Canada's History of Immigration.
In the 1800's Canada was a blossoming new country but it had one major set back it had no people.
Canada started to advertise life in Canada with poster like this one.
The main goal was to recruit immigrants to fulfill the objectives of the national policy: To promote Canadian industry, finish the national railway, and settle the west. This policy was formulated by John A. Macdonald's Conservative government in 1873. In recruiting immigrants the government targeted the U.S, Britain and many other parts of Europe. They did not however recruit from countries with French speaking populations such as France, Belgian or Switzerland.
A Change in Policy
Today In Canada no is excluded from Canada because of their race or country of origin. They are evaluated based on their skills and education. The point system helps determine this.
In the past Canada's government favored immigrants of British ancestry and restricted immigration from Asian countries such as China, and India. An example of this would be the Chinese head tax.
In the past Canada's government favored immigrants of British ancestry and restricted immigration from Asian countries such as China, and India. An example of this would be the Chinese head tax.
Head Tax
Today people from China make up one of the largest population of immigrants to Canada, but Canada's government wasn't always so open to the idea of Chinese Canadians. In 1885-1923 Canada's government had a fixed fee for any Chinese immigrant moving to Canada. This law was put in place by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 to discourage Chinese immigration after the National Railway was built. The tax was abolished by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 which stopped all Chinese immigration to Canada.
No way to Canada
China was not the only Asian country that suffered from Canada's old policy. In 1900's if you were from India you were only allowed to immigrate to Canada if you took a ship directly to Canada. This may not seem like a problem at first but because there was no shipping companies offering this transportation this made Immigrating to Canada impossible if you were from India. In 1914 a Japanese ship carried Indian passengers to Vancouver and they protested for their right to stay. The Canadian government would not let the passengers off the ship. The passengers fought their case court but after two months were forced to go back to India.