The ideas that governments ought to operate on business principles and that citizens are no different than consumers have become increasingly commonplace in neoliberal times. Many have pointed to the threat this poses for democratic government. Mindy Peden explores the vulnerability of liberal ideology to such a way of thinking by showing how even liberals who wish to reject it, such as John Stuart Mill, are unable to free themselves from the line of reasoning inherent in the benefit theory that underpins the dominant approach to taxation. Economic imperatives have always been a central driving force of Canadian immigration policy. The latter was long dominated by a regulatory approach, in virtue of which immigrants were recruited to serve the specific needs of the labour market at different moments of the business cycle.