Attack of the Marriage Fraudsters!: An Examination of the Harper Government’s Antimarriage Fraud Campaign

Claiming a rise in marriage fraud, the Harper government launched its antimarriage fraud campaign in 2011, aiming to both prevent and stigmatize the formation of relationships in order to immigrate to Canada. In this article, I examine the implications this crackdown has for family class immigration and question the government’s empirical justification for initiating this campaign. I contend that while the language of the campaign appears to be neutral, the campaign’s framing allows for the continued targeting of specific relationships. This allows the government to reinforce a narrative of family class immigration based on a normalized conception of the conjugal family unit.