In 1861, a Victoria newspaper was welcoming: "We have plenty of room for many thousands of Chinamen. … There can be no shadow of a doubt but their industry enables them to add very largely to our own revenues." But after the Canadian Pacific Railway was built, the welcome mat was removed. Following a 1914 judgement in the Court of Appeal which stipulated “[Asiatic] customs are not in vogue and their adherence to them here only gives rise to disturbances destructive to the well being of society”, the Chinese workers who had, with their bare hands and for half the pay of white workers, built Canada’s economic gateway were formally excluded from Canada via the Chinese Immigration Act under PM William Lyon Mackenzie King.
1939 - NAZI-FLEEING JEWS: NONE IS TOO MANY
900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany embarked on a ship towards the Americas – notably Halifax’s Pier 21, which had already welcomed hundreds of thousands of newcomers. At the time, Frederick Blair was director of Canada’s immigration program, and fought to keep certain people out. He then hid behind the difficulties resulting from stateless refugees from the First World War to justify his anti-Semitic ideology, adding “coming out of the maelstrom of war, some of them are liable to become public charges”. Blair, other immigration officials and cabinet ministers hostile to Jewish immigration persuaded the Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to refuse sanctuary to the ship. In his 1941 annual report, Blair candidly admitted "Canada, in accordance with generally accepted practice, places greater emphasis on race than upon citizenship."
1960s – BEFORE PIERRE TRUDEAU*’s REFORMS
Until the 1960s, Canada chose its immigrants on the basis of their racial categorization rather than the individual merits of the applicant, with preference being given to immigrants of Northern European (especially British) origin over the so-called “Black and Asiatic races”, and at times over central and southern European “races” . Pierre Trudeau’s government reformed the Immigration Act in 1976, which opened Canada’s doors to the best and the brightest from the world over.
*
"Before Trudeau" a.k.a. "B.C.".
Next: Part 6 of 6
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