Contested Existence: Indigenous Women’s Activisms, Law, and Human Rights
Focusing on Indigenous women as agents of change, this session has a two-fold aim: First, to explore Indigenous women’s experiences as activists against colonial violences and the intersectional forms of discrimination they authorize; second, to engage in debates about the role of law in human rights law in Indigenous women’s activisms and resistance. Panelists will discuss, for example, how Indigenous women have mobilized international human rights law to challenge the gender discriminatory provisions of the Indian Act and to compel the Canadian government to respond to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and Two-Spirit people (2S). In so doing, the session will address questions concerning the paradoxical nature of law as a tool of oppression and resistance; the costs and gains of legal mobilization; and the transformation of traditional understandings of human rights and gender-based violence. At the same time, in line with the conference theme, the panel is motivated by the question of how Indigenous women’s activisms contribute to building communities of hope, justice, and joy across Turtle Island and even beyond.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Paulina Garcia del Moral, University of Guelph; (Session Organizer) Dawn Waubmemee Lavell Harvard, Trent university; (Session Organizer) Lisa Trefzger Clarke, Trent University; (Presider) Paulina Garcia del Moral, University of Guelph; (Panelist) Dawn Waubmemee Lavell Harvard, Trent university; (Panelist) Lisa Trefzger Clarke, Trent University; (Panelist) Jeannette Corbiere lavell, Activist; (Panelist) Pamela Palmater, Toronto Metropolitan University; (Panelist) Sharon McIvor, Activist
Migration Pathways to Canada: Critical Race, Gender, and Class Analysis
Immigration is a driver of both population and labor force growth in Canada. In 2021, approximately 23% of Canada’s population are foreign-born, which is expected to rise to 30% by 2036. For many, immigration to Canada is far from being a progressivist and linear process and can involve multi-national (Paul 2011) and multi-step migration pathways (Abu-Laban et al. 2022). This panel brings in a critical race, gender, and class analysis to apprehend how migrants navigate immigration to Canada; document and examine the different migration pathways undertaken by diverse groups of migrants; and capture the political, social, and economic strategies they use to secure citizenship. Our goal is to interrogate how migration pathways to Canada produce and sustain overlapping forms of inequalities and how migrants negotiate and challenge these inequalities.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Beatrice Zani, National center for Scientific Research (CNRS); (Session Organizer) Maria Hwang, McGill University; (Presider) Maria Hwang, McGill University; (Panelist) Daniele Belanger, Laval University; (Panelist) Anne-Marie D’Aoust, University of Quebec in Montreal; (Panelist) Beatrice Zani, National center for Scientific Research (CNRS); (Panelist) Ethel Tungohan, York University
Nationalisms in Canada
This session focuses on the different nationalisms present in Canada today. Speakers will cover multiculturalism, Quebecois nationalism, Indigenous sovereignty movements, and right-wing nationalism. The goal is to introduce audience members to the complexity of nationalism in Canada and to juxtapose the different forms of nationalism to one another.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Matthew Lange, McGill University; (Presider) Frédérick Guillaume Dufour, Université du Québec à Montréal; (Panelist) Geneviève Zubrzycki, University of Michigan; (Panelist) Veldon Coburn, McGill University; (Panelist) Jennifer Elrick, McGill University; (Panelist) Kayla Preston, University of Toronto
Responses to Gender-Based Violence in the Canadian Context
On August 14, 2023, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Arif Virani declared gender-based violence to be an “epidemic” – one that the federal government is committed to ending. His statement was a response to recommendations made by a jury following an inquest into the murders of Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam, and Anastasia Kuzyk, three women murdered in their homes by a common ex-partner in 2015. In the same statement, the justice minister declared that the federal government was open to criminalizing “coercive control”, a widespread and severe form of domestic violence involving a wide range of abusive tactics. This represents a major development in the state response to gender-based violence in the Canadian context. This panel will bring together practitioners and scholars to discuss the state of existing interventions, proposals to improve policies, and the challenges and intersectional consequences of different strategies to combat gender-based violence.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Marie Laperrière, University of Manitoba; (Presider) Marie Laperrière, University of Manitoba; (Panelist) Carmen Gill, University of New Brunswick; (Panelist) Amanda McCormick, University of the Fraser Valley; (Panelist) Heidi Illingworth, Ottawa Victim Services; (Panelist) Andrea Silverstone, Sagesse
No Longer the “Exception”? Political Polarization in the Canadian Context
When Donald Trump was elected U.S. President in 2016, on the heels of the U.K.’s majority “Brexit” vote, news and magazine outlets worldwide heralded Canada as an “exception” to the global rise of political polarization. Over half a decade later, this reputation is waning. In 2022, public tensions over COVID-19 mandates boiled over to produce the “Freedom Convoy”, which shut down the city of Ottawa and put Canada on the map as a locus of rising populist discontent. More recently, in summer 2023, polling results revealed cracks in Canadians’ positive attitudes to immigration, with two-thirds of respondents opposing plans to increase the annual target for permanent residents to 500,000 by 2025. According to a survey by the Public Policy Forum in 2023, “growing political and ideological polarization” and the “acute decline of democratic and public institutions” now rank highest among Canadians’ reported “fears for the future”.
Presentations in this panel seek to illuminate the distinctive elements – and identify the key dimensions – of political polarization in Canada. Drawing from diverse theoretical paradigms and methodologies, the papers explore several interrelated themes, including the importance of regionalism, nationalism, and cultural-linguistic politics for understanding polarization in Canada; how a polarized political context informs immigration policies and constructions of indigeneity; and the rights-based implications of polarization.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Emily J. Laxer, York University; (Presider) Efe Peker, University of Ottawa; (Panelist) Stéphanie Chouinard, Queen’s University; (Panelist) Frédérick Guillaume Dufour, Université du Québec à Montréal; (Panelist) Mireille Paquet, Concordia University; (Panelist) Kyle Willmott, Simon Fraser University; (Discussant) Emily J. Laxer, York University
The Civil Sphere in Canada
The session brings together a cross-Canada network of sociologists who draw on civil sphere theory to generate meaning-centred analyses of key transformations in Canadian society. The session makes both empirical and theoretical contributions. It illuminates central problematics of contemporary Canadian society, on the one hand. On the other, the case studies emerge from a unifying conceptual core, revolving around substantial engagement with, and critique of civil sphere theory. Panel presentations are drawn from an eponymous book that will be published, in early 2025, by University of British Columbia Press.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Mervyn Horgan, University of Guelph; (Session Organizer) Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University; (Presider) Mervyn Horgan, University of Guelph; (Discussant) Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University
- Intersectionality and the Civil State in Canada, Elisabeth Rondinelli
- Double Trauma: The Impossible Solidarity of the Quebec Civil Sphere, Brieg Capitaine, University of Ottawa
- Sanctuary Cities and the Urban Civil Sphere: Non-Status Migrants in the News, Saara Anne Liinamaa, University of Guelph
- Donald J. Trump and the Canadian Civil Sphere, Galen Ing Watts, University of Waterloo
The Quiet Strength of Quebec’s Labour Movement
While labour unions across the industrialized world have experienced crisis and decline over the past several decades, the Quebec labour movement stands out for its strength and resilience. The current unionization rate stands at over 35 percent, higher than ever achieved in the U.S. even at the height of labour’s power in the 1950s, and one of the highest rates in all of North America. Moreover, the Quebec labour movement remains vibrant, with a unique structure compared to elsewhere in North America, a strong tradition of militancy that persists today, and a history of innovation in terms of social movement alliances, social investment, expanding collective bargaining to include gender equity issues, and more. But few outside Quebec know about the past and present of Quebec labour. What makes it distinctive, and what lessons can the Quebec labour movement teach us more generally? This regional spotlight session will bring together a distinguished panel of expert researchers and elected labour leaders to discuss the history and current challenges of the Quebec labour movement.
Participants: (Session Organizer) Barry Eidlin, McGill University; (Presider) Barry Eidlin, McGill University; (Panelist) Thomas Collombat, Université du Québec en Outaouais; (Panelist) Mélanie Laroche, Université de Montréal; (Panelist) Magali Picard, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ); (Panelist) Caroline Senneville, Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN)
