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Canada is often praised for successfully integrating ethnically diverse immigrants into its multicultural nation, so successful indeed that the country has been considered an exception to the twenty-first-century right-wing populist wave. The recent ascent of political mobilization associated with right-wing populist repertoires across Canada, however, has exposed the need to revisit the exceptionalism thesis. With this goal in mind, our article examines the contemporary right-wing responses to the Liberal Party of Canada's (LPC) post-2015 discourses and policies on immigration and multiculturalism. Building on existing scholarship, we first characterize the LPC's approach as a nation-building project with strong middle-class partialities that emphasize high skills and human capital. We then explore how right-wing parties oppose or embrace this 'middle-class nation-building'. Qualitatively analyzing the platforms of center-right parties and those further to the right at the federal and provincial levels (Alberta and Québec), we observe three prevalent response types: those that follow a cultural logic to prioritize identity and values, an economic logic to underline merit and contribution, or a combination of the two. Besides modulating the Canadian exceptionalism thesis, our findings complicate the assumed dichotomy between market-based and cultural forms of nationalism, as political actors can merge them in various permutations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue examines the increase in scale and intensity of merit-based (im)migration policies as a means to revive aging populations and boost national economies in countries around the world. It proposes the idea of 'middle class nation building through immigration' to characterize this phenomenon, to relate it to previous versions of nation building and (im)migration policies, and to highlight the puzzle of middle class (im)migration at times of increasing socio-political polarization in receiving societies. In this foundational introduction, I define the three concepts at stake, situate them within their respective bodies of literature, and address the following three questions: How to characterize the type of nation building at stake in today's democracies? Who gets to belong to the new educated middle class? Can we still speak of immigration or do we, instead, observe an end of settlement policies? This allows me to sketch-out the contours of 'middle class nation building through immigration' as an ideal-type: a heuristic theoretical construct (not to be found empirically in its pure form) that kindles our imagination, allows us to examine empirical cases, and invites debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While the values and practices usually subsumed under the notion of "good citizenship" are said to have changed dramatically over the past 25 years or so, scholars are still struggling to characterize the concrete nature of these changes. Proposing a novel interdisciplinary approach that marries normative theory with empirically driven political sociology, in this paper we examine the explanations and justifications that flanked a plethora of new citizenship policies implemented under the former Stephen Harper-led Conservative government (2006–2015) in Canada. Critically employing Amitai Etzioni's comparative typology of citizenship philosophies, we examine three types of Conservative policy discourses pertaining to citizenship, namely speeches given by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, speeches given by members of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, and government press releases. In contrast to Etzioni's optimistic presentation of neo-communitarianism in political and philosophical terms, our study reveals that the exclusionary discourses and practices that accompany this approach in practice demand greater attention. In the case of the Harper Conservatives, we argue that their approach is best understood as a re-communitarianization of citizenship in neoliberal times that creatively, but only sparingly, invokes libertarian and liberal ideals in comparison to its use of what we identify to be (1) patriotic and (2) insecure communitarian discourses. Our findings point to both the exclusionary potentials and realities of neo-communitarian citizenship. They contribute to scholarship that argues the that the destruction of social ties, solidarity and "community" through neoliberal and neoconservative politics is often camouflaged and/or advanced by aggressive neo-communitarian discourses that harken back to or reinvent past ethnic or monocultural nationalisms, while only selectively including "deserving" Others at the margins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN JUNE 2014, A NEW CANADIAN Citizenship Act deliberately made Canadian citizenship harder to get and easier to lose. It cemented earlier changes, such as longer mandatory residence times, stricter [...]