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The Contentious Politics of Resettlement Programs: Evidence from Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

Isabelle Côté Open the ORCID record for Isabelle Côté [Opens in a new window]  and
Yolande Pottie-Sherman
Isabelle Côté*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1B 3X9
Yolande Pottie-Sherman
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL, A1B 3X9
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: icote@mun.ca
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Abstract

Labelling resettlement programs as voluntary suggests that they cause little contention and are devoid of coercion. But is this representation accurate? Drawing on unpublished government documents and media reports, we provide a detailed case study of the Community Relocation Policy (CRP) of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) from 2009 to the present. We show that CRP has been fraught with contention due to the nature of the voting process and the slow and uncertain nature of the community-oriented consultative process. This article highlights the ways in which coercion has emerged from within the very communities considering resettlement, in addition to any coercion that might come from government officials.

Résumé

Résumé

Le fait que les programmes de réinstallation soient étiquetés comme volontaires laisse entendre qu'ils suscitent peu d'opposition et qu'ils n'impliquent aucune contrainte. Mais cette représentation est-elle exacte? S'appuyant sur des documents gouvernementaux inédits et des comptes rendus médiatiques, nous fournissons une étude de cas détaillée de la Community Relocation Policy (CRP) instaurée dans la province de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador (T.-N.-L.), de 2009 à aujourd'hui. Nous montrons que la CRP a été très controversée en raison de la nature du processus de vote, conjuguée à la lenteur et au caractère incertain du processus consultatif axé sur la communauté. Cette étude souligne que la coercition a émergé des communautés mêmes qui envisagent de se réinstaller, en plus d’émerger de leurs interactions avec les représentants du gouvernement.

Keywords

contentious politicsresettlementcoercionCanadaNewfoundlandLabrador
Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 19 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2019

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