Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
13 July 2011
Canada’s Racist Immigration
Policies of the Past
Canada’s immigration policy has had
some very dark times over the years,
although it’s considered generous now
The Nansen Medal was awarded to the Canadian people in 1986. This prestigious honour was given to Canadians by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in “recognition of their major and sustained contribution to the cause of refugees.”
Sadly, Canadians have not always been able to hold their heads so high. Indeed, half a century earlier Canada’s Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King tried to stop the setting up of any permanent international organization to look after the needs of refugees. Mr. King told Canada’s representatives to the 1938 Evian Conference on Refugees not to support plans for a refugee structure or any move to accept quotas on refugee intakes.
Anti-
In 1907, the arrival in British Columbia of significant numbers of immigrants from Asia prompted a backlash.
On September 7 a group called the Asiatic Exclusion League held a meeting at Vancouver City Hall to protest against Asian immigrants. After the meeting, an angry mob numbering in the hundreds descended on Chinatown, where stores and houses were stoned and ransacked (above).
The crowd then moved on to the Japanese section of Vancouver and dished out the same treatment.
The mood of the time was expressed by a local Member of Parliament, R.G. Macpherson. He said, “I can see without any difficulty the province of British Columbia slipping into the hands of Asiatics, and this part of western Canada no longer a part and parcel of the Dominion.”
Not Wanted in Canada
Seven years later, the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver Harbour. The ship had sailed from China with 376 immigrants from India aboard. The Indians were told they could not enter Canada.
After two months of bobbing up and down in Vancouver Harbour, the Komagata Maru sailed away. Over the next six years just one person from India was admitted to Canada.
After World War I, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (known as the Wobblies) were identified as not wanted in Canada.
Industrialists lobbied Ottawa to crack down on trade union activities. So officials used a number of trumped up excuses for denying entry to members of the Wobblies and for deporting those already in Canada.
Religious Minorities Banned
In 1919, the federal cabinet used a section of the Immigration Act to ban Mennonites, Hutterites, and Doukhobors from entry into Canada.
The excuse given was that their “peculiar habits, modes of life, and methods of holding property (communal ownership),” did not fit in with what was accepted in Canada. The ban was lifted in 1922.
Another Cabinet Order in 1923 excluded “any immigrant of any Asiatic race,” except farmers, farm labourers, and female domestic servants.
Crackdown on “Communists”
With the Great Depression of the 1930s underway, trade union organizers were regarded with suspicion. There was a widespread fear that communists were working to take over Canada as they had done in the Soviet Union.
So, Winnipeg Mayor Ralph Webb was not alone when he campaigned in 1931 for keeping Communists out of the country. He urged the “deportation of all undesirables.”
In 1932, labour leaders from across the country were arrested and sent to Halifax. There were hearings followed by deportations for what became known as the “Halifax Ten.” One of them was even a Canadian citizen; thrown out of his own country for his political beliefs.
Anti-
By the late 1930s, it was clear Adolf Hitler intended to deal brutally with the Jews who lived in Germany. Some Jews could see the horror coming, left Germany, and tried to get into countries such as Canada as refugees.
At the time, Frederick Blair was director of Canada’s immigration program. Mr. Blair
was notoriously anti-
In 1938 he wrote: “Ever since the war (the First World War of 1914-
Mr. Blair did not lack for willing helpers.
Thomas Crerar was the only member of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Cabinet to support Jewish immigration to Canada. Even he fell in with his colleagues and supported the unofficial ban on letting Jews from Europe into Canada.
In June 1939, there was an eerie replay of the Komagata Maru incident. The ocean liner St. Louis arrived off Canada's East Coast with more than 900 Jewish refugees from Europe on board (below).
The Canadian government refused to allow them to land. So did the United States, Cuba, and all other countries in the Americas. The St. Louis returned to Europe and the refugees fell into the hands of the Nazis.
It’s thought that as many as three quarters of the passengers aboard the St. Louis were murdered or died in the Nazi death camps.
Japanese Internment
One of the last chapters of Canada’s official racism was written in February 1942.
Twenty-
The federal government sold off their property. Japan had entered World War II as
an enemy of Canada and these Canadian citizens were labelled a security threat.
Internees were encouraged to “return” to Japan, even though most of them were born in Canada. About 4,000 did leave to settle in Japan.
But, Canadian citizens were not as racist as their leaders. In 1946, Ottawa put together a plan to deport 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry. A massive public protest from across Canada forced the government to cancel its plans.
However, restrictions on Japanese-
Racism Declines
Our immigration policy after World War II began to crawl out from under its cloak of prejudice. It was still almost impossible for Chinese, Jews, or Black people to get in, but the barriers were beginning to come down.
However, it was still deemed acceptable for Prime Minister Mackenzie King to say
in May 1947 that, “The people of Canada do not wish, as a result of mass immigration,
to make a fundamental alteration in the character of our population. Large-
A new Immigration Act was passed in 1952. It prohibited immigration by the mentally ill, epileptics, people with disabilities, and homosexuals.
A system of encouraging immigrants of “preferred nationalities” was used to discourage Chinese, East Indian, and Black settlement.
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“We do not want to take too many Jews, but in the circumstances, we do not want to say so. We do not want to legitimize the Aryan mythology by
introducing any formal distinction for immigration purposes between Jews and non-
of policy.”
Memo to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King sent by the
Departments of
External Affairs and Mines and Resources. 1938
The first Mennonites to settle in Canada came from the United States early in the 19th century. The first major migration was of 2,000 Mennonites from Switzerland.
In the 1870s, another large group came from Russia. The Mennonites came so they could practice their faith in the manner they chose; a freedom not always enjoyed in Europe. They settled on land in southern Ontario and southern Manitoba.
A Scattering of Seeds is a 52-
COLOUR BAR
Facing racism at home a group of Black farmers in Oklahoma expressed an interest in coming to Canada.
Several Canadian boards of trade were having none of that. Even the Edmonton City Council joined the chorus and pressed Ottawa to ban Black immigrants.
In 1911, the federal government obliged and drafted an Order-
The order was not passed into law.
However, Canada still blocked most American Blacks from entering
the country.
1931 CENSUS
Total population:
10,376,786
Percentage of this
number born outside
Canada: 22%
Percentage of all
immigrants who
were female:
44%
Percentage of Asian
immigrants who
were female:
14%
Percentage of immigrants born in the
United Kingdom:
49%
Born in the U.S.:
15%
Born in Central Europe:
14%
Born in Asia:
3%
Number of people
identified as Jews:
156,726
of “Asiatic” origin:
84,548
as being “Negroes:”
19,456
RIGHTING A WRONG
After World War II, Canada’s Japanese citizens started to ask for compensation for the injustice of their internment.
In 1950, a judge recommended $1.2 million ($52 per person). Ottawa refused. By 1987,
a study said the total economic loss suffered by Japanese-
In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologized for what happened. The Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement paid $21,000 each to the 16,000 people still living. The agreement also set up The Canadian Race Relations Foundation to help eliminate racism.