State-society relations in the making of Canadian immigration policy during the Mulroney era

Competing theories in the sociology of the state turn on different assumptions about the unity of class fractions. This study examines these assumptions in light of changes in immigration levels management under the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. Documents, interviews and public statements show immigration levels management was a subject of dissent and some disinterest among economic elites as well as organized labour during the 1980s. Federal bureaucrats and politicians therefore enjoyed a large margin of autonomy in disassociating the cycles of immigration and domestic unemployment.