From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Immigration Policy/Harold Troper
The achievement of internal autonomy by the colonies in 1848 meant that they could actively promote immigration. In the Canadas the authority for this field was assigned in 1852 to the newly created Department of Agriculture, establishing an association that would remain at the centre of public policy until World War II. The Canadian government wanted farmers, preferably wealthy ones, to populate its “empty” spaces. Permanent agents were named both at home and in Britain to attract such immigrants and assist them in the journey to their area of settlement. The government embarked on its own advertising campaign, soon imitated by the major transportation companies, whose objective was to dispel the ignorance about Canada that was thought to be a major barrier to immigration. At first directed at Britain, such publicity soon encompassed the francophone nations of Europe after French Canadians, citing the 1851 census, complained that the large-scale influx of the 1840s had tipped the ethnic balance against them. The process of putting in place a state apparatus to encourage settlement from abroad continued with the Confederation of the British North American colonies. Under the new constitution of 1867, the federal and provincial governments were made jointly responsible for immigration and agriculture, although only the former had the power to determine immigration levels. Neither the means nor the objective of attracting an essentially agricultural workforce changed. Now, however, both levels of government pursued recruitment abroad, sometimes at cross purposes.
Quebec, for one, became actively involved because it was concerned that Ontario’s initiatives in advertising and recruitment in Britain would further upset the ethnic balance in the new dominion. Nevertheless, despite the government’s high expectations, French-speaking immigrants from Europe were not lured by the idea of settling on marginal farmlands in the Canadian Shield. Nor were prospects in the industrial labour market any more attractive since the rural French-Canadian population was abundant enough to meet those needs until the end of the century. Soon the recession of the mid-1870s sounded the death knell for provincial participation in immigration as the federal government discontinued its subsidies to the provinces. After a series of federal-provincial conferences ending in 1875, Ottawa took full control of selection, while the provinces were content to look after the settlement of immigrants, except in the northwest, which fell under the central government’s authority.
The 1870s marked new departures in immigration policy. For one thing, recruitment efforts were extended to Germany and the Scandinavian countries, underlining the government’s ethnic preferences. More important, however, Ottawa broke with its previous laissezfaire position and, following the example that the Maritime colonies had set before Confederation, introduced a series of financial and other incentives to attract newcomers. Commissions were offered to booking agents to encourage them to direct migrants to Canada, while immigrants themselves received reductions on fares across the Atlantic and within the country. Female domestics and male agricultural workers were especially favoured because of labour shortages in these sectors. Quebec and Ontario, for their part, paid the internal travel costs of those who agreed to locate within their borders. Assisted passage was also made available to immigrants landing at American ports but bound for a Canadian destination, as well as to Canadians who had emigrated to the United States. The repatriation of native sons and daughters was a policy dear not only to Ottawa but also to the Quebec government. For many years to come, the province would regard the return migration of hundreds of thousands of French Canadians to be a high priority in light of its own inability to attract French-speaking settlers from Europe. A final development in Canada’s efforts to recruit settlers was the provision of free land grants in the west for group settlements of Mennonites from the Russian Empire in the 1870s and Icelanders in the following decade.
In 1878 the Conservative government of John A. Macdonald announced its famous “national policy” for the creation of an integrated Canadian economy. Immigration was a key element of this instrument of state. A projected transcontinental railway would convey newcomers to the west, where, turned into progressive farmers, they were expected to feed Canada’s growing urban population and become a captive market for the protected industries of the east. Builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway, however, encountered severe labour shortages, particularly in the stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. As a result, they brought in large numbers of Chinese labourers, who were paid sub-standard wages to perform this dangerous work. From British Columbia, where this labour force was concentrated, came strong calls for their exclusion.
The first Immigration Act, adopted by the federal government in 1869, had been designed to be an infinitely malleable device, allowing politicians to determine policy by discretionary means. Until after World War II, governments considered that immigration should further the country’s economic growth and its essentially British character. Not surprisingly, then, orders-in-council were approved in the 1870s that denied entry to categories regarded as economic liabilities: criminals, paupers, and the physically and mentally handicapped. As for Chinese male sojourners working on the railway, their presence was thought to be beneficial but temporary, as it had been during British Columbia’s gold rush in the 1850s. In an age of rampant European expansionism in Africa and Asia, the Chinese were perceived as undesirable immigrants, at best unassimilable and at worst uncivilized and racially inferior. The government had expected that the problem would soon go away. But faced with growing agitation on the west coast, the Conservatives in 1885 implemented legislation imposing a head tax on all Chinese immigrants equivalent to almost two months of a white labourer’s wages. The measure received the support of broad segments of the Canadian public.
Ironically, issues of exclusion were being discussed at a time when the country could not retain its own population. During the last third of the nineteenth century, Canada received between 1 and 1.5 million newcomers, but lost some 1.2 to 2 million people through emigration. How many of these emigrants were native Canadians and how many recent arrivals is difficult to determine. But such information would be crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of immigration policy. One thing is clear, however: levels of industrial growth in eastern Canada, while impressive and drawing ever greater numbers of rural migrants to the cities, were not sufficient to prevent this outflow. The availability of good land in the United States until the end of the century, together with an ever expanding job market in the cities, attracted large numbers of Canadians and Europeans to republic south of the border.
