Discretion or discrimination? Social age and family status in Canadian temporary public policies to respond to mass displacement

A guest lecture by Christina Clark-Kazak of Laval University.

Co-sponsored with the McGill Refugee Research Group.

Abstract: Analyzing the Canadian government’s recent responses to displacement in Ukraine, Gaza, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti and Sudan, this talk demonstrates how social age analysis provides an important lens to understand temporary migration policies formulated in response to humanitarian situations. Contextualizing these contemporary policies against the historical backdrop of temporary protection responses for Hungarians, Czechs and Ugandan Asians, I show how social age assumptions are embedded in the discretionary nature of these ad hoc policies. In particular, the different requirements for a “family anchor” and the variations in definitions of “family” highlight structural inequities, with some Canada-based family members bearing all costs of “humanitarian programs” while the Canadian government funds services for other groups. I argue that differences across the programs also indicate important normative assumptions about the conceptualization and value of family and different age categories within Canadian immigration policy more broadly.