In the summer of 2018, social media and mainstream news outlets were jammed with distressing stories about the Trump administration's “zero tolerance” policy on migration, which resulted in the separation of families and the detention of young children. One striking aspect of the arguments both for and against these policies was the way in which particular notions of family were invoked, often in ways that perpetuated normative expectations about family and citizenship. The relationship between conjugal relations, citizenship and immigration is at the heart of Megan Gaucher's A Family Matter: Citizenship, Conjugal Relationships and Canadian Immigration Policy. This work is therefore a most welcome and timely intervention. It should be noted that the depth and breadth of the arguments on offer means that A Family Matter would be important reading even without the recent events in the United States and related issues around family and youth detention in Canada.

Using the gulf between discourse and policy on family class migration advanced during Prime Minister Stephen Harper's time in office as a starting point, Gaucher interrogates what she describes as the “inconsistent” and “unjust” way in which policies on legitimate conjugal relationships simultaneously shape notions of citizenship in Canada and result in exclusionary barriers for migrants and refugees who do not conform to notions of conjugal legitimacy as advanced by the Canadian state. Using a rich array of sources, including policy and court documents, decisions from the Immigration and Refugee Board and interviews with civil servants, citizens and migrants, Gaucher moves beyond laws and policies to consider the “work” of multiple immigration and refugee frameworks. This multi-faceted approach results in rich analysis that considers both the intended and unintended impacts of migration policies that at their very core are intended to restrict entry through careful selection, not facilitate admission, despite what national imaginaries might suggest.

Although Gaucher understandably does not delve into the long history of family migration over the course of Canada's history beyond a few passing references, she regularly hints at the fact that the events of the Harper years were neither novel nor unique. Indeed, a quick overview of migration policies from the late nineteenth century demonstrates the extent to which family migration and suspect conjugal relationships animated the Canadian state's efforts to restrict admission and permanent settlement, particularly for migrants from Asia. The capitation tax introduced on Chinese labourers beginning in 1885 was designed in part to discourage the admission of female migrants from China for fear that their presence in Canada would lead to larger and more permanent Chinese settlement. In response, male migrants developed practices that involved returning to China for short periods of time in order to father children that they could then sponsor to Canada, much to the consternation of government officials who regularly flagged the legitimacy of these familial relations.

As with many current practices around admission and settlement, there are deep historical roots to the suspicions that govern the movement and sponsorship of families even as the Canadian settler state has long believed in the importance of family units settling in Canada as a whole (however defined) to facilitate settlement and integration. Significantly, after the Second World War, the movement of displaced persons to Canada privileged those with some kind of family connection. As Gaucher so eloquently illustrates throughout A Family Matter, conjugal relations can both help and hinder migration possibilities, depending on the ways in which these relations are viewed by the state.

In A Family Matter, Gaucher advances the idea of differences in treatment for “outside” and “inside” families. This intervention is more than a neat turn of phrase, as it helpfully points to the interplay between immigration and citizenship policies and the differences in treatment that those on the “outside” receive from those on the “inside.” This difference is particularly pronounced in the case of conjugal relations because, as Gaucher illustrates, much of the Canadian citizenship framework, as well as the associated rights, is built upon a close association between living together and “legitimate” conjugal relations. Migration, which by its very nature involves movement and often separation, changes the playing field upon which so many of the normative assumptions about conjugal relations are built. As a result, Gaucher's intervention in the field of citizenship studies is particularly welcome.

Gaucher covers a great deal of ground in the six substantive chapters of A Family Matter, including a useful theoretical overview of the debate over the limits and possibilities of liberal citizenship and an important grounding of legal precedents involving citizens and migrants that have powerfully impacted questions of conjugal legitimacy. Gaucher additionally offers useful empirical evidence, advanced in three chapters that explore the application of ideas about conjugality to immigration and refugee determination processes. Specifically, Gaucher considers the expectations about relationships that animate the decision-making apparatus at the Immigration and Refugee Board, particularly as it affects claims to persecution based on sexual orientation. She further explores through a small but rich series of interviews, common-law experiences with spousal sponsorship, including those of same-sex couples who face considerable challenges in their sponsorship efforts. Gaucher's final applied study is a close analysis of the Harper government's anti-fraud campaign, which specifically targeted marriages and spousal sponsorship even as, and precisely because, the government advanced a powerful, pro-family discourse domestically. Gaucher then discusses possible ways of moving beyond the existing frameworks, a useful intervention that makes A Family Matter more than just a timely critique of how conjugality operates in immigration and citizenship matters.

In a brief conclusion, Gaucher summarizes the numerous reasons why the book is important but in many ways this effort is unnecessary. The rich evidence, clear and compelling writing as well as the inter-disciplinary approach make the immediacy and relevance of arguments and suggestions in A Family Matter readily apparent. It will be of great interest to scholars of immigration and refugee policy and citizenship studies, as well as policy makers and students as it is an immensely accessible and teachable work.