Canadian Immigration Overview: Theme OverviewCanadian immigration policies were ethnically selective and remained so during the first half of the 20th century.Preference was given to British and American immigrants, followed by northern and then central Europeans. Leastdesired were Asians, Blacks and Jews. Non-preferred immigrants were usually admitted to perform risky or undesirablejobs, such as farming in remote areas and building the railway.

From 1885 to 1923, an increasingly oppressive head tax was levied on Chinese immigrants under the ChineseExclusion Act, and then replaced with even more restrictive measures. The "continuous voyage" policy was passed toprevent South Asian immigrants from entering Canada. It stipulated that immigrants had to travel directly to Canada,without stopping, which was impossible from India. Blacks were restricted on the pretext of not being able to tolerateharsh Canadian winters. During World War II, Japanese-Canadians were interned in work camps and many "repatriated"to Japan in 1946.

In 1938, thirty-two nations, including Canada, attended the Evian Conference to discuss the problem of Jewish refugeesfleeing Nazi Germany, but refused further Jewish immigration. In 1939, a shipload of German Jewish refugees aboardthe S.S. St. Louis, were refused sanctuary in Canada and forced to return to Europe. During the Holocaust, Canadaadmitted only about 5,000 Jews — one of the worst records of any of the refugee receiving countries.

After the war, Canada was one of the first nations to cautiously open its doors to Jewish displaced persons. In 1947, theCanadian government issued the Order in Council #1647 granting permission for 1,000 Jewish war orphans to enterCanada. In 1948, Canada's immigration policies were liberalized, as workers were needed for the booming post-wareconomy. Within a decade, almost two million newcomers, including thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors, wereadmitted.

Canada admitted nearly 40,000 Hungarian refugees in 1956 and 60,000 Vietnamese boat people in 1979. In 1986,Canada was awarded the United Nations' Nansen Medal for its compassionate refugee policies. By the end of the 20thcentury, Canada became one of the largest immigrant and refugee receiving countries in the world, admitting thousandsof refugees from Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and other places. Following the attack on the World Trade Centre in NewYork on 11 September 2001, Bill C-11 was passed to tighten refugee admission procedures.

ContentsCanadian Immigration Overview: Theme Overview 1Artifacts

Chinese Head Tax Receipt 2Photograph: Komagata Maru 3Diary Entry 4Telegram 6Japanese Canadian Identity Card 9Vietnamese Refugee 10Bosnian Refugees 11Rwandan Refugees 12

Canadian Immigration Overview

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Chinese Head Tax Receipt

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Chinese Head Tax Receipt, issued by the Canadian Immigration Branch. Vancouver, 2 August 1918.Courtesy Vancouver Public Library, photo #30625

Chinese immigrants first came to Canada in the late 1850's to work in the mines and build the railway. By the mid1870's anti-Chinese groups had formed and pressure mounted to curtail Chinese immigration. In 1885, the Canadiangovernment passed the Act to Restrict and Regulate Chinese Immigration into Canada. This law imposed a $50 headtax – a fee charged to those of Chinese origin seeking to enter Canada.

In 1901, the Canadian government raised the tax to $100 and appointed a Royal Commission on Chinese andJapanese Immigration, which concluded that Chinese immigrants were, "obnoxious to a free community and dangerousto the state." In 1904 the tax was increased to $500, a serious financial burden at the time. In 1923, the ChineseExclusion Act abolished the head tax, replacing it with more restrictive measures. Families of men working in Canadawere barred from immigrating, resulting in the long-term separation of families.

By the time the Act was repealed in 1947, it had restricted Chinese immigration so successfully that only 9 Chinesepeople had entered Canada as legal immigrants. Afterwards, they were placed in the same category as other Asiansand only the wives and minor children of Canadian citizens were permitted entry. By 1949, the long awaited unificationof families was underway. A new immigration act of 1952 gave the Governor-in-council unlimited power to excludepeople based on their ethnic group, or on their assumed inability to assimilate.

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Photograph

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Photograph of the Komagata Maru, docked at Burrard Inlet. Vancouver, May 1914.Photo courtesy Vancouver Public Library, photo #119

Immigrants from India began to arrive in British Columbia during the early 1900's. In 1907, the government of BritishColumbia disenfranchised East Indians, even thoughthey were British subjects. In 1908 the Canadian government passed a policy requiring immigrants to come toCanada by a continuous journey from their country of origin, which effectively stopped immigration from India. In1910, the order was extended to the wives and children of those already in Canada.

In 1914, after a two-month voyage, 376 Indians, mostly Sikhs, sailed into Vancouver harbour on the steamer,Komagata Maru. The ship had been chartered by Gurdit Singh to test the government ruling. Vancouver and Victorianewspapers of the time described the group of mostly adult male immigrants as "undesirable," "sick," "hungry," and"a menace to women and children."

Upon arrival, they were refused the right to disembark. The steamer sat in detention, under deteriorating conditionsand diminishing supplies, for two months. Following attempts to intimidate and force passengers off the steamer forimmediate deportation, the Komagata Maru was finally able to obtain provisions for a return trip to India and wasescorted out of the harbour by the H.M.S.Rainbow. With the exception of twenty returning residents and the ship’sdoctor, none of the passengers were permitted to disembark.

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Diary Entry

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Diary entry written by W.L. Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, 1935-1948. Ottawa, 29 March 1938From: Archives of the Holocaust, edited by Paula Draper and Harold Troper, Vol. 15, p.1.

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Diary Entry

Page 2 of 2: description

Canada’s immigration policies ranked immigrants according to their desirable characteristics and placed them in oneof four classes. In the first class were British or Americans who were guaranteed entry into Canada. In the PreferredClass were immigrants from western and northern Europe, who were exempt from most restrictions. The Non-Preferred Class were those from eastern Europe and the Baltic States, who were admitted as farmers if they had sufficient money.

The Special Permit Class was comprised of southern Europeans and Jews, who had to get special cabinet permissionto immigrate. In 1923, immigration policies were tightened up to severely limit the admission of these non-preferredimmigrants, especially Jews. Canada’s doors remained effectively closed to Jews until after the war.

Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and his cabinet ministers were responsible for maintaining these policiesuntil 1948. The Canadian government was preoccupied with the depression, the war, and feared an anti-Semiticbacklash in Quebec towards increased immigration. This diary entry demonstrates Mackenzie King's opposition toimmigration and specifically Jewish immigration.

These are the 2 most important paragraphs from the document:

...Attended Council from 12 till 1:30. A very difficult question has presented itself in Roosevelt's appeal to differentcountries to unite with the United States in admitting refugees from Austria, Germany, etc. That means, in a word,admitting numbers of Jews. My own feeling is that nothing is to be gained by creating an internal problem in an effortto meet an international one. That we must be careful not to seek to play the role of the dog in the manger so far asCanada is concerned, with our great open spaces and small population. We must nevertheless seek to keep thispart of the Continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood, as much thesame thing as lies at the basis of the Oriental problem. I fear we would have riots if we agreed to a policy that admittednumbers of Jews. Also we would add to the difficulties between the Provinces and the Dominion.

Council was very much of this view though Crerar, Rodgers and Euler and, to some extent, Ilsley were morefavourable to the open door on the humanitarian grounds. One has to look at realities and (p.339) meet these situationsin the light of conditions and not theories if the greatest happiness is to be obtained for the greatest number in thelong run.

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Telegram

Page 1 of 3: description and transcript

Telegram from prominent Christian citizens of Toronto to Mackenzie King, 7 June 1939, asking that Canada offer sanctuary to the 907 homeless exiles on board the S.S. St. Louis.

Courtesy National Archives of Canada.

Following Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, on November 9-10, 1938, German and Austrian Jews becameincreasingly desperate to flee Europe. On May 15, 1939 nine hundred and seven German Jews with visas for Cuba,sailed from Hamburg aboard the ship S.S. St. Louis. When the ship reached Havana on May 27, the Cuban govern -ment refused to honour their landing permits. Panama, Argentina, Columbia, Chile and Paraguay all denied the shippermission to land. The U.S. and Canada were the St. Louis' last hope. The United States’ coast guard was sent toescort the St. Louis away from the American coast.

The plight of the St. Louis touched some influential Canadians who sent a telegram to Prime Minister MackenzieKing asking that Canada offer sanctuary to the exiles. King did not think that this was a Canadian problem. TheDirector of Immigration F. C. Blair replied that the refugees were not qualified to enter Canada and that "No countrycould open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands of Jewish people who want to leave Europe:the line must be drawn somewhere."

The St. Louis had exhausted its last hope and returned to Europe. Great Britain admitted 287 of the refugees,Belgium 214, France 224 and the Netherlands 181. Only those who disembarked in England were safe. The restwere later caught up in the Holocaust and few survived.

Transcript:

Toronto Ont 754p June 7, 1939

Right Hon W.L. McKenzie King P.C.

Premier of Canada Niagara Falls

As a mark of gratitude to almighty God for the pleasure and gratification which have been vouchsafed to Canadian peoplethrough the visit their Gracious Majesties King George and Queen Elizabeth and as evidence of the true christian charityof the people of this most fortunate and blessed country we the undersigned as christian citizens of Canada respectfullysuggest that under the powers vested in you as Premier of our country you forwith [sic] offer to the 907 homeless exileson board the Hamburg American ship Stlouis [sic] Sanctuary in Canada.

George M. Wrong (and 41 others)

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Telegram

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Telegram

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Japanese Canadian Identity Card

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Japanese Canadian identity card. Vancouver, 11 March 1941. Courtesy Royal British Columbia Museum

Long standing anti-Japanese sentiment in Canada was heightened by Japan’s entry into World War II. On February27, 1942, the Canadian government decreed the removal of all persons of Japanese ancestry from the coast ofBritish Columbia. Japanese people, many of them Canadian citizens, were forced to abandon their homes, businessesand possessions and relocate to the interior for the duration of the war. Many men were separated from their familiesand sent to work camps. As part of the Japanese Internment, Japanese Canadians were forced to carry identitycards like this one.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King opposed Japanese immigration to Canada, even after the war:"... the government is of the view that, having regard to the strong feeling that has been aroused against theJapanese during the war and to the extreme difficulty of assimilating Japanese persons in Canada, no immigration ofJapanese into this country should be allowed after the war." (Excerpts from a statement by Prime Minister W.L.Mackenzie King, House of Commons, August 4, 1944.)

In April 1945, the Canadian government began a campaign of intimidation against Japanese Canadians living inBritish Columbia to force them to move to eastern Canada or be deported to Japan. This policy continued despite thewar's end. In 1946, 3,964 people, many of them Canadian citizens, were "repatriated" to Japan. This was describedby the government as a "final solution" to the Japanese problem. The order was repealed in January 24, 1947 butthe movement of Japanese Canadians continued to be restricted until 1949.

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Photograph

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Photograph of a Vietnamese child refugee at a refugee reception centre. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, 1997.Courtesy United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees

The American war in Vietnam ended in 1975. After the Americans withdrew from Vietnam, the Saigon government ofSouth Vietnam fell to the Communists. This sparked a massive exodus of Vietnamese people to Hong Kong,Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Media attention and fear that these countries wouldpush the "boat people" back to sea compelled the world's wealthier nations to offer asylum to the refugees.

Between 1975 and 1995, over 840,000 refugees left Vietnam, often on small, unseaworthy boats. The efforts ofindividual Canadians and community groups led to the arrival of 30,000 boat people in 1979. The following year, theCanadian government sponsored another 30,000. Over seven hundred thousand Vietnamese "boat people" resettledin other parts of the world including the United States, England, France and Germany.

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Photograph

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Photograph of Bosnian refugees in the Crnomelj Camp/Shelter. 1992. Courtesy United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees.

Before conflicts broke out, Yugoslavia was comprised of several regions, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. In1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia. In March 1992, Bosnia declared its inde -pendence from what remained of Yugoslavia, in effect, Serbia. Driven by ethnic loyalties, Serbs, Croats and Muslimsbecame involved in the fighting.

Atrocities and massacres were committed by all sides. Serbs, and to a lesser degree Croatians, were involved in"ethnic cleansing," the forced removal, and sometimes murder, of unwanted groups. A refugee crisis was created asethnic groups were either driven out or fled in fear. In 1994, there were over 320,000 Bosnian refugees.

In 1995 a cease-fire was established and Bosnia was divided among the three ethnic groups. Canada and othercountries provided peacekeeping forces and other assistance. Close to thirteen thousand Bosnian refugees enteredCanada between 1992 and 1997.

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Photograph

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Photograph of Rwandan refugees returning from Tanzania. December 1996. Courtesy United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees

Belgium controlled Rwanda-Urundi for forty years, during which time it favoured the minority Tutsis over the majorityHutus. This created ethnic tensions between the two groups. Belgium opposed the Rwandan monarch’s desire forindependence and established Parmehutu, a Hutu party to overthrow the monarch and form a republic.In 1959, this political crisis sparked a civil war that forced many Tutsis and Hutu moderates to flee into the neighbouringcountries of Uganda and Burundi, where they founded the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF).

Rwanda gained independence in 1962. Fighting between Rwandan Armed Forces (mostly Hutus) and the RPFbroke out in October of 1990 along the Ugandan-Rwandan border. The Arusha peace agreement was signed in 1993and the United Nations sent in peacekeeping forces headed by Canadian, Romeo Dallaire to oversee the transitionto multiparty elections.

In April 1994, a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was allegedly downed by Hutus opposedto the peace accord and power sharing. This sparked the genocide in which militant Hutus killed Tutsis and moderateHutus. In 100 days more than 800,000 innocent civilians were massacred. The genocide ended in July of 1994 whenthe RPF defeated Hutu extremists. From 1991 to 1997, 609 Rwandan refugees entered Canada.