Abstract
One of the most potent legal regimes governing the division of advantage and disadvantage between peoples at global and national levels is citizenship. Utilizing government documents, print media accounts and secondary sources, her chapter examines the evolution of Canada’s immigration policy between 2006 and 2016. Overall this period has been characterized by greater exclusion. This is because policy reforms in the past decade have included numerous changes introduced by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper (in power from 2006–2015) which combined to make Canadian citizenship harder to obtain (and easier to lose), reduce the number of refugee claimants and control the flows of refugees (in the face of growing numbers globally), and intensify the surveillance of borders and belonging in ways that are racialized and gendered.
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Notes
- 1.
Cited in Debra Black, “Immigration Experts Say Bill C-24 Discriminatory and Weakens Citizenship,” TheStar.com, 27 June 2014. Available: http://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2014/06/27/immigration_experts_say_bill_c24_discriminatoryand_weakens_citizenship.html [Accessed 16 November 2016].
- 2.
Yasmeen Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example” in International Political Economy, eds. Greg Anderson and Christopher J. Kukucha (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 2016), 476–491.
- 3.
Andrew S. Thompson, “The Need to Protect Rule of Law: A Response to Bill C-24,” Canadian Arab Institute Policy Brief, May 2014.
- 4.
Quoted in Katherine Starr, “Changes Coming Soon to Citizenship Act, John McCallum Says,” CBC News, 18 February 2016. Available: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mccallum-immigrants-citizenship-act-language-requirement-1.3453658 [Accessed 3 July 2016]: In January 2017, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Ahmed Hussen to this post. Hussen, a laywer by training, arrived in Canada as a 16 year old refugee from Somalia in 1993.
- 5.
Jane Jensen, “Social Citizenship in 21st Century Canada: Challenges and Options,” 2001 Timlin Lecture, University of Saskatchewan, 7. Available: http://www.cprn.org/documents/26232_en.pdf [Accessed 4 June 2016]
- 6.
Canada, Government of Canada, “Backgrounder: An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act: A Comparative View of Proposed Amendments”, 2016. Available: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1036049 [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 7.
Quoted in Starr, “Changes Coming Soon to Citizenship Act.”
- 8.
Canadian Council for Refugees, “Reforming the Citizenship Act: Bill C-6,” (2016). Available: http://ccrweb.ca/en/bill-c-6-citizenship-concerns [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 9.
Lois Harder and Lyubov Zhyznomirska, “Claims of Belonging: Recent Tales of Trouble in Canadian Citizenship,” Ethnicities 12, 3 (June 2012), 293–316.
- 10.
Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example.”
- 11.
United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2013). International Migration Report 2013, 1.
- 12.
Ibid .
- 13.
Yasmeen Abu-Laban, “North American and European Immigration Policies: Divergence or Convergence?,” European View (European People’s Party, EU Parliament) 5, (Spring 2007), 10.
- 14.
Stephen Castles, “The International Politics of Forced Migration,” in Leo Panitich and Colin Leys, eds. Fighting Identities: Race, Religion and Ethno-nationalism (London: Merlin Press, 2002), 178.
- 15.
Ibid ., 181.
- 16.
Sharryn Aiken, “Of Gods and Monsters: National Security and Canadian Refugee Policy,” Revue québécoise du droit international 14, 1 (2001), 9.
- 17.
See Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Abigail B. Bakan, “The ‘Israelization’ of Social Sorting and the ‘Palestinianization’ of the Racial Contract: Reframing Israel/Palestine and the War on Terror,” in Elia Zureik, David Lyon and Yasmeen Abu-Laban, eds. Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine: Population, Territory and Power (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 276–294.
- 18.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books, {1951] 2004).
- 19.
Audrey Macklin, “The Value(s) of the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement”, Paper Prepared for the Caledon Institute of Social Policy, December 2003, 1.
- 20.
Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example.”
- 21.
G. Gudrun Hentges, “Refugee and Asylum Policy Influenced by Europeanisation,” in The Evans Foundation, ed. Europe’s New Racism? Causes, Manifestations and Solutions (New York and Oxford: Bergahn Books, 2002), 118.
- 22.
Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example.”
- 23.
See Naomi Alboim and Karen Cohl, Shaping the Future: Canada’s Rapidly Changing Immigration Policies (Toronto: Maytree Foundation, 2012), 30–40.
- 24.
Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example.”
- 25.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “Global Forced Displacement Hits Record High” (2016). Available: http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/6/5763b65a4/global-forced-displacement-hits-record-high.html [Accessed 15 July 2016].
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
Rob Virtue, “Photographer Behind Image of Dead Syrian Boy: ‘I wanted to Express his Silent Scream,” Express, 5 September 2015. Available: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/603140/Aylan-Kurdi-photographer-speaks-out-about-syrian-dead-child-photo [Accessed 25 September 2015].
- 29.
Quoted in Peter Edwards and Robin Levinson King, “’I want to tell the rest of the world at this point, to step in and help the refugees,’ says aunt of drowned Syrian boys,” TheStar.Com, 3 September 2015. Available: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/03/father-of-aylan-kurdi-describes-how-his-family-drowned.html [Accessed 15 July 2016].
- 30.
Audrey Macklin, “Canadians Have a Decision to Make that Will Affect Syrian Refugees,” The New York Times, 15 September 2015. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/09/15/what-can-countries-do-to-help-refugees-fleeing-to-europe/canadians-have-a-decision-to-make-that-will-affect-syrian-refugees [Accessed 5 October 2015].
- 31.
See Gerald Dirks, Canada and Refugees: Indifference or Oppotunitism? (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1977).
- 32.
Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933–1948 (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1982).
- 33.
Macklin, “Canadians Have a Decision to Make that Will Affect Syrian Refugees.”
- 34.
Canada, Government of Canada, “National Conversation on Immigration Launched,” 5 July 2016. Available: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?nid=1094449 [Accessed 5 July 2016]
- 35.
Association for Canadian Studies, “Canadian Words,” 18 June 2010.
- 36.
Association for Canadian Studies, “Younger Canadians Believe Multiculturalism Works; Older Canadians, Not so Sure,” 24 April 2012. Available: http://www.acs-aec.ca/en/social-research/multiculturalism-diversity/ [Accessed 13 September 2012].
- 37.
Yasmeen Abu-Laban, “Reform by Stealth: The Harper Conservatives and Canadian Multiculturalism,” in Jack Jedwab, ed. The Multiculturalism Question: Debating Identity in 21 st Century Canada (Montreal and Kingston: School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University and McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), 149–172.
- 38.
Alana Lentin and Gavan Titley, The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age (London: Zed Books, 2011), 30.
- 39.
Abu-Laban, “Reform by Stealth.”
- 40.
Mark Kennedy, “Liberals Drop Legal Bid to Ban Niqab at Citizenship Ceremonies,” The Ottawa Citizen, 16 November 2015. Available: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/liberal-government-drops-legal-bid-to-ban-niqab-at-citizenship-ceremonies [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 41.
Ibid .
- 42.
Quoted in Kennedy, “Liberals Drop Legal Bid to Ban Niqab at Citizenship Ceremonies.”
- 43.
Stephanie Levitz, “Bill C-51 Not in Keeping with Canada’s International Obligations: UN,” The Globe and Mail, 23 July 2015. Available: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bill-c-51-not-in-keeping-with-canadas-international-obligations-un/article25642360/ [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 44.
Ibid .
- 45.
Abu-Laban, “The Political Economy of International Migration and the Canadian Example,” and Abu-Laban, “Reform by Stealth.”
- 46.
Jason Kenney, “Foreword by the Minister,” in Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Annual Report on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act 2008–2009 (Ottawa: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2010), iii.
- 47.
Jason Kenney, “Minister Kenney Issues Statement on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” 21 March 2013. Available: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/department/media/statements/2013/2013-03-21.asp [Accessed 16 June 2013].
- 48.
Abu-Laban, “Reform by Stealth.”
- 49.
Matt James, “Neoliberal Heritage Redress,” in Jennifer Henderson and Pauline Wakeham, eds. Reconciling Canada: Critical Perspectives on the Culture of Redress (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 31–46.
- 50.
Ibid .
- 51.
Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, “Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” Ottawa, 21 March 2016. Available: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/03/21/statement-prime-minister-canada-international-day-elimination-racial-discrimination [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 52.
Ibid .
- 53.
Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, “Statement by the Prime Minister on Canada on Multiculturalism Day,“ Ottawa, 27 June 2016. Available: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/06/27/statement-prime-minister-canada-multiculturalism-day [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 54.
Canada, Department of Canadian Heritage, Annual Report on the Operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act: Building a Diverse and Inclusive Society. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, 2016, 5. Available: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/pub/multi-ar-en-2015.pdf [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 55.
Ibid ., 5.
- 56.
Ibid ., 36.
- 57.
Canada, Government of Canada, “Backgrounder: The 150th Anniversary of Confederation in 2017,” 25 May 2016. Available: http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?mthd=index&crtr.page=2&nid=1072209 [Accessed 3 July 2016].
- 58.
See Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Christina Gabriel, Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity and Globalization (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2002).
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Abu-Laban, Y. (2017). Building a New Citizenship Regime? Immigration and Multiculturalism in Canada. In: Mann, J. (eds) Citizenship in Transnational Perspective. Politics of Citizenship and Migration. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53529-6_14
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