INTRODUCTION C ome to Canada said the pamphlets circulating through Europe. In 1900 the fed- eral...

 

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INTRODUCTION C ome to Canada" said the pamphlets circulating through Europe. In 1900 the fed- eral Immigration Branch published and distributed over one million of these pam- phlets in many languages, extolling the Canadian west to Europeans anxious for a fresh start on a young continent far from the stultifying social inertia, poverty, and per- petual turmoil of their homelands. Though earlier Canadian immigration policy favoured British Isles residents to the virtual exclusion of others, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and his Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, boldly invited immigrants from east and central Europe tooto the considerable consternation of those wishing to perpetuate the traditional Anglo-Saxon temper of Canada. Sifton understood that ignoring majority sentiment, especially over issues as sensi- tive as immigration, could mean political suicide. He therefore sought to change popular perception of prospective settlers. Mainstream Canadians, he knew, judged immigrants' desirability like the concentric rings from a pebble tossed in a pond: London represented the epicentre and the closer the ring to it, the better the immigrant. British, Scandinavians, and North Germans were fine, as were the Dutch. And France, a mere stone's throw across the English Channel? French immigrants were acceptable to the Qubcois, but Sifton wanted a unicultural Anglo-Saxon prairies in a bid to prevent recurrence of the nineteenth-century Mtis problems. Thus, immigration officers steered away from France, whose government dissuaded them anyway. Rings radiating further outward were prob- lematic. Ones representing Mediterranean nations were really too remote to be desirable. Italians and other "Latins, after all, were too lascivious and passionate, and East European rings too Slavic for mainstream acceptability. Sifton agreed with the former but disputed the later. He argued that a "stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat with a stout wife" from Eastern Europe would develop the Canadian northwest better than a prospective immi- grant from Britain. Unlike their British counterparts, Slavs lived in a similar environment to the Canadian prairies. To assuage xenophobic fears, Sifton assured Canadians that a Ukrainian settler would soon assimilate and become indistinguishably Britannic. And what of the far-flung rings representing prospective immigrants of colour: Africans, Indi- ans, and Asians? Many Canadians viewed non-white newcomers with concern and hostility. This was particularly true in British Columbia where a disproportionate number of 1 prospec- tive immigrants arrived from non-Caucasian countries such as Japan, China, and India. Those settlers bore the brunt of stereotyping and usually found their presence unwel- come except when it served employers' needs. Though the basis for racism in British Columbia was multifaceted, it was largely economic and emanated mainly from working- class residents, who worried that visible minority immigrants would arrive en masse and take over because they accepted lower living standards and wages, both of which would then be driven down for everyone. Federal and provincial governments responded to local anxieties and soon erected barriers against those immigrants deemed undesirable." And if the barriers were too low? Raise them. Do whatever was necessary. Thus, Chinese immigrants paid head taxes upon arrival, taxes that rose from an initial $50, to $100, and finally to $500-far beyond the means of most would-be applicants. The federal government created a gentleman's agreement with Japan whereby the Japanese government forbade all but a handful of its citizens from travelling to Canada. India and Indian emigrants, however, posed a special conundrum. Members of the British Empire had legal rights to travel and live anywhere within the Empire. Thus, Indians could legally immigrate to Canada if they so wished, and, much to the dismay of many in British Columbia, a growing number did. In response, the federal government enacted the Continuous Passage Act that neatly circumvented legal niceties by requiring prospective Indian immigrants to travel by continuous passage from India to Canada -which was impossible. Efforts to challenge the act came to a head in the summer of 1914 when the Komagata Maru and its nearly 400 Indian passengers sailed from Calcutta to Vancouver. Stuck on board and anchored in the middle of Vancouver's harbour when the ship was forbidden docking rights, the 400 immigrants sweltered in increasingly deplorable conditions in the summer heat. Nearly two months later, and after the ship had become something of a local attraction, Canadian soldiers escorted it out of Canadian waters at gunpoint and without disembarking its passengers. Sifton's settlement of the prairies proceeded at a rapid pace and with less anti- immigrant hostility than on the West Coast. The Canadian west's population of 300,000 before 1896 grew to 1.5 million by the eve of World War I in 1914. The prairies ceased being primarily Native and Mtis homelands and instead developed a multicultural milieu unlike any other in the country. Winnipeg, as the gateway to the prairies, had far more foreign than native-born citizens, and they came from all over Europe. Settlement was not easy, however. Certainly the prairies offered better opportunities and more potential than their original homelands, but life proved much harsher than immigrants expected. Canadian government propaganda, after all, only described success stories, never failures. Pamphlets failed to mention the expectation of assimilation, racism, bigotry, and discrimi- nation. Immigration agents in Europe never warned about homesickness, loneliness, or any of the other traumas so common to new immigrants. The Canadian Pacific Railroad, which played a major part in recruiting and transporting immigrants, even failed to men- tion winter or snow in its promotional advertisements extolling the virtues of life on the Canadian prairies. DISCUSSION POINTS 1. Would you agree with Scott's description of the federal government's immigration policies as "just and humane"? If not, how would you define them? 2. On what basis did Canada rank immigrants? 3. Compare the experiences of visible minorities such as the Chinese and Sikhs with those of Adamowska. 4. Did the federal government take advantage of newly arrived immigrants? Did it have an obligation to provide more support to these people? 5. Three decades passed between Adamowska's initial immigration experience and its publication. Would her description have been different if it had been recorded earlier? What distinguishes history from memory? 6. Scott's account contains many racial stereotypes and demeaning images of ethnic groups. Should we reprint and study these types of documents? Do they qualify as hate literature? INTRODUCTION C ome to Canada" said the pamphlets circulating through Europe. In 1900 the fed- eral Immigration Branch published and distributed over one million of these pam- phlets in many languages, extolling the Canadian west to Europeans anxious for a fresh start on a young continent far from the stultifying social inertia, poverty, and per- petual turmoil of their homelands. Though earlier Canadian immigration policy favoured British Isles residents to the virtual exclusion of others, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier and his Minister of the Interior, Clifford Sifton, boldly invited immigrants from east and central Europe tooto the considerable consternation of those wishing to perpetuate the traditional Anglo-Saxon temper of Canada. Sifton understood that ignoring majority sentiment, especially over issues as sensi- tive as immigration, could mean political suicide. He therefore sought to change popular perception of prospective settlers. Mainstream Canadians, he knew, judged immigrants' desirability like the concentric rings from a pebble tossed in a pond: London represented the epicentre and the closer the ring to it, the better the immigrant. British, Scandinavians, and North Germans were fine, as were the Dutch. And France, a mere stone's throw across the English Channel? French immigrants were acceptable to the Qubcois, but Sifton wanted a unicultural Anglo-Saxon prairies in a bid to prevent recurrence of the nineteenth-century Mtis problems. Thus, immigration officers steered away from France, whose government dissuaded them anyway. Rings radiating further outward were prob- lematic. Ones representing Mediterranean nations were really too remote to be desirable. Italians and other "Latins, after all, were too lascivious and passionate, and East European rings too Slavic for mainstream acceptability. Sifton agreed with the former but disputed the later. He argued that a "stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat with a stout wife" from Eastern Europe would develop the Canadian northwest better than a prospective immi- grant from Britain. Unlike their British counterparts, Slavs lived in a similar environment to the Canadian prairies. To assuage xenophobic fears, Sifton assured Canadians that a Ukrainian settler would soon assimilate and become indistinguishably Britannic. And what of the far-flung rings representing prospective immigrants of colour: Africans, Indi- ans, and Asians? Many Canadians viewed non-white newcomers with concern and hostility. This was particularly true in British Columbia where a disproportionate number of 1 prospec- tive immigrants arrived from non-Caucasian countries such as Japan, China, and India. Those settlers bore the brunt of stereotyping and usually found their presence unwel- come except when it served employers' needs. Though the basis for racism in British Columbia was multifaceted, it was largely economic and emanated mainly from working- class residents, who worried that visible minority immigrants would arrive en masse and take over because they accepted lower living standards and wages, both of which would then be driven down for everyone. Federal and provincial governments responded to local anxieties and soon erected barriers against those immigrants deemed undesirable." And if the barriers were too low? Raise them. Do whatever was necessary. Thus, Chinese immigrants paid head taxes upon arrival, taxes that rose from an initial $50, to $100, and finally to $500-far beyond the means of most would-be applicants. The federal government created a gentleman's agreement with Japan whereby the Japanese government forbade all but a handful of its citizens from travelling to Canada. India and Indian emigrants, however, posed a special conundrum. Members of the British Empire had legal rights to travel and live anywhere within the Empire. Thus, Indians could legally immigrate to Canada if they so wished, and, much to the dismay of many in British Columbia, a growing number did. In response, the federal government enacted the Continuous Passage Act that neatly circumvented legal niceties by requiring prospective Indian immigrants to travel by continuous passage from India to Canada -which was impossible. Efforts to challenge the act came to a head in the summer of 1914 when the Komagata Maru and its nearly 400 Indian passengers sailed from Calcutta to Vancouver. Stuck on board and anchored in the middle of Vancouver's harbour when the ship was forbidden docking rights, the 400 immigrants sweltered in increasingly deplorable conditions in the summer heat. Nearly two months later, and after the ship had become something of a local attraction, Canadian soldiers escorted it out of Canadian waters at gunpoint and without disembarking its passengers. Sifton's settlement of the prairies proceeded at a rapid pace and with less anti- immigrant hostility than on the West Coast. The Canadian west's population of 300,000 before 1896 grew to 1.5 million by the eve of World War I in 1914. The prairies ceased being primarily Native and Mtis homelands and instead developed a multicultural milieu unlike any other in the country. Winnipeg, as the gateway to the prairies, had far more foreign than native-born citizens, and they came from all over Europe. Settlement was not easy, however. Certainly the prairies offered better opportunities and more potential than their original homelands, but life proved much harsher than immigrants expected. Canadian government propaganda, after all, only described success stories, never failures. Pamphlets failed to mention the expectation of assimilation, racism, bigotry, and discrimi- nation. Immigration agents in Europe never warned about homesickness, loneliness, or any of the other traumas so common to new immigrants. The Canadian Pacific Railroad, which played a major part in recruiting and transporting immigrants, even failed to men- tion winter or snow in its promotional advertisements extolling the virtues of life on the Canadian prairies. DISCUSSION POINTS 1. Would you agree with Scott's description of the federal government's immigration policies as "just and humane"? If not, how would you define them? 2. On what basis did Canada rank immigrants? 3. Compare the experiences of visible minorities such as the Chinese and Sikhs with those of Adamowska. 4. Did the federal government take advantage of newly arrived immigrants? Did it have an obligation to provide more support to these people? 5. Three decades passed between Adamowska's initial immigration experience and its publication. Would her description have been different if it had been recorded earlier? What distinguishes history from memory? 6. Scott's account contains many racial stereotypes and demeaning images of ethnic groups. Should we reprint and study these types of documents? Do they qualify as hate literature?

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Discussion Points on Scotts Account of Early Canadian Immigration Policy 1 Just and Humane No Scotts description of the federal governments immigratio... View the full answer