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How does canadian immigration policy affect canada essay
How does canadian immigration policy affect canada essay
Analysis of Canadian immigration policy
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To: Admirable Judges of the Canadian Wall of Fame. From: Ben Atkins; Representative of Clifford Sifton. The purpose of this letter is to promote Sir Clifford Sifton for the wall of fame and as being one of the significant Canadians ever. No one has changed western Canada’s history like this man. Canadian immigration policy in the first decade of the century is associated with no one individual more than Clifford Sifton. Like many of Manitoba's elite, Sifton was born in Upper Canada (Ontario) and came to Manitoba with his family as a youth. Trained as a lawyer, Sifton made his career first in provincial and later in federal politics. He was elected as a Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly in 1888, and he served in the Greenway cabinet from 1891 to 1896 as Attorney General and Minster of Education. It was in the latter capacity that he played a central role in negotiating the Laurier-Greenway Compromise that partially resolved the contentious issue of religious schooling in the province. In 1896, Sifton went to Ottawa as a Member of Parliament, where he served as Minister of the Interior and Superintendent General of Indian Affairs. It is with this office that Sifton's name is synonymous. As Minister of the Interior, Sifton steered the country into a vigorous immigration policy designed to people the west. Sifton was convinced about the economic potential of the west and the centrality of the west to the prosperity of Canada as a whole. He viewed immigration as a "national enterprise" to be undertaken in the same manner as the construction of the transcontinental railway. To this end, Sifton's department established immigration offices in the United States, Britain and several Central European countries in hopes of attracting experienced farmers. Sifton wanted to build "a nation of good farmers." He felt that the west already had an oversupply of urban workers, and that to encourage the immigration of more city dwellers would only amplify the problems of urban poverty and unemployment and swell the slums of regional centres like Winnipeg. Accordingly, he instructed his agents to discourage the immigration of Italians, Blacks, Jews, Orientals and urban Englishmen who would not, he believed, succeed as farmers. Instead, the immigration agents sought candidates who it was felt would be more likely to endure hardships and remain on the farm. While many of immigrants came from traditional sources like Great Britain and the United States, this policy opened the door for others, and it was in this period that Canada saw a large arrival of Eastern Europeans, including Ukrainians, Doukhobors and other groups from the Austrian and Russian Empires.
Historically, Canada has held a world renowned reputation as nation with a magnanimous ideological approach to providing asylum to those individuals subjected to marginalization and persecution in their homeland – regardless of their nation of origin (Ismaili, 2011, p.89 & 92). Indeed, providing sanctuary to refugees who would otherwise experience significant hardships ranging from blatant discrimination and racism to torture and genocide, has very much become an institutionalized aspect of Canadian society. However, recent changes to Canada’s immigration policy delineated in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and Bill C-31 may have perhaps put this ideology in peril (Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 2001).
The development and implementation of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy was able to accomplish it’s three main goals: completion of the Canada Pacific Railway, the increase in tariffs and import duty to protect resources and industrial interest, as well as expanding immigration to the West of Canada. However, this period of success was also met with many disadvantages as well. The policy put forth for western immigration was discriminatory to francophone Canadians, causing massive emigration to the United States. In addition, the only areas to benefit from the National Policy were the heartland areas from Windsor to Montreal, causing regional innequality in Western Canada and the maritime provinces.
Labour leaders in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s were strongly opposed to the idea of Asians immigrating to Canada. In “Constructing the Great Menace” by David Goutor, it outlines the oppression of Asians by labour leaders which does not conclude that labour leaders hated all immigration and had a prejudice against all racialized groups. The unionists’ main argument for this opposition is based on the stereotype that Asians were claimed to have “accepted low wages and degraded working conditions” thus proving that they will diminish the standard of living for Canadian workers. These Labour Leaders were prejudice to Asians in an effort to supposedly protect Canadian workers and their jobs. However, it is not fair to say that labour
Even though he is remembered as Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau’s legacy did not start there. While his sixteen years as Prime Minister is said to be his greatest achievement, his reputation as a hard worker started after he graduated from the University of Montreal, when he landed a position as a desk officer for the Privy Council; he practiced law, specializing in labour and civil liberty cases –issues he later brought into focus of Canadians– from 1951 to 1961. During these years, Trudeau spent his time opposing the ‘Union Nationale’ government of Maurice Duplessis; he demanded both social and political change. “Trudeau sought to rouse opposition ...
Robert, Jean-Claude, Dr. "Immigration Acts (1866 - 2001)." Canada in the Making. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. .
Isaac Hourwich's purpose in writing this book is to inform readers on the actualities of the immigration movement. The purpose of most scholary pieces of literature are stated at the beginning of the book, as Hourwich did. His text was written as a response to The Immigration Commission. Hourwich wished to respond to the prejudiced Americans who thought that the goal of the new immigrants was to take jobs away. Hourwich begins by stating that restricted the labor market (1). He goes onto say that during the 1880s and the early 90's the general consensus of "native" Americans, the past Northern and Western immigrants was that the new (southern and eastern) immigrants goal wad to come to America in search for employment. In return each immigrant
Large numbers of Chinese immigrants were recruited to live in Canada and work as labourers on the railway. They arrived in masses with the hopes of being able to earn a living and making a life in a promising new country. The working and social conditions they were met with were far from what they had expected or envisioned.
During its first hundred years, the United States had a laissez-faire policy toward immigration-no limits. Federal, state, and local governments, private employers, shipping companies and railroads, and churches promoted immigration to the United States. For example, subsidizing railroad construction led to the recruitment of immigrant workers by private railroad companies. High tariffs kept out European manufactured goods and thus created a demand for more workers in American factories. The federal government relied on immigrants to staff the army-immigrants were about a third of the regular soldiers in the 1840s, and an even higher proportion of many state militias.
The Canadian Constitution, is the supreme law of the land, has evolved countless of times throughout history. Within this paper, I will focus on two vital dates: The Constitution Act of 1867 and 1982. Canada’s Constitution Act is made up of written laws (statutes), conventions and Canadian court decisions (Mcconnell, W. H. 2015). The Constitution Act of 1867, was formerly known as the British North American Act (NBA), together with amendments made to it since enacted, became the Constitution Act of 1982. Immigration is one of the few areas covered in the Constitution that gives both federal legislators and provincial legislators to enact laws.
The National Policy became the standard of Macdonald for the rest of his life and
With restrictive immigration policies in place in the 1920s, interwar immigration to the United States and Canada had been dramatically curtailed from the peak years just before World War I (1914–18; see World War I and immigration). The exigencies of war dropped the numbers further still. The United States admitted almost 1.3 million immigrants in 1907, 50,000 in 1937 when war broke out in China, and less than 24,000 in 1943. Canada’s peak year had been 1913, when almost 400,000 immigrants landed; immigration in 1937 dropped to about 12,000 and further down to 7,445 in the trough year of 1943. But war also changed people’s attitudes toward immigrants and those who might become immigrants and presented enormous challenges to current policies.
Stoffman, Daniel. Who gets in: What's wrong with Canada's immigration program, and how to fix it. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 2002.
The history of immigration law in Canada began in 1828 when the great migration to Canada occurred. The first legislative passed by Britain was accountable for the safety and well being of immigrants leaving the United Kingdom and coming to Canada. This act limited the number of passengers who could be carried on a ship, control the amount of space given to the passengers, and the ship must provide the passengers with adequate supplies. These were ignored by the powerful transportation companies and many deaths occurred. In addition, landowners wanting to get rid of sick tenants as quickly as possible. They resisted the reform fearing it would increase the price of the voyage.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Canadian government developed several racist policies to contest the settlement of Chinese immigrants in Canada. Following the government’s reaction to Chinese immigrants a Canadian moral panic evolved . The first Canadian Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald (1878-1891) had a vision for the ideal “white” Canada . This Canada would be physically and morally prosperous by exhibiting European dominance over visible minorities. Racism occurred in different aspects from general mistreatment to formal legislation limiting movement and entry into Canada’s borders.
Lastly, immigration procedures and policy in general, as Satzewich & Liodakis (2007) poignantly state, have an “inherent tension...between seeing and using immigrants as a convenient means of solving short term labour market problems and seeing them as [those]...who will contribute to the reproduction of wider social and political relations” (p.44). In reflecting on this quotation, I wonder how far Canada has actually come from our historical racialized treatment of minority groups, or whether our racism is simply less overt. Although not all government relations with minority populations necessarily involved this same dynamic, the seeming prevalence of this trend across the numerous different groups at various times (as described) seems to suggest a more concerning and pervasive problem. I found this article particularly compelling as it linked complex historical events together within a framework of racial tensions and power dynamics. That being said, I would like to have seen some comment as to where we can go from here; as necessary as it is to acknowledge what has happened, this knowledge must be used to alter how we currently approach similar