• darkblurbg
    Canadian Political Science Association
    2020 Annual Conference Programme

    Confronting Political Divides
    Hosted at Western University
    Tuesday, June 2 to Thursday, June 4, 2020
  • darkblurbg
    Presidential Address:
    Barbara Arneil, CPSA President

    Origins:
    Colonies and Statistics

    Location:
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 05:00pm to 06:00pm
  • darkblurbg
    KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
    Ayelet Shachar
    The Shifting Border:
    Legal Cartographies of Migration
    and Mobility

    Location:
    June 04, 2020 | 01:30 to 03:00 pm
  • darkblurbg
    Keynote Speaker: Marc Hetherington
    Why Modern Elections
    Feel Like a Matter of
    Life and Death

    Location:
    Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | 03:45pm to 05:15pm
  • darkblurbg
    Plenary Panel
    Indigenous Politics and
    the Problem of Canadian
    Political Science

    Location: Arts & Humanities Building - AHB 1R40
    Tuesday, June 2, 2020 | 10:30am to 12:00pm

Law and Public Policy



D12 - Workshop: Law and the Carceral State III - Everyday Policing and the Construction of Borders

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 02:00pm to 03:30pm | Location:

Joint Session / Séance conjointe : Canadian Politics; Race, Ethnicity and Indigenous People and Politics

The Thin Blue Line between Protection and Persecution: Policing LGBTQ2S Refugees in Canada: Alexa DeGagne (Athabasca University), Megan Gaucher (Carleton University)
Abstract: In 2017, LGBTQ2S refugee organizations in Vancouver refused to walk in the city’s pride parade with the police due to their continued engagement in deportations of queer asylum seekers and refugees. Similar demands were made by organizations in Winnipeg, which led to the Winnipeg Police Service agreeing not to participate out of respect for LGBTQ2S refugees’ PTSD sparked by past encounters with “homophobic” police organizations in their countries of origin. While police response differed, these two examples serve as a jumping-off point for our analysis of the engagements between police and LGBTQ2S asylum seekers and refugees in Canada. While there has been work published on the impacts of institutionalized heterosexism in the refugee determination system on LGB asylum seekers, little has been published on forms of policing that take place once these refugees are granted access. In this paper, we will examine cases in which LGBTQ2S refugee organizations have pushed back against and protested police organizations in Canada, ultimately attempting to situate refugees with this broader discussion of policing, homonationalism and LGBTQ2S communities in Canada.


You Say Polygamy; I Say Polyamory: The Racialization and Criminalization of Muslims in Canada: Caroline Dick (The University of Western Ontario), Dariya Alton (University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law)
Abstract: In 2015, the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act became law in Canada, targeting practices associated with Muslim communities. More specifically, the amending legislation rendered foreign nationals and permanent residents practicing polygamy inadmissible to Canada, despite the fact that polygamy was already criminalized. Against this backdrop, white Mormons in Bountiful BC had been practicing polygamy in plain view of the public, media, and law enforcement since the 1940s. Numerous complaints by victims and an RCMP investigation in 1990-1991 did not produce a single conviction until two community leaders were charged in 2018. These were the first polygamy convictions in Canada since 1906. While the men were sentenced to short house-arrest terms, another 1000 polygamists who continue to practice polygamy in Bountiful were not charged. At the same time, a growing number of Canadians have chosen to reject the traditional monogamous family, building polyamorous conjugal unions. The Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association represents their interests, and, in 2018, three unmarried adults were deemed legal parents of a child born into their polyamorous union in Newfoundland. In this paper, we seek to examine the differential treatment of Muslim polygamists from both white Mormon polygamists and polyamorous families. What explains the criminalization of polygamous but not polyamorous relationships and what accounts for the differential application of laws regulating polygamy in Canada? We conclude that the answer lies in the racialization of Canadian multiculturalism policy in general and the criminalization of Muslims in particular.


Participants:
Megan Gaucher (Carleton University)
Alexa DeGagne (Athabasca University)
Caroline Dick (University of Western Ontario)
Herbert McCullough (Midwestern State University)



Return to Home