This thesis reviews the underlying theoretical and normative paradigm in Canadian migration and asylum law and its effect on the refugee determination process with respect to the approximately 100 unaccompanied children who were among 599 migrants from Fujian Province, People's Republic of China who arrived in four boats off the coast of British Columbia, Canada in the Summer of 1999. Upon deconstructing Canadian migration legislation and jurisprudence, especially with respect to asylum, it is apparent that the dominant paradigm is one of liberal communitarianism/realism, rather than one based on individual, universal human rights. This communitarian/realist paradigm is reflected in and reinforced by normative distinctions between immigrants and illegal migrants, and between politically motivated, forced migrants (refugees) and economically motivated, voluntary migrants (illegal migrants). Illegal migrants, such as the Fujianese children, are de-legitimized and criminalized under Canadian migration law. Moreover, this paradigm had the effect of subsuming the children's human rights claims into an assessment of their motivations for, and the voluntariness of, their emigration, that is, into a refugee determination process based on an understanding of the children's migration that was both inherently incoherent and inconsistent with a nuanced comprehension of migration as a structural phenomenon. The author concludes with a proposal for the development of a more strongly human-rights based paradigm in Canadian migration and asylum law. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

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This inquiry explored the everyday struggles of several women who worked as coordinators and instructors in three government-funded job-entry programs for women in the non-profit sector. The programs studied included an entry program for native women, a program which trained immigrant women in bookkeeping skills, and a program which trained women on social assistance to enter the construction trades. The work of the staff in these programs was considered in light of a theoretical framework developed by Nancy Fraser. Fraser has called for a different approach -- a more critical discourse-oriented inquiry -- to the study of social-welfare policies and programs. This approach focuses on the political struggle over the interpretation of needs, particularly women's needs, which she sees as central to social-welfare policy-making. In her study of the American system, she has found that "needs talk" is the medium through which inequalities are symbolically elaborated and challenged. She also has found that needs talk is stratified and differentiated by unequal status, power, and access to resources, and organized along lines of class, gender, race, ethnicity and age. For this study, information was collected through interviews with the staff in the three programs, observations of life skills classes, and examination of program proposals. Government and government-related documents were also examined. The analysis revealed that, in the official policy documents at the national level, women’s needs were interpreted within a dominant policy framework which focused on reducing spending, matching workers to the market and privatizing training programs. Programs for women were developed based upon a "thin” understanding of women's needs -- one which focused on women’s lack of training and job experience and ignored the structural inequalities of the labour market and women’s different racial and class struggles. At the local level, analysis of the interviews, observations and documents indicated that the staff struggled to respond to the trainees' diverse and complex needs which the official policy discourse addressed in only a limited way. In their negotiations with the state, the staff employed a plurality of needs discourses, engaging in a process which both challenged and reproduced the dominant policy orientation toward getting women "jobs, any jobs”. There were moments of resistance by the staff to the dominant policy orientation, most notably in the program for native women. The trainees also challenged the narrow interpretation of women's needs, particularly in the program training women to enter the construction trades. Generally speaking, the analysis indicated that the staff played a crucial role in mediating between women and the state and in producing a kind of discourse which tended to construct the trainees as subjects needing to be "fixed". The analysis also revealed that the relationships between staff, trainees and the state were organized around unequal access to resources based on gender, race and class. In order to transcend the limitations outlined in this study, efforts are required to democratize decision-making, collectively organize the non-profit private sector, challenge privatization and the exploitive practices of the state, and bring alternative approaches which support participatory and dialogical processes of need interpretation. The analysis brings to light the importance of studying the implications of state policies on adult education practice, particularly policies which promote privatization. It also reveals the explanatory power of a feminist theoretical framework which provides a more critical, discourse-oriented approach to examining policy and practice, and the usefulness of this framework for further research and political advocacy.

The overall aim of this thesis is to explore what emigration state power means in relation to the rules that govern international migration. This thesis challenges the conventional view that within a bilateral migration relationship the migrant-sending state is a 'rule-taker' compelled to accept the consequences of the migrant-receiving state's immigration and integration policies. Using India-Canada migration relations as its empirical case, this thesis examines how diaspora populations can serve as a transnational resource for the sending state to mitigate power asymmetries with the receiving state in bilateral migration relations. Part I of this thesis examines the Indo- Canadian diaspora's use of Canadian tribunal, electoral and lobby channels to advance immigration and integration policy outcomes that further both the interests of the diaspora and the Indian state. Part II considers the diffuse and ideational mechanisms through which the Indian state influences the diaspora's political mobilisation abroad. The diaspora's political activities in the host state, combined with the sending state's transnational influence over facets of diaspora identity, interests and organisational capacity, register important effects on Canadian migration policy that bear on the distribution of power between sending and receiving states. These effects cannot be explained on a purely inter-state model of migration relations, but are accounted for by the framework developed and applied in this thesis. The Conclusion addresses the scope conditions under which this thesis' theoretical framework and conclusions derived within it from the single-case study may allow for a wider comparative approach across other cases in future research.

This inquiry explored the everyday struggles of several women who worked as coordinators and instructors in three government-funded job-entry programs for women in the non-profit sector. The programs studied included an entry program for native women, a program which trained immigrant women in bookkeeping skills, and a program which trained women on social assistance to enter the construction trades. The work of the staff in these programs was considered in light of a theoretical framework developed by Nancy Fraser. Fraser has called for a different approach -- a more critical discourse-oriented inquiry -- to the study of social-welfare policies and programs. This approach focuses on the political struggle over the interpretation of needs, particularly women's needs, which she sees as central to social-welfare policy-making. In her study of the American system, she has found that "needs talk" is the medium through which inequalities are symbolically elaborated and challenged. She also has found that needs talk is stratified and differentiated by unequal status, power, and access to resources, and organized along lines of class, gender, race, ethnicity and age. For this study, information was collected through interviews with the staff in the three programs, observations of life skills classes, and examination of program proposals. Government and government-related documents were also examined. The analysis revealed that, in the official policy documents at the national level, women’s needs were interpreted within a dominant policy framework which focused on reducing spending, matching workers to the market and privatizing training programs. Programs for women were developed based upon a "thin” understanding of women's needs -- one which focused on women’s lack of training and job experience and ignored the structural inequalities of the labour market and women’s different racial and class struggles. At the local level, analysis of the interviews, observations and documents indicated that the staff struggled to respond to the trainees' diverse and complex needs which the official policy discourse addressed in only a limited way. In their negotiations with the state, the staff employed a plurality of needs discourses, engaging in a process which both challenged and reproduced the dominant policy orientation toward getting women "jobs, any jobs”. There were moments of resistance by the staff to the dominant policy orientation, most notably in the program for native women. The trainees also challenged the narrow interpretation of women's needs, particularly in the program training women to enter the construction trades. Generally speaking, the analysis indicated that the staff played a crucial role in mediating between women and the state and in producing a kind of discourse which tended to construct the trainees as subjects needing to be "fixed". The analysis also revealed that the relationships between staff, trainees and the state were organized around unequal access to resources based on gender, race and class. In order to transcend the limitations outlined in this study, efforts are required to democratize decision-making, collectively organize the non-profit private sector, challenge privatization and the exploitive practices of the state, and bring alternative approaches which support participatory and dialogical processes of need interpretation. The analysis brings to light the importance of studying the implications of state policies on adult education practice, particularly policies which promote privatization. It also reveals the explanatory power of a feminist theoretical framework which provides a more critical, discourse-oriented approach to examining policy and practice, and the usefulness of this framework for further research and political advocacy. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

This thesis compares policy instruments in the American and Canadian oil sectors from 1973 to 1977, the years immediately following the Arab oil embargo. Public policy has traditionally emphasized objectives over instruments even though instruments are at the heart of the policy making process. This case study helps to address this deficiency in the policy literature. It begins by providing a review of the instrument choice literature. Doern and Phidd's typology, which arranges instruments in terms of degrees of coercion, subsequently forms the basis for Chapter Two. Chapter Two's analysis of American and Canadian oil policy reveals that both countries agreed upon the security of supply objective. Furthermore, both deployed many similar instruments including suasion, direct expenditures, loans and guarantees, taxation, and regulation to reach the objective. However, one very important difference in instrument choice was made. While Canada deployed the most coercive policy instrument (public enterprise), the United States did not. Chapter Three offers three explanations for this specific difference. They are (1) differences in ideology, (2) market factors, and (3) differences in government institutions. The difference in ideology is the most important explanation. American ideology is decidedly more conservative than Canadian ideology. As such, American governments are less inclined to create government corporations, like national oil companies, than are Canadian governments. Furthermore, ideology is invariably reflected in a nation's party system, and neither of America's mainstream parties advocated the creation of an NOC while Canada's government party did. Market factors are also important. Countries with formidable industrial bases, such as the United States, are less likely to create public corporations than are those with weaker industrial bases. In the particular case of oil, Canada's oil industry was predominantly foreign-owned owing to insufficient pools of domestic capital. America's industry was overwhelmingly domestically-owned. Hence whereas Canada's NOC was the only oil company truly loyal to the Canadian people, an American NOC would have had to compete with home-based multinationals making it relatively unattractive to governing elites, and unnecessary to the American public. Finally, the differences between Canadian and American institutions are stark and important. Canada's parliamentary system of government fosters public corporations because corporations are easy to create and offer significant benefits to their political masters who can control them. The Canadian government set out to create an NOC in the mid-1970s and came across no obstacles. On the other hand, America's presidential system discourages public corporations. Not only did American Presidents and Congressmen not desire an NOC, but they were unable to legislate what comprehensive oil policy they did desire. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

Recent feminist criticism has resulted in remarkable changes to the interpretation of the refugee definition. Case law, academic commentaries and gender guidelines now recognize that women may constitute a particular social group under the definition of refugee. However, only those who belong to certain subgroups of women are usually granted asylum because being a woman only is considered too broad to comprise a particular social group. Such restrictive interpretation is theoretically and practically problematic, and it is the primary cause for the inconsistency in the interpretation of the definition of a particular social group and refugee determination in gender-based claims. Through an analysis of recent gender-based cases before the Canadian courts and the Immigration and Refugee Board, this paper argues that this inconsistency will be avoided when categorization of women does not require female claimants to prove characteristics other than their gender. Female refugees who are persecuted for being women do not need to provide additional reasons for their suffering, and this broad categorization of women should be consistently applied in Canada.