Anti-Refugee Sentiment in Canada

Canada’s Role

Source: Canadian Council for Refugees, 2011.

Canada’s Role

In all countries, with some variation, majority is ‘restrictionist’: Believes country has accepted enough refugees and asylum

seekers, (Simon & Lynch, 1999).

BUT, did you know that Canada accepts only about 0.1% of the world’s refugees!(Amnesty International Canada, 2011).

Chinese Migrants, 1999

Tamil Migrants, 2009

Unexpected Findings

Canadians actually support high immigration levels!

Pro-immigration explanations political *economic education age gender

Source: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2011.

Why not pro-refugees then?

Dependent variable Anti-refugee sentiment

Independent variables Political

Affiliation Rhetoric

Economic factors Individual National

Social factors Education Age Gender Threat to national identity?

Media influence: tone; discourse

Research Question: What can help explain the rise in anti-refugee sentiment in Canada?

Negative Framing

Media and political discourse “Illegal migrants, queue jumpers, mass arrivals,

smugglers” (Neve & Russell, 2011).

“Resource stealers” and security threats(Rutledge, 2011).

Political rhetoric “Canada’s Generous Program for Refugee Resettlement

Is Undermined by Human Smugglers Who Abuse Canada’s Immigration System”Source: Public Safety Canada, 2010 News Release

“Our government is committed to cracking down on bogus refugees.”Source: Immigration Minister’s spokeswoman, 2010.

Potential Challenges

Are the two cases even comparable? 1999- We were just coming out of economic tough times 2009- We had just had an economic crash

Is the anti-refugee sentiment only specific to migrants who arrive by boats?

Are the cases only “situational triggers,” ? (Sniderman et al., 2004).

Direction of causation Do elite attitudes (politicians) influence public

attitudes? Or do public attitudes influence elite attitudes?