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The article presents comments of the author on the article "Continuity and Change in Canada's Unemployment-Immigration Linkage," by John W.P. Veugelers and Thomas R. Klassen. Veugelers and Klassen's paper makes an important contribution by confirming in detail three findings on Canadian immigration policy that have been noted only more casually and less clearly in previous studies. In this commentary on their paper, I seek to clarify the significance of their findings and to set forth some important issues and hypotheses which are not covered in their interpretation. One major finding in the Veugelers and Klassen paper concerns the role of unemployment trends in the "tap-on tap-off' pattern of Canadian immigration levels over the post-War period up until 1990. The paper presents the most careful analysis to date of the way in which annual immigration targets have tended to rise in periods of falling unemployment and to drop in periods of increasing unemployment. A second major finding clearly documents and confirms the way actual immigration levels tend to closely follow state immigration targets. As the authors note, the preceding two findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, over the period 1946-1989, Canadian immigration targets and actual arrivals were determined annually by Federal policy makers who relied significantly on unemployment trends as a barometer of emerging pressure and criticism they faced from capital and labor.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper discusses Habermas' concept of refeudalization and the public debate over genetically modified (GM) foods in Canada. An initiative of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee is evaluated according to Habermas' ideal-typical public sphere criteria. The author examines the ways in which political and economic conditions under a globalized system hamper prospects for rational-critical public debate, specifically with regard to the GM foods industry, and argues that international competition and economic pressures have caused the Canadian government to promote contradictory policies.

The article focuses on forms of state economy and the development of western Canada. The paper is not intended as an historical essay in the limited sense of an account of past events. Rather, it attempts to accomplish, in a formal and explicit fashion, what historians often try to do more informally, to develop typologies and models about historical processes, begun in the past and continuing into the present in order to create hypotheses about future events. In this sense, it is more of an exercise in historical model-building than in classical historiography. The substantive focus of the essay, the relationship between the modern state and economic development is a particularly fruitful area for an undertaking of the kind. While there has been a good deal of broadly theoretical work on the role of the state as a focus for power in advanced capitalist countries on the relationship between state elites and economic elites and on similar topics, little theoretical attention has been paid to the role played by the state as a direct or proprietary participant in the economies of Western countries.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Sociology is the property of Canadian Journal of Sociology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)