From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Immigration Policy/Harold Troper
World War I reduced the massive flow of immigrants to a trickle. Coming mostly from the United States, these new arrivals were drawn to Canada by wartime labour shortages. Meanwhile, many recently arrived non-British immigrants, identified as enemy aliens by virtue of their country of origin, were subjected to official and popular acts of harassment, including job loss and internment. This xenophobia did not let up with the return of peace. Fearing pre-war levels of immigration – the influx of immigrants was in fact relatively high in the years 1919–20 – and anxious to protect the labour market for its returning soldiers, the Canadian government framed an even more restrictionist policy.
In the midst of the anti-alien sentiment exacerbated by the nationwide labour unrest that culminated in the Winnipeg general strike, a new immigration act was put into force in 1919. It was designed once again to attract British farmers, and Britain’s adoption in 1922 of the Empire Settlement Act gave further encouragement to this movement. The new Canadian legislation expanded the list of those to be refused entry, which now included enemy aliens, illiterates, advocates of revolutionary or anarchist doctrines, those with “peculiar customs, habits, modes of life and methods of holding property,” and anyone belonging to a race or nationality simply deemed unsuitable. Such people were denied judicial recourse. As well, between 1920 and 1923 a series of changes in legislation and regulations – the definition of “immediate family,” for example, was tightened – made it even more difficult for immigrants to enter Canada. The policy of restrictionism coincided with a brief but sharp recession that hit the country in the early 1920s and provoked a new wave of emigration to the United States. The Chinese remained special targets of antialien sentiment, and in 1923 Ottawa adopted a policy of total exclusion in their regard.
Despite Canadian efforts to attract British immigrants through transportation subsidies, free training, and guaranteed farm placements, only 130,000 answered the call. Eventually, most abandoned farming and found work in rapidly expanding urban areas, for by 1923 the recession was lifting and economic prospects had improved, thanks to massive American direct investment. Canada once again faced major shortages of unskilled workers, especially in the primary sector of the economy. The transportation and resource industries strongly pressured the government to relax its immigration rules, and so the year of the Chinese Immigration Act’s adoption saw the lifting of restrictions on enemy aliens. In spite of widespread popular opposition, railway companies resumed recruitment in continental Europe on the basis of the tried technique of commissions paid to steamship agents. Officially, newcomers were destined for work in agriculture, but most found jobs in the extractive industries and in the country’s urban centres. One million immigrants were brought over to Canada during the 1920s. The net gain to the country, however, amounted only to some 200,000 people because of the outflow towards the United States. As a result of the quotas set by the United States in 1921 and 1924 on all but North American immigrants, a number of Europeans came to regard Canada as a convenient stepping stone to their ultimate destination. By the same token, the American quotas diverted northward some immigrant chains initially directed to the United States.
The depression of the 1930s saw a return to exclusionism. The government cancelled its recruitment agreements with the railways and officially admitted only farmers of means. While Canada received 150,000 newcomers, the outflow was somewhere between 250,000 and 350,000. Recent immigrants were particularly hard hit by the Depression and vulnerable to unemployment. Governments used every avenue, including the threat of deportation, to keep jobless immigrants off welfare rolls. Of the 60,000 people deported before World War II, fully half were forced to leave in the 1930s. Many had become public charges. But deportation was also a handy tool for repressing political dissent and social unrest. The government often concealed its real motives by invoking such reasons as vagrancy and entry by misrepresentation. The latter category cast a wide net, however, since most of those arriving in the 1920s contravened immigration regulations because they were not bona fide farmers. Nor did the status of naturalized subject serve as protection for those targeted for deportation since it could be easily revoked by the authorities.
In the inter-war period the issue of refugees came into sharp focus. The creation of nation-states out of the former empires in east-central Europe and the Near East had led to the persecution of minority groups. Many were homeless, stateless, and seeking a country of asylum. In general, despite the efforts of a handful of enlightened individuals, the plight of the Armenians in Turkey, the Mennonites in the Soviet Union, and the Jews in Hitler’s Germany left most Canadians indifferent in the 1920s and hostile during the Depression. Fearing a massive influx of such people, Canadian officials made no allowances for them as a separate category of immigrant. Government agents were told scrupulously to apply existing regulations, effectively making it more difficult for refugees to enter the country than if they had simply come as immigrants. Largely as a result of special pleading by influential members of these ethnic groups, 1,200 Armenians, 5,000 Jews, and 20,000 Mennonites were admitted. Officials argued that Canada could not resolve the international refugee question on its own. Yet they refused to assume any kind of commitment either in helping to define the obligations of states towards such unfortunates or in showing them generosity and compassion. In this “low and dishonest decade” Canada’s refugee policy was simply an extension of its timorous foreign policy.
During World War II, immigration came to a virtual standstill except for some special categories. The Canadian government sponsored the relocation of 1,500 British children early in the conflict. One thousand “friendly” enemy aliens, initially interned in Britain and then transferred to camps in Canada, were allowed to remain after the war. About as many nationals of countries occupied by the Nazis were also received, as were small numbers of Jewish refugees who had found respite from persecution in Spain and Portugal. At the same time, however, Ottawa seriously considered deporting Canada’s entire population of Japanese origin, most of whom were Canadian-born. At the end of the war, 4,000 of them were “encouraged” to return to their ravaged country of origin.
