Important information is in yellow Canada needed immigrants to settle Prairie Provinces to make sure Americans did not take the land and to connect east.

Important information is in yellow

Canada needed immigrants to settle Prairie Provinces to make sure Americans did not take the land and to connect east and west Canada

Needed farmers and labourers

Looked for• White American Farmers• British Farmers• Eastern European (Ukrainian, Hungarian) farmers

Why Immigration?

In the late 1800s, the expansion of settlements in Canada’s West was needed for several reasons:

Connect British Columbia with the rest of Canada

Prevent the U.S. from annexing the prairies

Drive to make Canada a ‘Great Country’

In 1896, PM Wilfrid Laurier’s government began the ‘Last, Best West’ campaign to attract immigrant settlers to Canada.

Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior, was responsible

Settlers could claim up to 160 acres of free land in the West with more available cheaply

Clifford Sifton 1896-1905 Open Door policy

• Distributed pamphlets, posters

• Sent immigration officers to process applicants

• Targeted poor in troubled countries

Frank Oliver 1905-1910 Selective Policy

• Must have money to come (amount based on race)

• Immigration officers did best to turn away applicants

The 1900s was the beginning of Canada’s cultural mosaic

Government policy was not totally an ‘open door’ policy

Posters, pamphlets and recruiters only went to Britain, U.S., and Northern, Central and Eastern Europe

Immigrants from other areas were discouraged

Immigrants from Europe, US, Britain preferred

Those from Asia, Africa, Caribbean excluded

War brides and Children 186 000 refugees after the war

Refugees fleeing Soviet power in Europe

1962—job skills and education #1 factor in immigration

Needed skilled workers because many from Canada were going to US

1967—Point System – people were given points based on education, age, skills, language

Remedied the fact that the 1967 act still favoured white immigrants

Independent class—sponsorships, business people

Family class—immigrating as a family Refugee class—those who feared for

lives or suffered persecution

Immigration is needed because of a declining birth rate

It is needed to sustain population numbers

Canada has one of the most open immigration policies in the world

Canadians used immigrants to do jobs they did not want to

Chinese immigrants to Canada built the Canadian Railway

Once the railway was built the government started to discourage Chinese immigration

Chinese had to pay a Head Tax in order to gain entry into the country• 1885$50;• 1900$100 • 1903$500

July 1st 1923Chinese Exclusion Act: banned all Chinese from entering Canada

Repealed in 1947

http://archives.cbc.ca/society/immigration/topics/1433/

The “massive immigration of Orientals would alter the fundamental composition of the Canadian population” and “give rise to social and economic problems”

-PM King

India, like Canada, was part of the British Commonwealth

Any citizen holding a passport from one of the Commonwealth countries is allowed to move freely between the common wealth nations

Therefore, South Asians were allowed to be in Canada as much as Canadians!

In 1908 Canada passed the Continuous Passage Act which stated that Indians would have to come to Canada via direct passage from India 

Considering the distance from India to Canada by boat and the average income in India, these rules and laws were blatant discrimination

Landed on BC shore, and Canadian government did not want to let them in

In the end, they waited for 2 months in a legal battle, and only 24 were accepted out of 376

A refugee is a person who has been pushed away from his or her home and seeks refuge elsewhere.

From 1933-1939 Canada accepted 4000 Jews• Anti-Semitism in Canada—would not ‘fit-in’

to Canadian society• Effects of Depression

St. Louis Incident• June 1939—907 Jews arrived on ocean liner• PM King refused to accept these refugees

and they returned to Europe where they would die in concentration camps

Blacks were “unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada” in attempts to keep Canada white

Between 1901-1911 fewer than 1500 African Americans came