(Re)Constructing and resisting irregularity: (Non)citizenship, Canada's interim federal health program, and access to healthcare

Abstract

This article analyzes the experiences of refugee claimants in Toronto's everyday healthcare places, like walk-in clinics, doctor's offices, and hospitals, in the aftermath of the 2012 Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) revisions. By drawing upon critical migration scholarship that prioritizes (non)citizenship, as well as semi-structured interviews, I highlight how the social positioning of refugee claimants is modulated in ways that justify and extend the IFHP revisions to effectively deny access to healthcare, demonstrating the indeterminacy of access. I understand this process through the concept of irregularity, a non-juridical status that is contingently configured and enforced by state and non-state actors when one is (re)constructed as "out of place, " hence limiting access to resources and rights. In accordance with citizenship, it indicates how we can think of the (re)fashioning of people and groups particularly within the everyday. I follow this with a critical analysis of the contestations that emerged to challenge the IFHP revisions and the irregularity of refugee claimants so as to capture the politics of irregularity.