Canada’s public immigration discourse is usually racialized in using an ideological framework to evaluate, select and make judgements of immigrants on whether they are culturally, socially, or economically desirable to Canada. Some social and economic affairs may present a discursive context for debates over immigration and the value of immigrants to Canada. By using a critical discourse analysis of news articles on immigration in Canada’s national newspaper The Globe and Mail in four historical phases after the end of the Second World War, this study examines how the contents of “desirable immigrants” were changed throughout history. This study questions whether some social political affairs in a country or an extreme economic situation such as high unemployment can change the social boundaries of exclusion for immigrants of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds and allow more direct and exclusionary racial messages to be expressed in the discourse. The findings indicate that during economic recessions, it is more acceptable for the media and the public to express more directly racist messages about non-white immigrants, and some political factors and major social events may also influence how different ethnic groups of immigrants can be socially constructed. While a liberal democratic country like Canada may not accept overt racial discrimination, I argue that a social crisis or economic recession can change the social boundaries of exclusion for immigrants of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds and justify using more blatant racial messages in discussing immigrants.

The issue of ‘race’ and policing has generated considerable public controversy. I draw the work of Norman Fairclough in analyzing online public comments responding to three Winnipeg incidents from the summer of 2008: the detainment of Robert Wilson, the inquest into the death of Matthew Dumas and the tasering death of Michael Langan. My main research questions are 1) what characterises these discourses? 2) what processes of social struggle are evident? and 3) what can this tell us about power relations and ideology in society? The analysis of 3342 comments demonstrates power dynamics in discursive struggles over the definition of the relationship between racialized group-members and the police. Specifically, a conservative discursive formation was found to have three interrelated ‘stages’: support for the police, denial of racism and mediating discourses of responsibilization/criminalization. The conclusion considers how a transformative discourse of racialized policing might mitigate prevailing justifications of racial privilege and inequality.

The issue of ‘race’ and policing has generated considerable public controversy. I draw the work of Norman Fairclough in analyzing online public comments responding to three Winnipeg incidents from the summer of 2008: the detainment of Robert Wilson, the inquest into the death of Matthew Dumas and the tasering death of Michael Langan. My main research questions are 1) what characterises these discourses? 2) what processes of social struggle are evident? and 3) what can this tell us about power relations and ideology in society? The analysis of 3342 comments demonstrates power dynamics in discursive struggles over the definition of the relationship between racialized group-members and the police. Specifically, a conservative discursive formation was found to have three interrelated ‘stages’: support for the police, denial of racism and mediating discourses of responsibilization/criminalization. The conclusion considers how a transformative discourse of racialized policing might mitigate prevailing justifications of racial privilege and inequality.