An overview of discourses of skilled immigrants and "Canadian experience"

"Canadian experience" is an elusive but influential factor in immigrants' unsuccessful attempts to obtain gainful employment. It may constitute "hard skills" (e.g., credentials) and, more importantly, "soft skills", an ability to operate within "Canadian workplace culture", a concept that is tacitly understood within a given context and difficult to articulate (Sakamoto et al., 2010). We examined public discourses on "Canadian experience" through English-language print media in Toronto, Ontario, to identify and unpack the tacit dimension of this popular concept. We found that recurring discourses construct "desirable" immigrants, often through archetypes of "successful", "humble" and "unlucky" immigrants. While print media may involve multiple voices, it represents immigrants largely as a problem to be solved within the legal and social policy context. Finally, we link our analysis of "Canadian experience" to ideological investments and tensions on Canadian immigration and the role immigrants are perceived to play in Canadian nation-building.