in Canada and their separation from their family. It will do so through three different disciplines, political science, sociology, and psychology. Each aspect will have its own argument, and it will be supported by data from various studies and articles. The political science aspect will look at the shortcomings of the fundamental human rights framework in protecting temporary foreign workers and non-citizens in Canada by examining international treaties, litigations and court rulings. It will also look at how corporate lobbying affects the temporary foreign worker permits in Canada thanks to bivariate associations. The sociology section will examine how temporary foreign workers are vulnerable because of their status as non-citizens by looking at interviews of migrant and local Canadian farm workers and Canadian seafood workers. Furthermore, it will argue that the separation between transnational families negatively impacts both migrants and their families by using interviews with the parties involved. The psychology aspect will look at the negative impacts of temporary foreign workers' separation from their families on their mental health. More specifically, it will look at how this separation causes social isolation thanks to the interviews of migrants and their families back home. Further studies will show that while migrants who move alone are more likely to experience depressive symptoms, reuniting these families avoids this effect. Finally, this paper aims to educate the Immigrant Worker’s Center in Montreal about the challenges these migrants face. This paper will recommend solutions both Canadian courts and local organizations can apply in order to improve the rights of non-citizens living and working in Canada.

Political science is a discipline that studies politics, including government processes, policies, and political events that occur (Whitaker, 2006). This discipline also covers the relationships between power, politics, and human beings (Whitaker, 2006). This paper will be taking a closer look at the different policies in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), and the International Mobility Program (IMP) — which I will collectively call “temporary foreign worker programs in Canada” — and examine their impacts on non-citizens, specifically, temporary migrant workers. This aspect will include a quick overview of the TFWP and the workers recruited. Secondly, it will examine how the international framework for human rights finds limited application to temporary foreign workers residing in Canada and the influence of corporate lobbying on the temporary foreign worker stream.

First, it is important to understand the SAWP and TFWP and how these workers come to Canada in the first place. For example, the SAWP is a branch of the TFWP that provides employers in the agricultural sphere with cheap and flexible labor (Knott, 2016, 378, McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 683). These workers, being temporary migrants, are in an area of exception which means that they cannot access various rights that they would otherwise be able to claim (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 684).

Because the immigration system, the TFWP and the branches within are constantly changing and evolving, this paper will refer to certain programs and systems that may currently have different names and policies, or programs that may no longer exist. This paper will still mention these programs and outdated names because the studies and research were done with workers within these programs. Furthermore, while the number of low-skilled migrants coming through the TFWP might have recently gone down, this is simply because of a shift towards the IMP (O’Donnell & Skuterud, 2022, 533). O’Donnell & Skuterud use the data collected from the government, various census and even Statistics Canada, in order to document the changes in the different TFWP and low-skilled worker streams (O’Donnell & Skuterud, 2022). Because their article looks at the impact policy changes have had on these streams, they conclude that the decrease of low-skilled workers in the TFWP does not accurately represent the impact of these policies. In fact, there was a 62 percent increase in the amount of low-skilled worker permits issued between 2015 and 2019 (O’Donnell & Skuterud, 2022, 519). However, 85 percent of this increase happened in the IMP, a program that is less transparent than the TFWP (O’Donnell & Skuterud, 2022, 519). These temporary workers are now harder to track, and makes it harder to push for accountability (O’Donnell & Skuterud, 2022, 519).

Unfortunately, temporary workers in Canada are non-citizens which excludes them from the same protections Canadian citizens are able to receive (Basok & Carasco, 2010, 344). For example, migrants are typically unable to claim their rights because of various barriers like language, their vulnerable status, lack of finances, and their unfamiliarity with a foreign legal system (Basok & Carasco, 2010, 345, 356). Temporary foreign workers are also not likely to file complaints against their employers because of the control they have on workers and misinformation the employers can give (Hari, 2014, 41). While international laws and human rights treaties grant universal human rights to both citizens and non-citizens, it is very rarely applied to temporary migrants (Basok & Carasco, 2010, 344).

Gabriel was a non-citizen in Canada during the 3 years he spent working as a temporary foreign worker. During those years he worked as hard, if not harder than Canadian workers. However, the laws that regulate Canadian working conditions and housing rights do not apply to him because of his status (Di Cintio, 2026, 119). Why would these human rights not be applicable to non-citizens living in Canada?

Most of the human rights that are considered fundamental are part of six treaties: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT); and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). These conventions have been monumental in advancing the ideals of universal human rights regardless of one’s status as they argue that simply being human should guarantee a person their basic human rights (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 346).

This article is difficult to summarize and is not particularly clear about its method. It talks into detail about various policy changes and policy change attempts that have been done in order to improve the rights of non-citizen people in Canada. There are a lot of cases and legal arguments that are presented in the article, which offers both policy changes and recommendations. The target audience of this paper are organizations revolved around human, worker and migrant rights, and this article explores the different ways these types of organizations have been able to progressively change and improve human rights.

This article presents an example of how local and grassroots organizations can use these international conventions to help the progress of the application of human and migrant rights in their host countries. One of the cases presented in this article is a perfect example of the process a Canadian organization can use to claim rights for migrant workers (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 351). The United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) is a Canadian trade union that was able to use the international human rights framework in order to support the protection of migrants’ rights (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 354). The UFCW was able to find support from judges who viewed the trade union’s litigations as an opportunity to define the Canadian state’s obligations towards non-citizens (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 356).

Unfortunately, policies concerning temporary foreign work in Canada follow the interests of various firms and corporations. This source by Rheault examines how businesses and corporate lobbying impact immigration policies in Canada.

The author uses fine-grained quarterly data from 1996 to 2011. This data collected is on lobbying, skills-based immigration, and temporary foreign workers. Rhealt’s methodology for this research consists of using vector autoregression (VAR) and Granger causality tests in order to find the relationship between corporate lobbying and immigration policies. VAR is used to find a relationship between different quantities over time. The Granger causality test, on the other hand, is used to see if one variable can help you forecast another variable.

During this process, Rheault found 5064 registration records from various entities who lobbied people in public offices regarding immigration policies. Using both VAR and the Granger causality test on the data, the author comes to the conclusion that higher levels of corporate lobbying precede a higher number of temporary foreign worker permits issued.

Rheault examines the bivariate associations between two variables, lobbying and an immigration stream. The author presents evidence related to permanent residents and economic migrants, however, this paper will only look at the relationship between corporate lobbying and the number of permits issued for temporary foreign workers (Rheault, 2013, 703, 704). More specifically, this paper will be using evidence from the cross-correlations between both variables throughout the years. The data found through this analysis were correlation coefficients; their value is between –1 and 1 and this value determines if there is an association between the variables and whether it is positive or negative. For this particular study, coefficients that were over 0.25 are considered evidence of a positive association between the variables (Rheault, 2013, 704). Since the coefficients were over 0.25 all throughout this analysis, Rheault concludes that lobbying does positively impact the immigration levels in Canada (Rheault, 2013, 704)

While the author does continue with his research and uses VAR to find out how robust this association between both variables is, the methodology and evidence that result from this research are not as important to support my argument. Afterall, I will argue that the correlation between corporate lobbying and the number of temporary foreign workers gives us insight into the priorities of programs like the TFWP. Furthermore, this shows the impact and reach these massive employers have on the TFWP. While the TFWP has newer policies to restrict employers who do not need cheap labor from overseas, these firms are able to increase the number of permits being issued. Is this truly a system that keeps these employers in check? Should these firms and corporations have access to more vulnerable workers simply because they lobby for it?

While temporary migrant workers are vulnerable due to their status as non-citizens living in Canada, they are still legally provided certain rights as workers. However, employers may deprive them of these rights and benefits because they are preying on the workers’ lack of knowledge, or they may simply realize that not many workers would complain or leave. Therefore, certain employers can comfortably ignore the regulations set in place to protect workers. In fact, their access to these rights relies on which farm they are working for. This study by Basok was conducted with Mexican seasonal workers on the employment conditions of their agricultural work. This study, that interviewed 254 Mexican farmworkers that were a part of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. These interviews with the migrant workers happened in stages and happened in several locations in Ontario and Mexico from 1996 to 1997. This study also interviewed 45 Leamington greenhouse growers about the people they would hire for their farmwork. However, this paper will focus on evidence from the study that only regards the 85 workers interviewed in a town called San Cristóbal who mentioned working in Ontario. According to the Employment Standards Act, Mexican farmworkers who worked for over 13 weeks were entitled to getting paid public holidays and vacation pay (Basok, 1999, 204). Unfortunately, this source does not give a clear overview of what this data, as a whole, reveals. Therefore, this source only gives data about how many of these agricultural workers access their right to their vacation pay. Basok’s evidence shows that out of the 85 workers interviewed over half of them (51) never received a vacation pay (Basok, 1999, 204), 29 of them received vacation pay while the remaining five had farms that paid and others that did not (Basok, 1999, 204). This blatant disregard for these workers’ rights shows how little some employers care for the rules and regulations that protect migrant workers.

Sociology is the study of human society with a focus on human relationships, behavior, and culture. It also investigates broader things like social structures and systems and how someone’s gender, ethnicity, class, mobility, sexuality, and other parts of them influence their place within society. This paper considers a person’s immigration status as something that significantly impacts their access to rights in Canada and their position in society (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 349). This aspect will cover how temporary foreign workers are more vulnerable because of their status as non-citizens in Canada and their separation from their families.

This paper will argue that temporary migrant workers that work in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program are legally non-citizens in Canada, they are more likely to face discrimination from their colleagues and employers. In fact, according to this French source by Mimeault & Simard, immigrant agricultural workers experience discrimination because of their immigration status.

This source uses a qualitative methodology featuring semi-structured interviews with the farm workers. This type of research helped the authors gather more complete data about the workers’ experiences. Furthermore, the authors wanted to explore a diachronic perspective by looking at the evolution of their experiences from the time they started to work to the present day (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 389). There was also a control group present in the research, this group consisted of the French-Canadians who were also brought to work on the farms. These 48 interviews happened in 1995 and lasted around two hours, however, two of these interviews ended up being rejected by the authors (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 389). Out of the remaining 46, 37 of the interviewees were immigrants while nine of them were born in Canada. Most of the immigrant workers were refugees and were in a very precarious situation (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 390). This source distinguishes between temporary foreign workers that are part of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and the agricultural workers researched in the article (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 393, 394). However, both of these groups are vulnerable and face similar challenges.

The authors found that a worker’s job conditions and relationships heavily depend on the farm they work for (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 400). In fact, both Canadian-born and immigrant workers were concerned about the amount of respect they receive and about being seen as human beings (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 401). While the authors do not give specific details about how many of the interviewees experienced this, the article includes that workers can face verbal and physical abuse from their employers, threats, humiliation and pression to work faster (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 401). In addition to these conditions, workers of color can face discrimination, through racist jokes or even a lack of contact from their peers (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 400, 401). Furthermore, workers note that, unlike the immigrant workers, there is a better complicity or rapport with the French-Canadian workers and their employers (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 401). Finally, the tasks workers are given tend to be the result of ethnical segregation and discrimination from the employers (Mimeault & Simard, 2005, 401).

Once again, the authors do not offer any statistics about the data they collected regarding how many of the 46 workers experienced these conditions. Nor does the source give information regarding the percentage of migrant workers who face discrimination and how it compares to the percentage of French-Canadian workers who may experience the same thing. Therefore, this paper will assume that these challenges disproportionately affect immigrant farm workers in Quebec. These challenges, the discrimination they face because of their status, also affect the temporary foreign workers that come to Canada. This separation and segregation in Canada. can be especially isolating and difficult for the workers like Gabriel who left their friends and families back in their home country.

Gabriel knew that his working conditions in Canada were lower than what he expected. The environment was harsher, the hours were longer, and work was demanding, yet Gabriel stayed. This was not because he had a better work ethic than others, nor because he was passionate about the work. No matter the conditions in Canada, Gabriel decided that this was the best way to support his children (Di Cintio, 2026, 118, 119, 122).

Employers prefer getting access to low-skilled migrant workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, and its many streams, because they are more likely to work harder, longer hours (Knott, 2016, 389, 390). These companies are able to lobby for more temporary foreign workers with less restrictions placed on the employers. Knott’s case study drew data from a review of relevant documents paired with ethnographic fieldwork. There were 36 interviews with workers who processed seafood, plant managers, and other informants. 21 of those interviewed were either currently working in the industry or had previous experience. Furthermore, 20 of these interviewees were owners, managers, or in another position of power. Unfortunately, this study does not state how many of the seafood processing workers are locals and how many are migrants. However, both local and migrant workers admit that the migrant workers are more likely to work longer hours without complaints (Knott, 2016, 389, 390). Furthermore, one of the interviewed migrant workers admits that she works more hours than the government mandated limit in order to send money to her relatives back home in the Philippines (Knott, 2016, 390). This willingness to work hours that locals would be reluctant to take makes them a better fit for employers who prefer this flexibility (Knott, 2016, 388, 389). Unlike the local workers who left the industry after the pay cuts and harsher conditions, migrants do not have the same options available (Knott, 2016, 389). Their precarious status as non-citizens in Canada permits employers to overwork them in difficult working conditions for a lower salary without receiving complaints (Knott, 2016,, 388, 389).

Temporary foreign workers are a lot more vulnerable in the workforce because of their separation from their families. This is an important aspect of temporary foreign work because that affects many temporary foreign workers. Over 90% of the Mexican temporary foreign workers that are part of the SAWP are married fathers (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 683). Additionally, most of these fathers who have to leave their families back home for months have worked in Canada for over six seasons (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 683). This separation negatively impacts these workers’ mental health and their relationships with their spouses and children; however, this discipline will focus on how they cause these temporary foreign workers to be more vulnerable than others in the workforce. McLauglin et al. researched the effects of familial separation over months, years and even decades caused by the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) in Canada. SAWP is a program between Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean in which farm workers migrate to Canada without their families (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 683). McLaughlin et al.’s research focused on collecting qualitative data from migrant workers who worked in Canada and their spouses, adult children and the staff from their younger children’s school. (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 689). Finally, this article includes recommendations made by the SAWP workers and their family members themselves (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 689, 695-699).

The data in this research was collected from 74 semi-structured interviews conducted in Spanish that lasted between one to two hours (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 689). While some of the workers were interviewed during their stay in Ontario, Canada in 2011, most of the participants were interviewed in the rural villages in Guanajuato State where they lived (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 689). The semi-structure setting permitted the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program interviewees to speak about what motivated them to leave their families and pursue working in Canada and allowed their family members to talk about the impact this separation had on them (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 689). While the authors do not say how many of the 44 interviewed workers experienced a more distant relationship with their children, they say that many of these workers’ children considered their own fathers as strangers (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 690). Furthermore, according to the authors’ research, these migrant workers overwhelmingly want to financially support their families (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 690). The reliance of their families puts pressure on them to stay in abusive environments for the sake of their loved ones.

Psychology is defined as the study of mental states, processes, and human behavior. This discipline also covers how and why people’s brains and minds work the way they do and how various genetic and environmental variables can impact someone’s behavior. This aspect will cover how the separation between the transnational families negatively impacts migrant workers living and working in Canada by causing social isolation and an increased risk of depression.

This aspect will feature the qualitative research of McLaughlin who gathers data from the families negative about the impacts due to emotional and social isolation. Further studies will show how this separation causes an increase in the incidence of depressive syndrome and anxiety in these workers (Mucci et al., 2019, 1) Finally, the article by Lu will prove that reuniting these families avoids this impact on migrant workers’ mental health.

First and foremost, temporary foreign workers who leave their families back home experience social and emotional isolation. While this article differentiates between emotional and social isolation, this paper will group them into the same category for the sake of simplicity. The sudden change in moving to a new country, whether or not it is a temporary move, impacts those who had a strong community in their home country the most (Martin, 2018, p.

This separation brings a mental toll for those involved, in fact, every participant spoke about the difficulties of being separated from their families and expressed the theme of “emotional isolation” (Martin, 2018, 261). Various participants felt what the authors described as pain, overwhelming sadness, and insecurity because of the distance from their families (Martin, 2018, 261). While Martin, unfortunately, does not provide what percentage of the participants felt the different emotions, this study provides evidence that every interviewee was negatively impacted by the separation from their loved ones (Martin, 2018, 261, 262, 263).

Mucci et al. wrote a systematic review with the goal of identifying the main disorders that affect migrant workers, the riskier occupational sectors, finding the geographical areas that are the most involved and featuring preventative strategies found in the research (Mucci et al., 2019, 2). This means that it includes evidence and data from 127 articles related to the “psychological disorders of migrant workers” (Mucci et al., 2019, 3). The selected articles were only chosen after passing the assessment of three different reviewers and then placed into their respective categories of either systematic reviews or original articles (Mucci et al., 2019, 3, 4). The articles that ended up being a part of this systematic review contain both qualitative and quantitative data in their research. Mucci et al. examined the evidence and conclusions presented and used it to confirm their hypothesis that these migrant workers are more likely to be affected by psychological disorders like depression. To begin, migrant workers who are socially isolated are more likely to be psychologically distressed and develop depression (Mucci et al., 2019, 9). This paper will examine the evidence presented in two articles studied by Mucci et al. According to one of the studies by Negi and colleagues, there was a positive correlation between social isolation, discrimination, and psychological distress (Mucci et al., 2019, 9). Therefore, preventing and reducing social isolation and any stigmas that might be associated to migrant workers is important in order to make sure their mental health is not negatively impacted. Furthermore, a cohort study by Lu Yao confirmed the hypothesis that migrant workers were more likely than people who were not migrants to report depressive symptoms (Mucci et al., 2019, 4, 9). However, this did not apply to migrants who were accompanied by their family members. In fact, this research presumes that depressive symptoms were caused by family separation (Mucci et al., 2019, 9). Which means that preventing the separation and reuniting the family would be beneficial to migrants.

Temporary foreign workers have higher risks of experiencing depression when they migrate alone. However, this can be avoided if migrants get the right to migrate with their families.

The data used in this study was collected from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) in 2000 and 2007 (Lu, 2011, 151). This survey was first conducted in 1993, then in 1997, 2000 and finally, 2007 (Lu, 2011, 151). Because over 90 percent of the same households were tracked down and interviewed over the span of a decade, the IFLS was able to track down the migration histories of the households (Lu, 2011, 151). Unfortunately, only the last two waves of the IFLS collected data concerning the depressive symptoms household members might have experienced, so this source will only look at the 2000 and 2007 surveys (Lu, 2011, 151).

The IFLS used a shorter version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) in their 2007 survey (Lu, 2011, 152). This questionnaire, that contained 10 questions worth a maximum of three points each, is considered a reliable screening method of depressive symptoms (Lu, 2011, 152). At the end of test, the total of each question is tallied up with the limit being 30 points and the higher scores were indications of more depression (Lu, 2011, 152). Researchers were able to investigate the impact of migration on the migrants’ health with data collected before and after the migration because of the longitudinal nature of the study (Lu, 2011, 153).

While this source contains four different hypotheses presented by Lu, this paper will concentrate on the third hypothesis: negative health will tend to be reduced when migrant workers are joined by their families (Lu, 2011, 151). After taking into account variables that may affect the results, Lu sorted out the data found in five different tables. However, this paper will take a closer look at the third table. This table contains the results of fixed effect models that predicted the depressive symptoms by migration status (Lu, 2011, 157). These results show that female migrants are more likely to experience depressive symptoms than non-migrant residents (Lu, 2011, 156, 157). This evidence helps me argue that migrants are more susceptible to being depressed because of their migration. However, the key evidence from this article is that women who migrated with their families are less likely to have depressive symptoms (Lu, 2011, 156, 157). This shows that simply granting temporary foreign workers access to bringing their families to Canada with them can reduce the toll of migration on these migrants’ mental health. Furthermore, it highlights how a lack of familial separation and family reunification would help temporary foreign workers and other non-citizens who migrate to Canada.

This paper aims to push local Canadian organizations to act in order to reunite transnational families that have been separated by the TFWP and make sure that these migrants are able to access the same human rights as other Canadians. Afterall, why should Gabriel’s status cause him to be excluded from these rights, exploited by his employers and separated from his children (Di Cintio, 2026, 118, 119, 122)? This paper does acknowledge the important role of Canadian courts and judges in the progression of human and migrant rights in Canada. However, this paper encourages local and grassroots organizations focused on migrant, labor and human rights in Canada to push for the advancement of the rights of non-citizens in Canada (Basok & Carasco, 2010, & Carasco 364). Helping migrants through litigations and other cases is an excellent way to slowly but steadily push Canada forwards. In the midst of so many possible improvements that can be made, there is one that stands out for migrant families and researchers alike: the reunification of transnational families. In fact, both the families in McLaughlin’s study and the data from Lu’s research confirm that access to reunification is meaningful and impactful for all members of these broken families (McLaughlin et al., 2018, 2018, 699, Lu, 2011, 156, 157). Therefore, organizations, like the Immigrant Worker’s Center and Solidarity Without Borders in Montreal, should take concrete actions towards fighting for these families to be united by pushing for policy changes that would give temporary foreign workers the ability to bring their families to Canada with them. These are also organizations that have access to legal teams and have used public pressure to help migrant workers in the past (Cheung, 2026). Therefore, they are already equipped to help these migrant workers.

To conclude, this paper argues that temporary foreign workers are vulnerable because of their status as non-citizens and their separation from their families. These migrants are not sufficiently protected by international human rights treaties and conventions. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program and its branches are influenced by the interests of employers and lobbying. These employers are able to push for the hiring of low-skilled migrant workers and take advantage of their inability to leave. These workers experience social isolation and changing relationships with their families after months, years, or even decades of separation. They are also at a higher risk of having depressive symptoms when migrating alone. However, this does not apply to migrant workers who are able to be accompanied by their families. That is why this paper recommends local and grassroots organizations to push for the temporary foreign workers’ right to reunite with their families in Canada through litigations. Afterall, that is the best way to steadily improve the rights of Canadian non-citizens.

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