![handle is hein.journals/dalholwj42 and id is 1 raw text is:
Canadian Immigration Law
in the Face of a Volatile Politics
By Colin Grey,* Constance Maclntosh** and Sarah Marsden***
The genesis of this special issue was a conference of Canadian
immigration law scholars at the Universit6 du Qudbec i Montreal in March
2018. Conference participants sought to look back on the many changes
made to Canadian immigration law during the near-decade the Stephen
Harper-led Conservative government spent in power (2006-2015). Although
the Conservatives did not introduce a single, revamped immigration law-
the major legislation remains the Immigration and Refugee Protection
Act,' brought in under the Jean Chrdtien-led Liberals (1992-2006) in
2002-they altered parts of the law nearly beyond recognition.' In this
introduction, we reflect briefly on these changes; on what has come after,
under Justin Trudeau's Liberal government (2015-), which has employed
a more welcoming rhetoric yet left most of its predecessor's amendments
in place; and on what may lie ahead as we approach a federal election in
which immigration again promises to be an important issue.
Why, at a conference of legal scholars, the results of which are now
published in a law journal, did we consider it apt to frame our discussion
around the political parties that happen to hold power? Our answer is
that it is nearly impossible to examine immigration law meaningfully
without focusing on how the politics of immigration have changed and are
changing, in Canada and globally. As those who teach and practice it are
aware, immigration law evolves continuously; there is no such thing as
an up-to-date syllabus. But the politics shift rapidly, too. And the political
transformations shape the legal ones, and vice-versa. Thus, our opening
premise is that to understand the law, you have to understand the politics. As
will be evident throughout this special issue, a focus on both immigration law
and politics allows us to do more than critique the decisions of a particular
government: it makes visible the ways in which deeper dynamics between
immigration law and politics persist even as governments change.
* Assistant Professor, Queen's University Faculty of Law.
** Viscount Bennett Professor of Law, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University.
* Associate Professor, Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law.
1. SC 2001, c 27 [IRPA].
2. As Ratna Omidvar has written elsewhere: The immigration system has undergone a small revo-
lution The name, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is merely the skin of an old system.
Inside is a very different beast: Ratna Omidvar, The Harper Influence on Immigration in Jennifer
Ditchburn & Graham Fox, eds, The Harper Factor: Assessing a Prime Minister's Policy Legacy (Mon-
treal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016) at 179.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/dalholwj42&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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