Canadian Immigration Policy
The Canadian Immigration Policy and the Racial Discrimination it InducedThe 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
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. " This is solid proof that Canada is of great value in the international spectrum and that immigrants are willing to sacrifice and endure a lot of things to build a life for themselves as Canadian citizens. 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". In fact, the Chinese were usually the first people sent in to use dynamite to blow up paths for the railroad, and killed more often than not doing so. Discrimination against non-white immigrants including a strong determination to keep them out began during the early gold rushes. 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". 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 country has come along way in protecting the human rights of all of the people residing within its borders, not just the white race. But, in fact "there were nearly three million immigrants that came to settle in Canada during the period between 1896-1914. This belief was the also the early foreshadowing of the future concentration camp internment that the Chinese experienced during the World Wars for the same fear. "The White Canada immigration policy, abandoned only in 1962, has its roots in the mid-nineteenth century. " In addition, Chinese were seen as the main carriers of killer terminal diseases such as smallpox, cholera, leprosy, and venereal diseases and were thought to be on the verge of infecting the entire populations.
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