Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 August 2011
Refugees Find Haven in Canada
Turmoil in many parts of the world has brought
hundreds of thousands of people to Canada
The first refugees to come here travelled on the Underground Railroad as depicted in this painting by Eastman Johnson (below).
There were no tracks, locomotives, or rolling stock on this railroad, but still perhaps as many as 30,000 passengers rode on it from 1800 to 1869. They were Black slaves from the United States who were guided from safe house to safe house until they reached safety.
They came here because slavery had been outlawed in Canada. However, when slavery
was abolished in the United States (1863) and after the Civil War (1861-
First Use of Refugee Term
Although the escaped slaves could be described as refugees that term was not in use
in the early 19th century. It wasn’t until after World War II (1939-
In 1951, the United Nations drew up a Refugee Convention. This defined refugees as
people who have a well-
A few years later, the first group to qualify as refugees came to Canada. In the fall of 1956, Hungarians tried to wrest control of their country from the Soviet Union. But, rocks and a few old rifles were no match for Soviet tanks and the uprising was crushed.
About 200,000 Hungarians fled into neighbouring Austria and Canada took in 37,000 of them. Ottawa organized about 200 charter flights to bring the refugees from Europe.
A decade later, the Hungarians were followed by 11,000 people from Czechoslovakia. They too had tried to rebel against Soviet occupation and had been crushed.
Escaping Persecution and War
It was one of Africa’s most corrupt and brutal dictators who triggered the next wave. Idi Amin ruled Uganda violently and, in 1972, announced he was going to kick all Asians out of the country. Seven thousand of them came to Canada.
Then came the crisis of the “Boat People (left).”
From 1959 to 1975 first France and then the United States were engaged in a bloody conflict in Vietnam that spilled over into neighbouring Laos and Cambodia.
When the war ended, there were tens of thousands of refugees in the three countries. Many of them tried to leave in small boats.
Those that survived the open seas and the pirates that preyed on them were housed in camps in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. The camps were run by the United Nations but the conditions in them were not good.
Word of the plight of the boat people touched people all over the world. Huge sponsorship programs were organized and Ottawa changed immigration rules to make it easier for the refugees. Between 1979 and 1981 60,000 of the boat people were brought to Canada.
“Boat People” Settle in Well
Most of the Indochinese who came to Canada did well; their welfare has been studied by Professor Morton Beiser of the University of Toronto. Dr. Beiser published the results in his 1999 book Strangers at the Gate.
A couple of years after their arrival, only 15 percent the Indochinese boat people were described as “successful.”
After ten years in Canada, 86 percent were termed “successful.” According to the study, “successful” is described as being healthy, having a job, and able to speak English.
Among the study group of 1,300 only one percent had received social assistance (welfare) and their unemployment rate was lower than the Canadian average.
Dr. Beiser said that those who adjusted best to their new lives in Canada were the ones who were able to put the difficulties they had been through behind them. Those who dwelt on the past and the horrors they endured did not fair so well.
More Refugees from Dysfunctional Countries
Civil war and upheaval have brought other refugee groups to Canada:
- Between 1990 and 2008, about 35,000 people arrived from Somalia in East Africa;
- During the early 1990s, the former Yugoslavia started to fall apart. Fighting broke out among a variety of nationalities in the region and fleeing civilians looked for a new home. Between 1993 and 1999, nearly 15,000 people found that new home in Canada;
- In 2003, Canada accepted 2,000 refugees from Sri Lanka, adding to the almost 40,000 who are already settled here.
There will be other waves because, sadly, there is no shortage of strife and misery in the world.
Currently, Canada accepts about 25,000 refugees a year; only a tiny fraction of the 20.8 million refugees estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to be in need of help.
There are only about a dozen countries in the world that have regular refugee resettlement programs similar to Canada’s.
Image credit
Thomas Phan
© Canada and the World, August 2011
All rights reserved
Some people believed there was an actual underground railroad running through a deep tunnel from the southern states into Canada.
More than 700,000
people have been given refugee protection in Canada since World
War II.
CONVENTION REFUGEES
Refugees can be sponsored by the government or by private individuals.
Usually, it works out that about two thirds are government-
To qualify for resettlement in Canada a refugee must meet many requirements, the most important being that they fit the United Nations definition of a Convention Refugee.
Here’s how Citizenship and Immigration Canada puts it: “A Convention refugee is a
person who is outside of their country of nationality or habitual residence and who
is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of a well-