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9 Rev. Const. Stud. 133 (2004)
Jean Chretien's Immigration Legacy

handle is hein.journals/revicos9 and id is 137 raw text is: JEAN CHRETIEN'S IMMIGRATION LEGACY Yasmeen Abu-Laban* I. INTRODUCTION The retirement of Jean Chr~tien in December 2003 - after a decade as Prime Minister, and after close to forty continuous years in public life' - offers an opportunity to reflect on his impact on Canadian political and social life. This article explores Chr~tien's immigration legacy. Immigration policy has been central, both historically and contemporaneously, to the shaping of the Canadian political community. It will be argued that in Chr~tien's ten years as Prime Minister, immigration policy underwent a transformation toward greater exclusivity than in the era immediately preceding. Under Jean Chr~tien, new stress has been placed on immigrant integration, immigrant self-sufficiency, and continentalization of immigration controls - these themes will likely continue to reverberate on immigration policy in the post-Chr~tien era. For many observers, both inside and outside Canada, Canadian immigration policy appears to be a model of openness, if not humanitarianism and egalitarianism. Facts can be harnessed to support this interpretation, which primarily rest on comparisons with other countries. According to the 2001 Census, fully 18.4 percent of the Canadian national population are immigrants - a proportion much higher than most other industrialized countries.2 Since the 1970s, there has been a steady decline of immigrants arriving from the countries of Europe, and an increase of immigrants arriving from countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, making for greater racial, religious and cultural diversity in Canada's population. ° Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University ofAlberta. For helpful and constructive comments, I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers as well as the guest editors of this volume Lois Harder and Steve Patten. First elected to Parliament in 1963, for a four year period between 1986-1990 Jean Chr~tien was in private practice as a lawyer before returning to Parliament in 1990. 2 Statistics Canada, Census of Population: Immigration, birthplace and birthplace of parents, citizenship, ethnic origin, visible minorities and Aboriginal peoples The Daily (23 January 2003) at 1-3, online: <www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/03012 l/d030121 a.htm>. 2004 Revue d'etudes constitutionnelles

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