The Impermanence of Permanence: The Rise of Probationary Immigration in Canada

This article engages with arguments that contemporary immigration politics is defined by a “loss of settlement” by examining recent developments in Canadian immigration and refugee policy that have made permanent residence less permanent. We suggest that the rise of probationary immigration has been facilitated by horizontal status stratification within groups that were historically marked by relative status equality. In order to examine this claim empirically in the Canadian context, we analyze the rise of temporary foreign worker recruitment, the move from “one‐step” to “two‐step” immigration, and changes to refugee policy that, for the first time, linked loss of refugee status to the loss of permanent resident status.