A Progressive’s Dilemma?  The Politics of Immigration, Diversity and Social Policy in Canada

Is there a tension between diversity and support for social programs that redistribute income to the less advantaged? This talk will explore new research on this question in Canada.

Keith Banting is the Stauffer Dunning Fellow in the School of Policy Studies, and Professor Emeritus and Queen’s Research Chair Emeritus in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University. He received his doctorate from Oxford University and taught at the University of British Columbia for 13 years before coming to Queen’s. Among his contributions while at Queen’s, he served as Director of the School of Policy Studies from 1992-2003. Dr. Banting’s research focuses on the politics of social policy, with particular interest in two areas: the politics of inequality, and the relationship between multiculturalism and social solidarity. In the first area, he published Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics (University British Columbia Press 2013), co-edited with John Myles. In the second area, he is co-editor with Will Kymlicka of Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies(Oxford University Press 2007), and The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies.