Who Gets to Come? Immigration, Refugees and Multiculturalism

Who gets to come?

Every country makes choices about who may immigrate. Those choices say a lot about how a country sees itself. In 1947, Prime Minister Mackenzie King told Parliament that Canada wanted more immigrants, but that it would not allow immigration to change the "fundamental composition" of the population. In plain words: Canada would keep preferring white, mostly British and northern European immigrants.

By 1982, Canada's rules were very different. People were chosen mainly by skills, education and family connections, not by race or nationality, and Canada had an official policy of multiculturalism. In this lesson you will trace that change, see what caused it, and ask what stayed the same.

1945–1961: open doors, but not for everyone

• Citizenship: the Canadian Citizenship Act took effect on January 1, 1947. For the first time, people were Canadian citizens, not only British subjects.
• Ending one exclusion: in 1947, Canada repealed the Chinese Immigration Act (1923), which had blocked almost all Chinese immigration. Chinese Canadians had pushed hard for this, pointing to their service in the war. But strict limits remained: for years, Chinese Canadians could sponsor only close family members.
• Japanese Canadians, who had been uprooted during the war, regained the right to vote and to live anywhere in Canada, including the B.C. coast, by 1949.
• Displaced persons: tens of thousands of Europeans who had lost their homes in the war came, often required to work for a time in farms, mines, forests or as domestic workers.
• Large European migrations: many Italians, Germans, Dutch, Greeks, Portuguese, Ukrainians and Poles came in the 1950s.
• Refugees from communism: after the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Canada accepted about 37 000 Hungarian refugees in 1956–57.
• The Immigration Act of 1952 still gave officials wide power to refuse people because of their nationality, "customs" or likely ability to "assimilate".

1962 and 1967: the rules change

• In 1962, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Ellen Fairclough (the first woman in a federal cabinet) introduced regulations that removed most racial discrimination from Canada's immigration rules. Education, training and skills became the main tests.
• In 1967, the points system was introduced. Officers gave applicants points out of 100 in nine categories, and an applicant usually needed 50 points to be accepted. Family members could still be sponsored separately.

Consequence: the sources of immigration shifted. In the 1950s, most immigrants came from Europe and the U.S. By the late 1970s, a large and growing share came from Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa. Cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver became much more diverse.

Refugees and the 1976 Immigration Act

Canada accepted many groups of refugees in this period: people from Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion of 1968; Tibetan refugees in the early 1970s; about 7 000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Uganda's dictator Idi Amin in 1972; Chileans fleeing a military coup after 1973; and many American war resisters during the Vietnam War.

The Immigration Act of 1976 (in force in 1978) made refugees a separate category for the first time, set out that Canadian law must not discriminate on grounds such as race, religion or sex, and created private sponsorship, which let churches, community groups and groups of citizens sponsor refugees.

In 1979–1980, about 60 000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (many called "boat people" because they fled across the sea in small boats) came to Canada. More than half were sponsored by ordinary Canadians through private sponsorship.

Multiculturalism and a changing identity

The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963–1969) focused on English and French Canadians. Many Canadians of other backgrounds, especially Ukrainian Canadians, argued that their contributions were being left out of the national story. In response, on October 8, 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework. The government would support cultural groups, help newcomers learn English or French, and encourage exchange between groups.

Cultural festivals grew: Caribana in Toronto began in 1967 (organized by Caribbean Canadians as a Centennial gift), and Folklorama in Winnipeg began in 1970. Neighbourhoods like Little Italy, Chinatown and Greektown became part of city life.

Different perspectives: many newcomers welcomed multiculturalism. Some Québécois felt it treated French Canadians as just one group among many, rather than as one of two founding peoples. Some First Nations, Métis and Inuit leaders pointed out that they are not "ethnic groups" but nations with their own rights. Some critics worried it would divide Canadians; others said it did not go far enough to fight racism.