Got a bit of time to get back to lessons and errors.
Canada’s had a few major waves of immigration following British and French settlement: Mostly British Loyalists and economic refugees, central and eastern Europeans in a huge wave between 1910s - 1950s --which kicked off multiculturalism (as opposed to bi-culturalism)–and largely non-European immigration since the 1970s.
There were earlier influxes of non-Europeans, particularly of Chinese labourers–intended to build the railroad to keep out the Yanks, then get out–Japanese fisherman and lumbermen on the west coast, and former slaves on the east coast, but not in large numbers, and even that was enough to trigger strongly negative, nativist reactions against unwelcome immigrants–described by one gov’t minister at the time as “nearly hysterical”. Over a long number of decades, there was a Head Tax on Chinese immigrants, a quota of 400/year on Japanese, and an outright illegal ban on Indian migrants (including a boatload of desperately needed professionals, left cooling their heels in port and not allowed to disembark). Later wartime fears of immigrant loyalties resulted in bans on publications in certain languages, the displacement and concentration of citizens of German and Japanese origin, a boatload of Jewish refugees turned away (some of whom later end up in the worst possible places).
So Canadian society has a history of indulging fear-fueled hysteria and making enormous mistakes: despite being an immigrant society, the baseline for openness to particular immigrants may not have been all that different from how many Europeans now feel about some Muslim immigrants.
Shoot. No time for details. Must run. A policy of multiculturalism was brought in in 1971, about the same time that visible minorities immigration kicked off. Community-based programs to facilitate integration and provide support whatever cultural practices immigrants wished to retain were introduced, and there were school-based programs to encourage all the kids to see one another as Canadians first and whatever else second. (As opposed to Canadian first and only.)
Contrary to stereotype, when the conservatives formed the gov’t in the 1980s, they actually expanded the immigration program. The goal was to allow a number equal to 1% of the total population to immigrate each year–somewhere around a quarter million/ year–but there weren’t the resources in place to implement that. There’s still an active anti-immigrant constituency, but it’s a minority. The number opposed to multiculturalism is far greater, but still a minority. It may be significant that in the last 40 years no political party has seen fit to make anti-immigration a part of its platform (though some old school Reform members leaned that way).
Anyways… really running out the door, no details… from near hysteria and fears of the yellow peril, we’ve moved on to having reportedly the world’s most multicultural city, Toronto, and most livable city, Vancouver (now 40-odd% Asian), and the only people who ever complain are Asians looking to learn English and thinking that’ll be difficult in Vancouver :loco: Tensions sometimes flare, but usually due to young guys looking for trouble, and on a very minor scale. Something’s been done very well.
Edit: just for a bit of colour, a taster of Canadian identity & integration politics from maybe the CBC’s goofiest essayist.
Women wanting abortions are fleeing the US out of sheer terror.
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Hardly the best basis for selecting immigrants.
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