Super Visa Program: Immigration Policy Changes and Social Injustice under the Neoliberal Governmentality in Canada

Abstract: In November 2011, Citizenship and Immigration Canada paused the parents/grandparents (PGP) sponsorship immigration and announced a new Super Visa program simultaneously to facilitate family reunification, specifically among older adults waiting to be reunified with their children in Canada. We conducted a qualitative study to understand the experiences of immigrant families with the Super Visa Program. In total, 19 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Toronto with Chinese immigrants and parents holding a Super Visa. Our findings revealed that Super Visa program is helpful for family reunification, especially for those whose regular visa applications are not successful. However, Super Visa is still a visitor visa and parents/grandparents have to leave after a maximum of two years. This temporary status of their parents does not promote among immigrants a sense of belonging in Canada, but reinforces their feeling of being treated as “foreigner”. They also debunked the stigma that older parents/grandparents come to Canada for better welfare and are non-contributor and a burden to Canadian society. We observe older parents/grandparents are categorized as “undesirable” and their unpaid contributions to immigrant family and Canada society are rendered invisible. We argue there exits an inherent link between PGP policy changes and social injustice. Behind the negative portrayal of older parents/grandparents and policy changes on them is State’s neoliberal governmentality grounded upon market norms and mechanism. The immigration and social injustice inflicting on older PGP migrants manifests that neoliberal immigration regime is still structurally raced, gendered, classed, and may be intertwined with other stigmatizing dynamics such as ageist, ableist etc. within the State’s power relationship.