Containing Diversity: Canada and the Politics of Immigration in the 21st Century

Although Canada is known internationally as a leader among industrialized countries for inclusive practices towards immigrants and refugees, the twenty-first century has witnessed a rise in the number of refugees and temporary migrant workers who are often denied citizenship and may also experience detention and deportation. Containing Diversity examines to what extent Canada’s long-standing support for immigration, multiculturalism, and citizenship has shifted in favour of discourses, policies, and practices that ＂contain＂ diversity.

This book reflects on how diversity is being ＂contained＂ through practices designed to insulate the Canadian settler-colonial state. In assessing the Canadian government’s policies towards refugees and asylum seekers, economic migrants, family-class migrants, temporary foreign workers, and multiculturalism, the authors show the various contradictory practices in effect. Containing Diversity reflects on policy changes, analysed alongside the resurgence of right-wing political ideology and the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, Containing Diversity highlights the need for a re-imagining of new forms of solidarity that centre migrant and Indigenous justice.

Yasmeen Abu-Laban is the Canada Research Chair in the Politics of Citizenship and Human Rights and a professor of political science at the University of Alberta.
Ethel Tungohan is the Canada Research Chair in Canadian Migration Policy, Impacts, and Activism and an associate professor of politics at York University
Christina Gabriel is a professor of political science at Carleton University.