Pier Perspectives Blog

We often say that the War Brides followed their hearts to Canada, and so they did, but they were not the only ones. From the Italian proxy brides to those who met on ships as children only to find each other years later in Canada we have had the opportunity to hear a lot of love stories. I think of my favourites as snapshots, and the first image that comes to mind is of a little girl on a ridge.

The concept of admissibility remains a basic premise underpinning how Canada shapes immigration policy and immigrant selection. Successive Canadian Immigration Acts have developed a binary construction, listing qualities or circumstances that might trigger the admission or prohibition of an applicant. The descriptions “desirable” and “undesirable” are ascribed to applicants by Canadian authorities in light of immigration policy, and also personal judgement. Historically, several factors have contributed to who officials deemed was – or was not – desirable.

Since the Museum opened in 1999 we have been collecting stories, pictures, interviews and friends. Re-imagining the Pier 21 exhibit has given us a chance to bring some of the chapters in the site’s history to life by sharing our friends' stories. I get to do this by building five trunks based on the experiences of some of my favourite people. These trunks are for and about children, and will feature stories, photographs, video and clothing (and some items that our young visitors can play with).

Halifax was a major strategic port during the Second World War, and Pier 21 was central in that role. Pier 21 was Canada’s principal military embarkation point, and also continued to operate as an immigration facility. Although the annual rate of immigration was very low during the war, the immigration authorities dealt with many other kinds of cases, including evacuated civilians, refugees, foreign service personnel, prisoners of war, and merchant mariners from around the world.

Peace – The Exhibition is the Museum’s summer 2014 exhibit, brought to us by the Canadian War Museum.

Early Canadian scholarship on immigration and ethnicity focused on the settlement of the Canadian West. By the 1930s, published works often took ethnocentric views that diminished or degraded groups into ethnoracial hierarchies prevalent at the time. By the 1960s, scholars questioned a narrative of “uprootedness” and instead emphasized newcomer agency and transplanted ethnocultural identities. Today, scholarship in Canada continues to build on the early works of community insiders, social historians, and sociologists.

Peter Biesheuvel and his son Brian visited the Museum early on a Saturday morning. I told my husband that I would meet them at 9:30 a.m., show them around the exhibit and leave when they went into the 10 a.m. multimedia film screening, thus returning the car to him by 10:30 a.m. Well, Peter, Brian and I started talking at 9:30 a.m. and didn’t stop until noon! Of Peter’s many wonderful stories about his early years in Canada, my favourite was this little tale which reinforces the value of doing the right thing.

If you frequent Government of Canada websites (c’mon, I know there are some of you out there!), you may have noticed a number of changes over the last few months. To promote transparency and increase efficiency in services provided, a number of websites have been modified to promote easier access to documents and information pertaining to a plethora of public topics. The one most pertinent to me (and this blog) is buyandsell.gc.ca. Headed under Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), buyandsell.gc.ca is the newest way to do business with departments, agencies and Crown Corporations, including the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.

The customs inspection was a vital part of the immigration process at Pier 21. This blog continues the examination of the role of customs as a vital part of a newcomer’s experience in Canada through the first-hand accounts of a former Canada Customs officer at Pier 21 and of immigrants who passed through the site.