Migration, Pandemic and the Guardian Angels: The Case of Health Care Attendants in Quebec

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront complex inter-relations between human mobility and worldwide public health concerns. Throughout history, migrant communities have been identified as the scapegoats for the cross-border transmission and spreading of infectious diseases. A different rhetoric emerged during the recent Covid-19 crisis in Quebec and Canada: that of the migrant worker as « guardian angel. » Expressed through this rhetoric was public acknowledgement of the crucial role that migrants played as essential workers during the pandemic, particularly in the health care system. The guardian angels also became the object of significant media attention during the pandemic period, particularly in relation to a special governmental program – known informally as the Guardian Angel program – put into place to regularize the migration statuses of asylum seekers and other precarious status migrants who had contributed to the pandemic effort. Although a seemingly positive expression of recognition and sympathy for their contributions during the crisis, the rhetoric of the guardian angel is not, however, without its tensions and contradictions. Drawing on the concepts of recognition and essential work, this rhetoric is examined in a study of the experiences of migrant Health Care Attendants (HCA) in Quebec health care institutions and public debate surrounding the Guardian Angel program. The results reveal the politics behind the recognition of migrant HCAs as essential workers in the health care system and, more generally still, of all precarious status migrant workers. While the circumstances surrounding Covid-19 produced unequalled and unimaginable working conditions, it also brought to the forefront structural problems already firmly entrenched in the health care system long before the pandemic. More than a pandemic crisis, the situation of migrant HCAs especially reveals a crisis of recognition and an ongoing site of struggle.