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42 Dalhousie L.J. i (2019)

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.