European immigration to Canada: 1867-present

SIGNIFICANCE: Canada, a largely homogeneous nation at its inception, strove to attract only “ideal” immigrants but was forced to open its doors to a wider range of immigrants to settle its western lands and work its mines and railroads. Today, Canada is an officially multicultural society.

Canada became a nation on July 1, 1867. At that time, the ethnic composition of the new country was largely homogeneous: The majority of citizens were of British (English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish) or French origin, the latter almost entirely centered in the province of Quebec. Immigration policy in the early years of Canadian history reflected the country’s British roots. The immigration policy between 1867 and 1896, however, also largely proved a failure. A depression discouraged immigrants from making the voyage to the new nation. Many of the immigrants who did arrive (almost exclusively from the British Isles and Northern Europe) simply used Canada as a stopping-off point before moving to the United States. In several years during the 1870s and 1880s, Canada barely managed to maintain its population, let alone increase it.

Immigration was important to Canada. Immigrants were needed in order to populate the western plains acquired in 1870. Britain was the preferred source of immigrants; many, however, came from urban areas and proved completely unsuitable for harsh rural conditions. The Canadian government had no choice but to begin to expand the definition of those deemed suitable for immigration to Canada. German-speaking Mennonites from Russia were encouraged to come to Canada; they settled in the province of Manitoba in the 1870s. Icelanders arrived in western Canada in the same decade. Even though these various groups challenged previous definitions of suitable immigrants, they were allowed in because of their competency as farmers.

The Immigration Boom, 1896–1914

The real boom in immigration to Canada, a period that reflected a changed perception of the ideal immigrant, occurred between 1896 and 1914. In 1896, Wilfrid Laurier and his Liberal Party were voted into office. Laurier’s government, especially Minister of the Interior Clifford Sifton, was determined to fill western Canada with immigrants. Sifton and his ministry created an immigration policy that reflected Canada’s need: European newcomers had to be farmers. For the first time, Canada began to seek immigrants from Eastern Europe. Ukrainians, for example, who had experience farming in conditions much like those of Canada’s west, began to arrive in large numbers.

At the same time that Sifton had in mind an ideal immigrant, he also had a vision of those who were unsuitable for Canada. This category included urban dwellers, industrial workers, southern Europeans, Asians, and African Americans. The last two groups were excluded—the Chinese formally through a head tax and then the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, and blacks informally through efforts by immigration agents, specifically because it was believed that they could never be assimilated into the mainstream of Canadian society. Sifton’s opposition to industrial workers created tension with business interests, especially the railway, who wanted laborers to work in mines, in logging camps, and on the rail lines. These groups did everything they could to bring in such workers.

Other Canadians began to worry that too many non-British immigrants were flocking to Canada from Europe. These attitudes escalated as immigration to Canada rose in the first decade of the new century. After Sifton resigned in 1905, his successor attempted to steer Canadian immigration policy back toward its original British emphasis. This policy failed, as record numbers of non-British immigrants arrived in Canada just before World War I. Because these European newcomers settled largely in the West, a new multiethnic society arose in that region. With the beginning of World War I in August of 1914, all immigration to Canada effectively ended.

Retraction, Expansion, and Retraction, 1919–45

Canada’s immigration policy in the immediate aftermath of World War I was strongly influenced by the war. Large numbers of immigrants had arrived from Germany and Austria-Hungary, nations that had become Canada’s enemies during the war. The presence of what many called “enemy aliens” during the war caused people to openly question the continuation of the prewar immigration policy after the war ended. Immigration from “enemy alien” countries was banned into the 1920s. The policy changed again in the mid-1920s because of the lobbying effort of business interests. Companies such as the railways needed cheap labor; immigration was the best source of this. In 1925, the Railways Agreement was signed. This new policy allowed railway companies to recruit and bring immigrants to Canada specifically to work on the lines.

Despite widespread opposition, large numbers of nonpreferred European immigrants, such as Ukrainians, entered Canada in the late 1920s. The policy changed again in the 1930s because of the Great Depression. With so many Canadians out of work, immigration and immigrants became a natural target of those affected by the economic collapse. The Railways Agreement was canceled, and once again, all immigration came to a virtual end. Many newly arrived immigrants were also deported in the 1930s. Among those prevented from entering Canada during the 1930s were Jewish immigrants from Europe attempting to escape Nazi persecution.

Postwar Immigration Boom, 1945–68

The initial postwar years saw large numbers of European immigrants arrive in Canada. First were the “war brides,” women whom Canadian soldiers had met and married while fighting overseas during World War II. “Displaced persons” were another large group of European immigrants who left the devastation of their home countries and came to Canada. Collectively, Canadian immigration between 1945 and 1955 reached record levels. Of all immigrants to Canada since 1867, 30 percent arrived during this period. During this period, immigrants continued to come from traditional sources. In 1956-1957, a year with a particularly large number of immigrants, 40 percent came from the United Kingdom. As Canada’s economy slowed in the late 1950s, politicians began to talk about restricting immigration. Many Canadians favored such restrictions because of the increased difficulty in finding work. The economic downturn, however, slowed the growth of Canada by immigration. Between the opening years of the 1950s and the early years of the 1970s, between 25 percent and 33 percent of immigrants to Canada returned home or moved to the United States. For many immigrants, the reality of Canada did not match the perception.

Immigration Since 1968

Beginning in the 1960s and increasing in the 1970s, the ethnic and racial composition of immigrants to Canada changed dramatically. The shift in origin of immigrants began in the early 1960s and then escalated under the Liberal governments of Lester B. Pearson and, after 1968, Pierre Trudeau. The government instituted a more impartial immigration system that eliminated traditional preferences given to immigrants from Europe. The federal government created the Department of Manpower and Immigration in 1966 in an effort to tie together Canada’s economic and immigration policies. The numbers demonstrate a dramatic shift in the origins of immigrants to Canada. As late as 1966, 87 percent of those who came to Canada were of European origin. By 1970, half of the newcomers came from new parts of the world, including Hong Kong, the Caribbean, India, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. In 1968, eight of the top ten countries that supplied immigrants to Canada were European. By 1984, only two European countries, Britain and Poland, had remained in the top ten, and only Britain had reached the top five in fifth. Once again, immigration was in the process of remaking Canada.

In the early twenty-first century, most Canadian immigrants came from Asia. In 2013, more than thirty-four thousand immigrants came from China, the most of any country, followed by India, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Iran. By the early 2020s, Canada's immigrant population made up about 23 percent of the country's population. Though around half of the Canadian population identified as descendants of European heritage, only about 10 percent of the country's immigrant population in the 2020s was from Europe. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, Canada also took in many refugees from Syria, Haiti, Turkey, Colombia, Mexico, and Iran.

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