[7][8] In August 2010, she retained the Family portfolio in a cabinet shuffle but lost her culture and immigration duties to Kathleen Weil.
[10] James publicly entered the controversy over reasonable accommodation by stating that she stood by her decree to bar students from covering their faces with niqabs or burqas in French-language classes.
The district of Saint Laurent, QC, where she sought a federal candidacy in a by-election, was 17 percent Muslim in the 2011 Census of Canada.
[13][14] On February 12, 2017, James confirmed on Twitter that she would seek the Liberal Party of Canada's nomination for the Saint-Laurent federal electoral district.
Emmanuella Lambropoulos beat James and tax law professor Marwah Rizqy to secure the nomination.