Autumn is upon us. Election Day is fast approaching. Canadians are asked to weigh the most important issues of the day when choosing their Prime Minister. Apparently, it's a race between the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Conservatives win the election on the strength of their xenophobic indulgences betrayed by a telling slogan: "A White Canada."
That was fall 1911.
The party leader's name was Robert Borden.
He became PM on October 10th, 1911.
The 1911 federal election campaign played on voters' phobias and patriotism. Robert Borden's Conservatives were happy to harvest fear of foreigners on the road to electoral victory.
Voters viewed trepidation the proposed free trade deal with outsiders - those below the 49th parallel.
The Canadian-British Association lobby group formed in Toronto and spread its malicious message of anti-Americanism across Ontario in the months preceding the election. Arthur Hawkes was in charge of the special appeal to British-born Canadians, 250,000 of whom had immigrated to Canada in the 3 years leading up to the election. Hawkes' final appeal before voting day appealed to voters' identity and xenophobic tendencies: "It is the high privilege of the British born in Canada to unite with the Canadian born, at the most important general election in Canadian history, to defeat the object of a foreign government."
Moreover, Conservative leaders declared that a "reciprocity" (free trade) deal with the imperialist-leaning Americans would cause massive job losses. The unsubstantiated claim drew nervous factory workers to Conservative ranks.
Conservatives campaigned on the oft-repeated quip: "No truck nor trade with the Yankees," though there is no record of Borden having voiced that phrased. Borden's conservative associates produced thousands of pamphlets to fan the flames of anti-Americanism as it swept across English Canada.
Anti-Asian sentiment in British Columbia
During Borden's decade in opposition, PM Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals had successfully stemmed the flow of immigrants from Asia, India and other 'undesirable' pilgrims who were not white.
Much to Vancouverites' dismay, Asian immigrants kept coming despite the Chinese Head Tax designed to discourage newcomers. The Asiatic Exclusion League lobbied "to keep Oriental immigrants out of British Columbia." This sentiment spanned the province. The Vancouver Trades and Labour Council brought its grievances to PM Wilfred Laurier a year before the 1910 election: "White supremacy" was in jeopardy, they contended, if existing Asians were permitted to enter almost every trade." The Victoria Times: "The Anglo-Saxon nations on the Pacific coast regard the Yellow Peril as the serious and paticular menace.... This attitude is prompted by the instinct of self-preservation..." BC Premier Richard McBride echoed these sentiments in 1909: "We stand for a white British Columbia, a white land and a white Empire".
Robert Borden pandered to these Sinophobe constituents with this connotative catchphrase: "A White Canada." - a political dog whistle of yesteryear.
Luckily, these gutter tactics no longer entice the majority of electors... most of the time. The general recoil associated with racist pamphlets, xenophobic pandering and dog whistles are a testament to the progress Old Stock Canadians have made in 100 years.
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