Immigrants and migrants face uneven impacts from COVID-19: report
Many immigrants and migrants, such as migrant farm workers, have faced uneven impacts from Canada’s response to COVID-19.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrants and migrants in Canada have faced border closures, risked exposure to the virus as front-line workers and are even challenged by the geography of the neighbourhoods in which many of them live. Ryerson University researchers have examined the first four months of responses to the pandemic and assessed the wide-ranging repercussions on Canada’s immigrants, migrants and settlement systems so far. They’ve found there to be an “uneven” response, with many hardships faced, but some positive outcomes as well.
Politics and public administration professor John Shields and Zainab Abu Alrob, a Ryerson policy studies PhD student, recently published their findings in the report, COVID-19, Migration and the Canadian Immigration System: Dimensions, Impact and Resilience. “We’re trying to get some indication of some of the questions that are going to be raised and likely to be prominent in the near future at least, and probably longer than that,” said professor Shields.
Using social resilience as a conceptual frame, the paper assesses a number of ways in which populations like temporary workers, recent immigrants, international students, asylum seekers and other immigrants and migrants have been affected by pandemic responses such as border closures, racism, access to government benefits and more.
Their research shows the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are unevenly distributed, as is access to programs and benefits, particularly for migrants and immigrants. Many immigrants and migrants are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 because they are employed in jobs that were previously considered unskilled but are now deemed front-line essential services. Crowded housing in dense neighbourhoods and the reliance on public transit add further risk.
“One of the things the report is saying is we need to be concerned about the working conditions of many vulnerable workers, like many immigrants and migrant workers. The virus just doesn’t stay with one community, it does spread out,” said professor Shields.
While he noted that the Canadian response to COVID-19 has been superior to that of the U.S., professor Shields said they found a number of ways in which Canada’s measures have impacted immigrants and migrants negatively.
For example, many recent immigrants and migrants don’t qualify for countrywide benefits such as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit. Deportations have been paused, professor Shields noted, but so has acceptance of asylum seekers. Even small actions like library closures have negatively impacted those who depend on libraries for computer and internet access.
Other things have gone well. Professor Shields pointed to the pivot of some settlement service agencies to delivering supports online. This helped to increase access to information for people like parents who would otherwise need to arrange for child care, or for people based in areas where settlement services weren’t as available. Government initiatives like an increase in pay for front-line workers or Ontario’s move to waive a three-month waiting period for access to public health for immigrant newcomers are additional examples of positive steps. Overall, however, the report found gaps that have left migrant populations more vulnerable.
This research was supported through Ryerson’s contribution to Building Migrant Resilience in Cities (external link) , a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded initiative.