Immigration in the Era of Wilfrid Laurier

The coming to power of the Liberals under Wilfrid Laurier in 1896 coincided with a worldwide economic boom that, much as at the beginning of that century, spurred immigration and the export of Canada’s natural resources. Government policy did not differ markedly from that of previous administrations: agricultural immigrants remained the priority. In the new climate of economic expansion, advertising, as well as the number of bonuses and agents, was vastly increased. But the government gave financial rewards only for immigrants who actually became settlers. Recruitment was extended to new areas: the empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, as well as the United States in the wake of the closing of the mythic American frontier. As minister in charge of immigration, Clifford Sifton, a prairie member of Parliament with close connections to eastern business interests, was determined to eliminate the obstacles and delays encountered by the rush of settlers to the west, including those originating in his own Department of the Interior and in corporations, such as the CPR, with strong ties to the Liberals. He also used the Alien Labour Law, a retaliatory measure enacted against United States legislation to the same effect, to prevent sojourners from taking short-term jobs away from freshly arrived settlers desperate for money. Ministerial discretion was expanded and activities centralized in a newly created Immigration Branch filled with the minister’s own appointees.

Sifton’s resignation from the Liberal government in 1905 is thought to have heralded a shift from an open-door policy to restrictionism. Despite appearances, however, there was no break in immigration policy. Measures against visible-minority immigrants did not begin in 1905. Under Sifton, the Chinese head tax had been raised in 1903 to the level of what a white labourer would earn in one year. And despite aggressive campaigns to attract American farmers, the minister had repeatedly turned down requests for land from prospective black settlers. Exclusionism was pursued by Sifton’s Liberal successor with the “gentleman’s agreement” of 1907, which forced Japan to limit severely the number of emigrants to Canada. As for East Indians, direct-passage regulations required that they buy their tickets in India and sail to Canada non-stop from the port of origin. The fact that no ship sailed directly to this country from the subcontinent made the Canadian government’s intent clear.

The regulations were challenged in 1914 when the Komagata Maru, a ship carrying hundreds of Sikh passengers, attempted to dock in Vancouver harbour. Faithful to established policy, the new Conservative administration ordered Canada’s fledgling navy to escort the vessel to the open sea after a two-month stand-off. Such restrictionist measures continued to generate broad public support, but found different regional expression in the pre-war period. In British Columbia, anti-Oriental sentiment erupted in the violent Vancouver riot of 1907. On the prairies the call went up against black immigration, while in Quebec and Ontario opposition to the highly visible Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe was voiced.

Continuity is also evident in the preferential treatment given to English-speaking immigrants throughout the Laurier years and beyond. In the absence of a massive influx of British farmers, Sifton was quite willing to turn to eastern European settlers to occupy prairie lands, expressing his appreciation of “stalwart peasants in sheepskin coats.” Nevertheless, in sharp distinction to the inattention that greeted newly arrived Ukrainians, the minister provided the British settlers of Saskatchewan’s Barr colony with bounteous assistance. The government’s preferences were also evident in the funds channelled to immigrant recruitment. French-Canadian member of Parliament Henri Bourassa, taking up an old refrain, pointed out that Ottawa spent thirty times more money in Britain than in the francophone countries of Europe. He contrasted the efficiency of the government’s actions in the “mother country” with its timidity, if not ineptitude, in France. The MP also denounced the fact that discounts on internal rail travel were offered to every type of newcomer, but denied to migrating French Canadians. Despite the fact that migration networks exerted a strong southward pull on his cash-starved compatriots, he believed that travel reductions would induce them to resettle in the west rather than in the United States.

The policy statements and immigration laws of the later Laurier years may have sounded a more restrictionist tone. Department officials, including the minister, Frank Oliver, stated clearly and often their preference for British and American settlers over other ethnic groups. As well, the legislation of 1906 and 1910 clearly defined and expanded the categories of those who were to be denied entry. The discretionary powers of government and immigration officials to admit and deport new arrivals were also increased. But these initiatives must be set against a background of vastly increased immigration in the years between Sifton’s resignation and World War I: 2.3 million newcomers arrived in this period, compared with 700,000 under Sifton. During the Laurier years alone, twice as many immigrants came after 1905 as before. In this context, the government’s words and actions were clearly geared to assuage public opinion in both English and French Canada, concerned that massive immigration from eastern and southern Europe would undermine the country’s ethnic composition and cultural heritage, and lead to its moral decay.

A distinction must be made, however, between rhetoric and reality. The flow of immigrants to Canada had more to do with meeting the needs of the labour market than the government’s stated ethnic and occupational preferences. As export markets boomed at the turn of the century, job opportunities expanded for unskilled workers in primary industries such as lumbering and mining. As well, the construction of two transcontinental rail networks, CPR branch lines, and provincially sponsored railways provided employment for vast numbers of labourers. The rapid growth of Canada’s cities created work in the construction of urban infrastructures, such as port facilities, public transport, and sewers, roads, and sidewalks. For a variety of reasons, only a fraction of British immigrants to Canada were drawn to such work. Labour agents in the pay of transportation companies and primary industries filled the gap by recruiting Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, and other peasants, more than half of whom were designated as unskilled. Their inability to speak English, their functional illiteracy, and their ignorance of Canadian geography made them dependent on ethnic straw bosses who were in the employ of large-scale enterprises such as the CPR. The demand for such workers was so great that in the first fifteen years of the century, railway companies regularly hired unskilled immigrant workers from the United States in contravention of the Alien Labour Law, but with the connivance of government. The percentage of non-British immigrants steadily increased from 1907 to World War I, so that at the end of the period they constituted half the new arrivals. Between 1896 and 1913 Canada received about 3 million immigrants, of whom some 40 percent were neither British nor British-American in origin. Although emigration to the United States continued to exact its toll, the country was able to record an overall surplus of 1 million people.