Immigration History

by Jan Raska, PhD, Historian

This article is the result of an exploration of the Museum’s oral history collection to answer the question: why do some French-speaking people decide to settle in a majority English-speaking area? The reasons can be complex, but language is one major “pull” factor. Video clips from interviews with Ben Maréga, Saïda Ouchaou-Ozarowski, and Quitterie Hervouet help us understand how language influenced their decisions to live in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Toronto.

In February 1998, widespread ethnic tensions led to an outbreak of armed conflict between the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Some 350,000 Kosovars fled to neighbouring countries in search of safe haven. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) appealed to the international community to provide these refugees with temporary protection until they could return home. In 1999, over 7,000 Kosovar refugees arrived in Canada.

In September 1973, Chile’s military staged a coup d’état leading to the removal of Salvador Allende, the country’s first socialist to be democratically elected as president. The military regime’s subsequent campaign of repression forced some 200,000 Chileans to seek safe haven elsewhere. Heightened public awareness and lobbying pressured the Canadian federal government to loosen existing exclusionary immigration criteria. This permitted nearly 7,000 refugees from Chile to enter Canada.

Before Pier 21 opened in 1928, many people who arrived by sea in Halifax came through Pier 2. The city’s early immigration facilities steadily improved from the 1890s through the 1910s, following the steady rise in immigration to Canada. In 1915, a large and modern immigration facility opened at Pier 2, just in time to serve as a key embarkation point for Canada’s war effort. Immigration moved from Pier 2 to Pier 21 in 1928.

In 1973, the Canadian government established its first formal administrative structure to process refugee claimants at Canada’s borders and in-land claims for refugee status. By the 1980s, the rising number of refugee claims ignited a national conversation about how Canada processed refugee claimants and whether the country’s refugee determination system was fair, balanced, and efficient. In 1989, the Canadian government established the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada to modernize the refugee determination process.

After the Second World War, Canadian military authorities helped to permanently resettle a unique movement of ‘preferred’ immigration to Canada: nearly 44,000 war brides and their 22,000 children. They represent the single largest contiguous movement of migration to Canada, specifically through Pier 21. The war brides arrived in Canada at a time when the country’s doors remained largely closed to immigrants, due in part to the economic effects of the Great Depression .

In August 1968, Soviet-led forces invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress a period of reform known as the Prague Spring. Thousands of Czechs and Slovaks already travelling outside of their country were joined by compatriots fleeing the invasion. The Canadian government implemented a special program that relaxed immigration criteria and helped with travel to Canada. Within four months, close to 12,000 Czech and Slovak refugees arrived to various ports of entry in Canada, including Pier 21.

Mennonite communal settlement in Canada’s Prairie West was made possible in part by an 1873 agreement with the Canadian government that guaranteed “an entire exemption from any military service” among other points. Two world wars, changes in education policy, and tensions between religious observance and civic duties dissolved federal accommodations for the Mennonites. The points of difference accepted in the agreement became grounds for policies excluding very conservative Mennonites in the 1950s and 1960s.