Abstract
Canada’s national narratives gesture to cosmopolitan ideals by celebrating the country as open and inclusive through the working of its immigration policy. Indeed, it has been suggested that Canada may be oriented toward a form of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’. This vision stands at odds with the experiences of skilled migrants who often encounter hurdles in the labour market. In this paper, we probe the ‘cosmopolitan paradox’ and its implications. Through a qualitative case study of 36 skilled newcomers, we document their experiences as they attempt to enter the labour market encountering barriers that reassert national frames and ‘Canadian standards’. We argue that if Canada is to live up to the promise of a cosmopolitan ideal, the stratifications and exclusions that mark the lives
of newcomers need to be addressed. It is not enough to attract increasing numbers of immigrants if they cannot become full members of the Canadian national community.

Introduction
The promise of Canada is a place where no matter who you are, where you come from, or what situation you were born into, you have every opportunity to live your life to its fullest potential. That promise makes our country such a great place to live and it’s the reason so many people from around the world choose to come to Canada for a new life. (Trudeau 2017)
In 2022, Canada welcomed 431,645 new immigrants and expects to exceed that level in 2025 with projected
numbers climbing to 500,000 (IRCC 2023a). Some pundits suggest that these record levels of immigration
are part of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ‘unique brand of progressive cosmopolitanism’ (Potter 2022).
Trudeau’s rhetoric around immigration is coupled with the deployment of his feminist credentials: ‘I am a
feminist’. While gender equity may indeed be a relatively recent addition to the repertoire, and is somewhat
less entrenched, both gender equity and immigration currently occupy a unique place in Canada’s national
imaginary and the image the current Federal Government seeks to propagate at home and abroad. Canada has relied on immigration to address its economic and demographic needs. Increasingly, from the 1990s onwards, Canada’s migration policies have privileged the ‘skilled’ economic migrant over other categories, such as family and humanitarian streams. In doing so, the country has been at the forefront of efforts to attract the ‘best and brightest’ in what Shachar and Hirschl term ‘the global race for talent’ through which countries promote ‘targeted and selective migration streams … as part of a long-term economic strategy for human-capital accretion that is seen as increasingly important for countries competing in a more globalized environment’ (2013, p. 74). The emphasis on migrants’ human capital investments is part of a broader neoliberal paradigm that emphasizes marketization and commodification of individual skills, talents, and abilities (Abu-Laban, Tungohan, & Gabriel 2023). In some ways, as Stephen Castles (2012) observes, this development resonates with a cosmopolitan dream of free mobility in a competitive labour market that is coupled with cultural openness and a growing acceptance of diversity. But as he points out, the experience of most of the world’s migrants is far from this dream and human capital itself is not the only marker of differentiation. Social relations of gender, ethnicity/race, origin, language, and status also come into play (2012, p. 1850).
In this paper we examine how two contradictory impulses underpin the labour market experiences of recent skilled migrant women and men. On the one hand, Canadian national narratives extoll the country’s openness towards immigrants from all parts of the world and espousal of gender equality. It may well be that Canada’s sense of itself on a global stage, its apparent embrace of feminist credentials and diversity speak to a nascent cosmopolitan vision. But on the other hand, the labour market experiences of recent skilled migrants point towards a much more complicated story and one that varies both among and within migrant groups. As extensive research (Bauder 2003, George & Chaze 2009, Reitz, Curtis, & Elrick 2014) has shown, many of their encounters are marked by a robust reassertion of the ‘particular’ and ‘national’ in the form of employment related criteria – ‘Canadian experience’ and ‘official’ language capacity – that often adversely impact newcomers’ ability to navigate the labour market and undermine attachments to the broader community. These on-the-ground experiences provide an important corrective to the discursive construction of Canada that has been promoted at home and abroad (see Foran 2017).

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Source UTS epress, Christina Gabriel, Luisa Veronis, Mars 2024