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Chapter
6 (continued)
Trail-Blazing
Initiatives
 Provincial
interest in immigration
A
provision in the 1976 Immigration Act that authorizes the minister
to enter into agreements with the provinces to facilitate the drawing
up and implementation of immigration policies helped to inspire the negotiation
of several federalprovincial immigration agreements in the 1970s.
The most far-reaching of these--and the one that attracted the most press
coverage--was the agreement concluded in 1978 with Quebec, the CullenCouture
Agreement.
In the first decades
after the Second World War, Quebeckers and their politicians took little
interest in the positive role that immigration could play in the economic
and cultural development of the province. This attitude began to change
during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s when the Jean Lesage Liberal
government announced the creation of a Quebec immigration service in 1965.
Essentially an exercise on paper, this initiative was eclipsed in 1968
by the Union Nationale government's establishment of an immigration department
to promote the integration of immigrants into Quebec's Francophone society.
That same year, the Quebec government signed an agreement with Ottawa
to place Quebec officials in federal immigration offices abroad to assist
in the selection of suitable immigrants for Quebec. This was followed
seven years later by the Entente BienvenueAndras, which authorized
Quebec to interview prospective immigrants and to make recommendations
to federal visa officers.
When the Parti Québécois
came to power under René Lévesque in 1976, it assigned top
billing to immigration. In fact, immigration was one of the first issues
that the new government raised with Ottawa, with Quebec pushing for a
full range of powers in this field. Two years later the CullenCouture
Agreement was concluded. This milestone agreement declared that immigration
to Quebec must contribute to the province's cultural and social development
and provided the province with a say in the selection of independent-class
immigrants (skilled workers and businessmen with their dependents) and
refugees abroad. In addition, the agreement allowed the province to determine
financial and other criteria for family-class and assisted-relative sponsorship.
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
was another immigration-related issue that surfaced during the 1970s.
The concept was thrust into the political limelight on 8 October 1971,
when Pierre Trudeau announced in the House of Commons that his government
would adopt a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework.
When he made this
warmly received announcement, Trudeau failed to explain why his government
was officially adopting such a concept. He carefully refrained from mentioning
that multiculturalism was intended to persuade non-English and non-French
Canadians to accept official bilingualism, the federal policy that had
been instituted in 1969 with the passage of the Official Languages
Act. Designed to promote the equality of French and English in all
federal government operations, official bilingualism had been urged by
the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the B&B Commission),
which had been established in 1963 to inquire into the use of French and
the status of French Canadians in Canada. To its sponsors, the policy
of bilingualism seemed to be a logical response to the tumultuous nationalism
that shook Quebec in the 1960s. Nevertheless, it never received widespread
support.
From its inception,
official bilingualism stirred up opposition across the country. Nowhere,
however, did it attract more hostility than in the West. Westerners of
Ukrainian, German, or other non-English or non-French backgrounds demanded
to know why the federal government assigned less importance to their culture
than to that of the much smaller French-speaking minorities in Western
Canada.
The Trudeau government
responded to the increasing assertiveness of the so-called "third force"
in Canadian society by adopting recommendations made by the B&B Commission
that would safeguard the contributions of other "ethnic" groups (excluding
the Native peoples) to Canada's cultural enrichment. These recommendations
called for a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework.
Multiculturalism itself was not new. It was merely an old activity given
a new name. But no matter what its guise, those who espoused it sought
to promote equality and respect among Canada's different ethnic or cultural
groups.
To implement its
new policy, the government appointed a Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism
in 1972 and in 1973 set up a Canadian Multiculturalism Council and the
Multiculturalism Directorate within the Department of the Secretary of
State. Like official bilingualism, however, multiculturalism would invite
opposition, much of which would develop during the turbulent eighties,
when Canada faced some of the most challenging immigration issues ever
to confront policy-makers and try the souls of policy-enforcers.
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Wilder
Penfield:
Medical Pioneer and Author
The
neurosurgeon and scientist Wilder Penfield (18911976) certainly
stands out among the American immigrants who have made outstanding
contributions to Canada. Dr. Penfield's remarkable achievements
in medicine won him high praise both in Canada and abroad and brought
increased recognition to the Montréal medical community.
Born in
Spokane, Washington, in 1891, Wilder Penfield obtained a BLitt from
Princeton University in 1913. He then attended Merton College, Oxford,
where he was influenced by two great medical teachers, the celebrated
Canadian physician Sir William Osler, who became his lifelong hero,
and the prominent neurophysiologist Charles Sherrington. After obtaining
an MD from Johns Hopkins University in 1918, the young doctor served
as surgeon at the Presbyterian Hospital (affiliated with Columbia
University) in New York and at the New York Neurological Institute,
192128.
In 1928,
Penfield became professor of neurology and neurosurgery at McGill
University in Montréal. There, pursuing the puzzle of epilepsy,
he undertook a systematic mapping of the human brain and, with associates,
produced scientific papers, handbooks, and monographs that became
standard reference works on the function of the brain.
When the
Montréal Neurological Institute opened in 1934, Wilder Penfield
became the inaugural director of the first institution in the world
to be devoted exclusively to the treatment of nerve disease. Its
formal opening on 27 September of that year climaxed several years
of planning in which the surgeon and teacher had played a leading
role. In his new capacity, Dr. Penfield presided over an institute
whose task, as he so aptly defined it, was "the achievement of a
greater understanding of the ills to which the nervous system is
heir, to the end that we may come to the bedside with healing in
our hands."
Although
Wilder Penfield retired in 1960, he continued to lead a very active
life, becoming the first director of the Vanier Institute of the
Family, a supporter of university education, and the author of several
books. His writings from the last 15 years of his life include The
Mystery of the Mind (1975), which summarizes his views on the
mind brain problem; and No Man Alone (1977), an autobiography
of his early years, 18911934. Earlier works include two historical
novels--No Other Gods (1954) and The Torch (1960)--which
found a wide readership.
Wilder
Penfield's most lasting legacy is undoubtedly his work with the
internationally renowned Montréal Neurological Institute.
The hospital, which has been integrated with a brain-research complex,
is recognized to this day as a centre for the study of the human
brain. It also serves as a model for similar units around the world.
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What
does the future hold?
The immigration
patterns that have figured so prominently in altering the face of present-day
Canada's largest cities were well under way when Trudeau announced his
government's multiculturalism policy in 1971. Just as these patterns were
the direct result of the government's decision in the 1960s to reject
Canada's racist immigration policy, so too was the rapid colonization
and development of the Prairie provinces a direct consequence of the government's
decision to promote the immigration of "stalwart peasants in sheepskin
coats." It is progressive decisions like these that have opened the country's
doors to successive waves of immigrants, each with a contribution to make.
These timely political decisions have helped to create the vibrant Canada
that we know today, a Canada whose growing confidence was expressed in
the Canadian Citizenship Act of 1947 and its successor, the Citizenship
Act of 1977. What decisions, one must wonder, will govern immigration
policy in the years ahead and how will the resulting immigration shape
the Canada of the future?
   
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