Subjects:
The laissez faire approach to immigration that Canada had inherited over its lifetime began to fade away in 1884. British Columbia had become very concerned with the number of single male Chinese that had emigrated to the province since the 1860's when the American gold fields dried up. Thus, the provincial government took political action over the next year to finally impose a head tax of $50, on each Chinese immigrant who flocked to the region. In addition, Clifford Sifton, "a struggling young lawyer from Winnipeg and the youngest member of the Cabinet of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, was obsessed by a dream of promoting Canada's prosperity by developing the prairies with pioneer farmers". Sifton's plans when unveiled were daring, unorthodox, and in many ways ruthless. He had a vision of the ideal farmer for the Canadian prairies and he thought, "that a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born on the soil, whose forebears have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half dozen children, is good quality". But, not everyone in Canada was as quick to welcome the Ukrainian newcomers in sheepskin coats as Sifton was. So, to add to the cris
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It would be expected that after all the racial discrimination that one would have to endure to immigrate to Canada and become a citizen in that time period there would be no immigration at all. This was because if Canada had the opportunity the federal government "would have liked to have imposed the same head tax on the Japanese, but was prevented from doing so for diplomatic reasons". One local paper went as far as to say, "No one know when the hour will strike, which will give the signal for an oriental advance nor can anyone tell in what direction that will be". But, in fact "there were nearly three million immigrants that came to settle in Canada during the period between 1896-1914. This country has come along way in protecting the human rights of all of the people residing within its borders, not just the white race. The White Canada policy and the ignorant racial discrimination of Chinese immigrants were the heart and soul of racial discrimination in regards to Canada's immigration policy. There was an increasing fear of the "yellow peril" amongst Canadians in around the 1900's, and thus "British Columbia was still concerned about the number of Chinese entering the province and the result was a doubling of the head tax to $100 in 1900, and a further increase to $500 three years later". These events were the birth of racial discrimination within the context of Canada's immigration policy and the immigrant fiasco it fueled from 1896 to 1914. The reputation of these stalwart peasants with stout wives was a bad one, and journalists went as far as to describe the Ukrainian immigrants as, "ignorant … creatures of the mud who must be made over in the superior British pattern. " But, despite the harsh negative perception of the Ukrainians their Canadian settlement consequences were nowhere near what the Orientals were forced to endure.
Essay's Topics
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