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Chapter
4 (continued)
If the Railway Agreement of 1925 led to a surge in the influx of newcomers from continental Europe, the Great Depression of the 1930s succeeded in choking off almost all immigration to Canada. During these years of economic devastation and widespread unemployment, the federal government strove hard to seal off Canada not only to prospective immigrants but also to refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, particularly Jewish refugees. The few notable exceptions to the new exclusionary policy of the R.B. Bennett Conservative government were agriculturalists with means, immediate relatives of Canadian residents, and British subjects and Americans who had sufficient capital to maintain themselves until they could obtain employment. Given such a policy, it is not surprising that immigration plummeted from 1,166,000 in 192131 to only 140,000 in 193141.
There can be no doubt that Ottawa's restrictive legislation reflected the general Canadian attitude towards immigration, for Canadians across the country took the view that immigrants threatened scarce jobs in an economy that in 1933 saw almost one-quarter of the labour force unemployed. Prospective immigrants as well as immigrants already established in Canada became the targets of opposition. Among those who felt the brunt of such hostility were foreigners employed on a reforestation project near North Bay, Ontario. In May 1931, they roused the ire of local residents, who claimed that Canadian workers had "to stand around and starve while foreigners get the first privilege." All immigrants who had not lived in Canada long enough to obtain domicile (five years for non-British subjects and one year for British subjects) and, ideally, citizenship [note 2] could be deported if they got into trouble or no longer held a paying job. This provision of the Immigration Act was a weapon frequently used throughout the "hungry thirties" to relieve municipalities, employers, and the state of unwanted foreign workers who had become surplus, useless, or obstreperous. Between 1930 and 1935, an estimated 30,000 immigrants were summarily deported, largely for being a public charge. Their ejection from Canada did not fail to arouse the sympathy of concerned Canadians, however, and government deportation officers themselves were among those most distressed by their plight. At least two officers serving in the western region became severely depressed and one later committed suicide.
Among those barred from entering Canada during the 1930s were thousands of desperate refugees, many of them Jews fleeing persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Two years after Canada introduced its new exclusionary immigration policy, the National Socialists seized power in Germany and began waging ruthless warfare against Jews and other minorities, such as pacifists, Communists, gypsies, and Freemasons. The persecution of the Jews was particularly savage, especially after the German invasion of Austria in March 1938. Thousands of the Jews who managed to escape the Nazi tide sought refuge in Canada, but by and large their appeals were ignored. In 1938, this country stalled for months before accepting an invitation to a refugee conference at Evian, France, because it knew that attendance implied an interest in liberalizing immigration laws and admitting substantial numbers of Jews--and this the government was not prepared to do.
The Liberal Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, had a genuine sympathy for refugees, but his sympathy took a distant second place to another consideration: keeping Canada united. Above all else, the Prime Minister was committed to maintaining Canadian unity, and this required that he not ignore political realities and the will of the majority. He told a delegation from the Canadian National Committee on Refugees (CNCR) that only a huge public outcry could bring about a liberalization of Canada's immigration policy, and he urged the committee to educate the general public about immigration. A number of political realities stayed his hand when it came to revising Canada's immigration regulations. One of these was the general perception that immigration threatened employment, and another was Quebec's attitude towards refugees in general and Jews in particular. Anti-Semitism was rife throughout Canada, where, in some places, Jews could not hold particular jobs, own property, or stay in certain hotels. It was most strident in Quebec, however, where right-wing, nationalist French-language newspapers castigated Jews and where some French-Canadian politicians and organizations denounced the idea of allowing Jews to seek refuge in Canada. In the face of such overwhelming anti-immigration sentiment, the Mackenzie King government maintained its policy of refusing to admit substantial numbers of Europe's oppressed. As dismal as this picture appears, there were in fact many Canadians who opposed the government's policy and wanted to see immigration barriers lowered. In addition to members of pro-refugee organizations and leading spokespeople for the Jewish community, they included prominent members of the Protestant churches, newspaper editors and commentators in English-speaking Canada, and members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, particularly its leader, M.J. Coldwell. Foremost among the non-sectarian refugee lobbies was the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution, later shortened to the above-mentioned Canadian National Committee on Refugees. The committee was founded by the League of Nations Society in Canada, an organization of internationally minded Canadians dedicated to publicizing the work of the league and to persuading the government to adopt a pro-league stance. Spurred by European pogroms in the fall of 1938 and by the aftermath of the Munich settlement, which delivered a large chunk of Czechoslovakia to Hitler and prompted the flight of some 80,000 anti-Nazi residents, the League of Nations Society mobilized for a new battle.
Under the leadership of Cairine Wilson, Canada's first woman senator, the CNCR devoted the next ten years to this struggle, educating the Canadian public about the plight of refugees, combating anti-Semitism, and assisting those refugees who succeeded in gaining entry to Canada. The committee also petitioned the government repeatedly for a more liberal immigration policy and for the admission of greater numbers of refugees.
Notwithstanding its energy and dedication, the committee remained small in numbers and ineffective in convincing the government to adopt a more humane immigration policy. Still, it played a valuable role in helping to settle individuals and families in Canada and in raising public awareness of the refugee question. Perhaps the CNCR's most noteworthy contribution was the aid that it gave to some 2,500 anti-Nazi male civilians (Germans, Austrians, and Italians) who in the dark summer of 1940 were transported from Britain to Canada and then interned in Canadian prison camps. Owing to the efforts of committee members and individuals such as Saul Hayes, the leading spokesperson for the United Jewish and War Relief Agencies, conditions in the camps were improved and many internees were released before the camps were closed. After the Second World War ended, in 1945, Canada reclassified these one-time prisoners as "Interned Refugees (Friendly Aliens) from the United Kingdom" and invited them to become Canadian citizens. Nine hundred and seventy-two accepted the invitation, thereby providing their adopted country with one of its most remarkable pools of foreign-born talent. Many--and the list includes Gregory Baum, Oscar Cahen, and John Newmark--would go on to make outstanding contributions in fields as diverse as science, music, painting, theology, university teaching, literature, and the dramatic arts. The summer that saw civilian internees sent to Canada also saw an influx of British guest children arrive on Canadian shores. This was a time when the Germans were bombing Britain and invasion of the island kingdom seemed imminent. Many British parents decided that no corner of Britain was safe, and so they booked passages for their children on ships to Canada. A stream of children crossed the Atlantic that summer of 1940, some of them participants in an evacuation scheme financed by the British government. All told, some 8,000 youngsters were shipped to Canada, almost 2,000 of them sent by the government-assisted program. The program was cancelled in September 1940 after the sinking of the City of Benares, with the loss of almost 100 children. In Canada itself, probably no group of people experienced as much hardship and upheaval as the Japanese Canadians. Their ordeal began on 8 December 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Within hours of that attack, Ottawa ordered that fishing boats operated by Japanese-Canadian fishermen be impounded and that all Japanese aliens be registered with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The worst blow was delivered on 25 February 1942. On that day, Mackenzie King announced in the House of Commons that all Japanese Canadians would be forcibly removed from within a hundred-mile swath of the Pacific coast to "safeguard the defences of the Pacific Coast of Canada." Thus began the process that saw a visible minority uprooted from their homes, stripped of their property, and dispersed across Canada.
Japanese Canadians, unlike their counterparts in the United States, were kept under detention until the end of the war. After the conclusion of hostilities, about 4,000 of them succumbed to pressure and left Canada for Japan under the federal government's "repatriation" scheme. Of these, more than half were Canadian-born and two-thirds were Canadian citizens.
The conclusion of the Second World War signalled the end of three decades of slow immigration and the subordination of humanitarian considerations to anti-Semitism and economic priorities. It also set the stage for a renewed interest in welcoming newcomers and a great upsurge in immigration.
__________ 2. All non-British subjects had to be naturalized before they could obtain citizenship, which allowed them to vote in elections, etc. In order to qualify for naturalization, whose requirements were spelled out by the Naturalization Act of 1914, they had to be domiciled (that is, resident) in Canada for at least five years and be of "good character." By contrast, British subjects from other parts of the Empire--the British Commonwealth after 1931--were exempt from naturalization and required only one year of residence in order to qualify for the full rights of Canadian nationals.
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