Canada has turned to recruiting growing numbers of international students as part of its broader neoliberal “managed migration” strategy designed to realize economic goals. Canadian universities have come to the fore as key players in the active recruitment of students from abroad. In this paper we draw on the analytic concept of “social resilience” to examine the role of universities in developing structures and mechanisms that promote and/or hinder international student resilience. We highlight the contradictory role that universities play vis-à-vis international students. On the one hand, international student fees are increasingly important to universities to address budget shortfalls engendered by neoliberal policy prescriptions. Consequently, universities are active recruiters of international students in a global marketplace. But on the other hand, international students have complex needs as newcomers to Canada that are not addressed by existing settlement services; universities are thus increasingly pressed to fill in and provide them with various supports. Our qualitative case study is framed by this contradiction and concentrates on two Ontario universities located in the same city, Ottawa, to develop a case-study analysis of student experiences. This paper offers a counter narrative to familiar neoliberal policy rationales that discursively construct international students as human capital to be harnessed.

Julie Doucet is Quebec’s most renowned comic book author and the only Canadian to have been awarded the Grand Prix d’Angoulême, one of the most prestigious international comics awards. This article examines Doucet’s French-language publications to show how her influence has grown in the alternative comics scene over the years, bolstered by rich relationships with publishers and authors abroad. She is one of the first comic book authors with a distinctly Quebecois voice to be published in France, where several of her comix have been collected into graphic novel format. Some French editions of her work have also been released by a poetry publishing house in Quebec. Over the decades and under the radar of traditional media, the numerous editions of Doucet’s work released across languages and publishers have formed a body of work that has stuck with its readers. This article studies how this work has been circulated, combined, published and revisited throughout the years.

During the 19th century and through the 20th century, the role of the parliamentary upper house (especially, but not exclusively, within the Westminster system of government) changed in subtle, yet dramatic, ways. Among those changes was increasing deference to elected lower houses of parliament, a reduction in partisanship in its actions and legislative goals, the development and pursuit of greater specialization of interest and function, appeals to the public interest beyond the electoral mandate, and greater practical attention to technical overview and improvement of legislation and policy, especially through the engagement of the committee process. This article argues that the role of the current Senate of Canada is a result of that historical transformation and was evident as early as the first decade of its existence (consistent with an institutional evolution that continues through the 21st century) and should be strongly considered in relation to current and future proposals for its reform.

In 1992, Québec’s government adopted a regionalization policy with the intention of enlarging the settlement possibilities for recent immigrants, thus delegating the responsibility of integrating immigrants to the regions’ local community-based organizations. These immigrants arrive in their host society needing information and services concerning their host community. Considering the supporting relationships that community-based organizations in Remote Regions cultivate with immigrants, it is relevant to address the work accomplished by those organizations’ employees. With the aim of better understanding their work, this article examines the community-based organizations responsible for the welcoming and facilitating integration of immigrants. This article proposes an ethnography based on a five blocks model of the regionalization work to take a deeper look at their daily work and gain a better understanding of their specific role in the regionalization of immigration in their community, thereby refining the initial model. It then offers a reflection on the multidimensionality of their work, which goes far beyond employability, and on the specificity of immigration in the context of remote regions.

It is widely accepted that the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change. Our question is: How are the related extraction and distribution activities viewed in Canada? This article analyzes Canadian public opinion data on five supply-side energy policies: expanding the oil sands, drilling for oil in the Arctic, fracking, expanding an oil pipeline, and shipping oil by rail. It applies social psychological models to identify factors associated with support for and opposition to these policies. Climate change attitudes have typically been found to be significant predictors of climate policy support. Instead, this study finds that having an ecological worldview is a strong predictor for each of the policies. This suggests that these policies are seen as having an effect on the environment but less so as affecting climate change. Contextual factors, such as region of residence and political orientation, are relevant predictors, suggesting that framing by political parties, industry, and social movement organizations has had a significant effect on support and opposition.

This article traces the origins of Alberta political culture to an unlikely source: the federal government’s immigration marketing posters from the early-twentieth century. Through a qualitative document analysis of the “Last Best West” campaign, the findings reveal how the Government of Canada helped cultivate values of settler colonialism, populism, individualism, frontier masculinity, and moral traditionalism among the settler population. The article closes with a discussion of how these values continue to influence Alberta politics today.

Immigration policy during the immediate years after the Second World War highly restricted the arrival of newcomers. Before 1947, Canada’s immigration system was a preferential one, with the highest priority given to British subjects coming to Canada from the United Kingdom, or from any of the British dominions, and the United States. Canada’s preferences then extended to Northern Europeans, then to Central and Southern Europeans. Chinese, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese, and Spanish immigrants were excluded. During the years of Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent (1948–57), Canadians read about the economic benefits that a robust immigration policy promised in the English-language press. The St-Laurent government was under significant pressure to increase the flow of migrants into Canada. However, the Liberal government studiously monitored recent arrivals with a conservative approach to economic growth. The Canadian business community perceived this policy as too cautious, and their preference for a more robust policy frequently surfaced in the English-language press. This article shows that newspapers coverage across the country criticized the government’s immigration policy during the 1950s and advocated for an approach that accommodated more newcomers to spur population and economic growth. Through their coverage, the editors and journalists reasoned that boosting immigration accelerated the Canadian economy. English Canadian journalists and newspapers attempted to influence Canadians about the economic benefits of increasing migration to Canada.

Textbooks frame students’ understanding of the discipline and signal which topics are important. Research suggests political science textbooks lack diverse perspectives, but much of this literature has focused on American texts. Do these findings travel? My analysis of Canadian politics textbooks shows although there is considerable diversity content, immigrants and minorities rarely appear as key political actors and almost never in the context of Parliament, the judiciary, or bureaucracy; rather, most of their coverage is siloed in the textbooks’ diversity-specific chapters. Issues related to inequality are largely glossed over, and exclusion is presented as a historical artefact. The findings suggest students’ first introduction to Canadian politics is generic and quite narrow, with insufficient attention to immigrants’ and minorities’ political contributions and experiences. These portrayals may limit students’ understanding of diversity and produce scholars who are ill-equipped to address questions of marginalization and injustice in broader society.