POLA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Immigration Policy, Mongrel, British America
17 Dec 2019
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Canada received a great deal of immigration from late 1800s through early 1900s. Immigration increased as a result of westward expansion and the building of the transcontinental railroad. As immigration increased, so did the pressure for regulation. It was precisely during this period of expansion that canada began to develop a discriminatory array of immigration policies, which distinguished among preferred, non-preferred and excluded classes. How groups fared in relation to these categories depended in large part on what was referred to as their racial suitability. Non-white immigrants were deemed poor prospects for the task of nation-building and were therefore subject to exclusionary laws and practices. Here is a quotation from prime minister john a. macdonald, from 1885, that illustrates prevailing views on race and immigration: [all] natural history, all ethnology shows that while the crosses of the aryan races are successful.
