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Topic

Reasoning Canada’s Rights in Immigration Matters, 1867-1977: The Conceptual Labour of State Sovereignty

Department of History

Date & location

• Wednesday, May 7, 2025
• 10:30 A.M.
• Clearihue Building, Room B021

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Lynne Marks, Department of History, University of Victoria (Co-Supervisor)
• Dr. Annalee Lepp, Department of Gender Studies, UVic (Co-Supervisor)
• Dr. Elizabeth Vibert, Department of History, UVic (Member)
• Dr. John Borrows, Faculty of Law, UVic (Outside Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Franca Iacovetta, Department of History, University of Toronto

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Matt James, Department of Political Science, UVic

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how parliamentarians reasoned Canada’s rights in immigration matters, including admission, exclusion, and deportation. I look at parliamentary debates over immigration from 1867 to 1977, with an eye to discerning the patterns of lawmakers’ thinking on the “right” question. My finding is that they developed multiple lines of reasoning over the decades. Critics and defenders shared some metalogics, including assumptions about Canada’s territorial ownership and its power over Indigenous peoples, international law, imperial policy and interest, and governing principle. In addition, critics mobilized citizenship right, and defenders reasoned with autonomy, the British North America Act, and sovereignty. Furthermore, to understand the historical significance of the “right” debates, I examine them in relation to Canada’s construction of its sovereignty. Using an integrated analytical framework, I study how legislators’ modes of thinking intersected with Canada’s sovereignty project vis-à-vis Britain, the international society of sovereign states, and Indigenous nations. The integrated framework illuminates the ripple effects of lawmakers’ lines of reasoning and the cross-pollination of ideas amongst the three strands of Canada’s sovereignty enterprise. My argument is that in reasoning the “right” question, parliamentarians’ collective and cumulative conceptual labour moved forward Canada’s braided sovereignty enterprise.