Whiteness and the Politics of Middle-class Nation-building in Canada (original) (raw)
Related papers
Ethnicities, 2020
Taking Canada as a widely envied and imitated example of liberal, "difference-blind" economic immigration, in this paper, I examine the permeability, constraints, and symbolic meaning of the different requirements of the naturalization process from the perspective of those who have undergone the process. Based on interviews with recently naturalized Canadians, my study reveals that the three steps of the application process-filing the application, studying the citizenship guide and sitting the test, attending the citizenship ceremony and swearing the citizenship oath-constitute mostly blurred boundaries for skilled and highly educated immigrants, with occasional bright boundaries related to management flaws, classed naturalization, and cultural biases. Specifically, immigrants endowed with valued forms of human capital are naturalizing fast and easily even if they are members of racial, ethnic or religious minorities. This underscores the strength of multiculturalism as national identity and ethos of societal integration. However, the attainment of citizenship in the multicultural nation does not come quasi-automatically as a right for everyone after years of lawful residency. Rather, it is granted as an earned privilege only to those who
Despite declarations of race's irrelevance, the Conservative Party of Canada's (CPC) stance on race-related policies under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's leadership was key to every electoral campaign it fought. Moreover, it is not despite but because of their race that racialized political elites have been incorporated into the CPC and its antecedents. Indeed, beginning in the 1990s, the inclusion of Asian Members of Parliament (MP) became for the Reform Party of Canada, a weapon in the struggle for electoral success; that is, part of an era of Conservative racial realignment. By tracing the role of Asian Conservative MP in the rise of the Reform Party since its 1987 inception and the electoral success of the CPC (2006–2015), this article explores how racialized political elites become crucial to the legitimization of the racial state when it is through a discourse of inclusion that exclusion is crafted.
Rethinking Multiculturalism After its " Retreat " : Lessons From Canada
At the beginning of the 21st century, many countries until the 1990s implemented multicultural policies that have backtracked. This article examines how multiculturalism as an idea and normative framework of immigrant integration evolved in Canada, the country that initiated it. Juxtaposing two recent time periods, the 1990s and the early 2000s, I conduct an analysis of dominant media and government discourses, which are interpreted against the backdrop of relevant policy changes. The theoretical framework underlines the relevance of socioethnic leveraging, which takes places as one group is constructed as socially, culturally, or morally more (or less) deviant from the dominant norm than the other. The outcome of leveraging can be fairly integrative. It can also reinforce minority marginalization. The analysis documents the importance of Québécois nationalism for the construction of Canadian multicultural identity in the 1990s and its relative absence during the reinvigoration of an Anglo-Saxon Canadian national core in the following decade. The article concludes that, from a comparative perspective, multiculturalism in Canada remains strong. However, its meaning has changed from being " about us " to being " about them. " Hence, although it was originally meant to be a national identity for all Canadians, it now risks becoming a minority affair. The fact that even in Canada multiculturalism has lost much of its original meaning should serve as a wake-up all. It suggests, among others, that the relationship between the national majority and minority groups need rethinking.
The Domestic Politics of Selective Permeability: Disaggregating the Canadian Migration State
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2023
Hollifield's 'migration state' concept draws attention to the political tension between openness and closure in liberal-democratic countries, arguing that domestic migration policy regimes represent an equilibrium outcome between security, rights, markets, and culture. This overstates national strategic control over migration and borders. Through a case study of recent developments in Canada, sometimes held up as the paradigmatic centralised liberal migration state, we present evidence of growing policy blurring, fragmentation, and decentralisation as migration management programmes have been patched and layered in response to controversies and pressure from domestic interests, including employers, higher education institutions, advocacy groups, and subnational governments. As a result, volumes of temporary foreign workers and foreign students have increased tenfold since 2000. More generally, we propose that a strategy of disaggregation reveals the internal complexity of, and political tensions within, contemporary migration states.
Syllabus POL220 - Immigration, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship in Canada
2023
It is no exaggeration to say that immigration has transformed Canada. Until the 1960s, immigration policies entrenched Canada’s identity as a self-declared “white man’s country.” Today, Canada is among the most culturally diverse industrialized democracies in the world. Most Canadians support relatively high levels of immigration and official multiculturalism. Populist anti-immigration politics, a bane of governments in many other democracies, is a marginal phenomenon in Canada. Some commentators have referred to Canada as “exceptional” and emulation of the “Canadian Model” of immigration is commonplace. This course explores Canada’s development into a multicultural immigration country, probing the degree to which Canada’s reputation as an exceptionally welcoming, tolerant country is warranted. We begin by tracing the evolution of Canadian immigration policy from Confederation to the present, asking why anti-immigration positions have generally failed since the late-1990s. We consider the politics of refugee resettlement and asylum, noting that in this area Canadian hospitality has distinct limits. We then turn to citizenship policy, an area where Canada is indeed unique, as most immigrants acquire Canadian citizenship. We move on to consider Canada’s policy of official multiculturalism, charting its origins, development, and shortcomings. We conclude by asking whether recent changes to immigration policy spell the end of the “Canadian Model.”
“Is There a Progressive`s Dilemma in Canada? Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State”,
There is a widespread fear in many western nations that ethnic diversity is eroding support for the welfare state. This article examines such fears in the Canadian context. In-depth analysis of public attitudes finds remarkably little tension between ethnic diversity and public support for social programs in Canada. At first glance, then, the country seems to demonstrate the political viability of a multicultural welfare state. But this pattern reflects distinctive features of the institutional context within which public attitudes evolve. The Canadian policy regime has forestalled tension between diversity and redistribution by diverting adjustment pressures from the welfare state, absorbing some of them in other parts of the policy regime, and nurturing a more inclusive form of identity. These institutional buffers are thinning, however, potentially increasing the danger of greater tension between diversity and redistribution in the years to come.
Flux: International Relations Review, 2019
C anada's immigration policy was historically checkered with discriminative regulations, namely posing restrictions on potential Asian migrants and their potential path towards citizenship through The 1885 Chinese Immigration Act. In 1967, The Immigration Refugee Protection Regulation ("IRPR") was introduced, claiming to eradicate all explicitly discriminative provisions and provide a new pragmatic point-based system to objectively assess all potential migrants. Despite this shift towards multiculturalism and equality, Canada's immigration regime still continues to reinforce racial and gendered inequalities. This paper argues that the rise of neoliberalism presented immigration as an economic transaction, reproducing and reinforcing historical forms of inequality as subterfuge for inclusivity. A focus on market structures and individualistic points-based assessment exacerbated global oppressions of women in labour, privatizing migrant women into domesticity. IRPR further reinforced heteronormative and traditional family unit, perpetuating the notion that women are predominantly dependents and subordinate to the man. As a result, the influence of neoliberalism on immigrant policy resultantly left immigrant women invisible in the Canadian public sphere.