Talk:Immigration to Canada

Needs to be updated to include most recent census. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.185.132.78 (talk) 02:56, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Needs Historic Context

UPDATE:

Why is Immigration Watch Listed under sources? Completely biased and anti-immigrant? Not cool. Also this section needs more context on the racist nature of Canadian immigration policies. I'll add it in myself eventually, I suppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.53.80.46 (talk) 13:29, 5 February 2013 (UTC) This was me.

There are so many things missing- racial preference system, Sifton. Anglo immigrants preferred in the racial standards, but Sifton OK'ed eastern Europeans so he could develop Canada's farming system. Other people were not let in, unless they were to build railroads and and then GTFO out of the country, says canada. *System of exploitation imbedded in immigration policies today* Use of immigrants as cheap labour. Immigration policies were founded on colonial (white supremacy) and functioned to serve the interests of the status quo and or aid Canada's economic system in the easiest way possible. Chinese mining camps, head tax should be bigger. Domestic workers that came in. Yellow Peril, Canada didn't want Blacks in because it was too cold for them. The Komagata Maru, another page that should be updated. Anti-asian exclusion acts, the Continuous journey act... All related to Canadian immigration. So many more things that can be expanded on.

Also...we are all immigrants. Unless you are First Nations :)Adirgeforher (talk) 04:18, 14 March 2013 (UTC) Some things are detailed but there is no CONTEXT. Upsetting. When I get time, maybe I will get around to it. adirgeforher March 2013

Added a historical context of Western Historical Immigration and the huge 'last best west' immigration boom. Also around the same time frame was the impact of the head tax, which was written about extensively in another article, but referenced and included as a sub topic here..Julia 23:38, 26 November 2006 (UTC)SriMesh

Julia, I think we should start a new article entitled History of immigration to Canada. We could put the entire history section in there as it exists so far. The reason is that history section is good, but is now getting too long proportionally for this article, particularly when it is fully expanded with sections for the martimes, Quebec, and Ontario. We can then put a shorter summary here in the main immigration article. (p.s., please don't edit the old peer review as it is now archived). Deet 00:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The article needs to put immigration in its historic context; by historical standards immigration to Canada today is rather low and the percentage of the population who are themselves either immigrants or children of immigrants is far lower than in, say, 1913. --Ggbroad 00:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, obviously all the countries in the Americas would have had large percentage increases in population as they were settled at points in the distant past, but if you think that needs pointing out I think it would fit best in the history section. Deet 00:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

In addition the article has a very, very clear anti-immigration bias. NPOV would improve it.--Ggbroad 00:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Example would be helpful. Deet 00:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come now: it's perfectly obvious that a good deal of the article has been written in such a manner so as to argue - and indeed persuade others - that (recent) immigration has had a negative impact on Canadian life.--Ggbroad 02:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I realize that the economic stats, such as the Stats Can employment numbers, are dismal. I tried to find credible economic studies to show the economic benefits of immigration but couldn't find any, so I made an appeal to Canadian Wikipedians to help here (scroll to the right) and did not receive any responses. So yes, for now, I've just given in to the possibility that there is not much evidence of the economic benefit of immigration to Canada. I realize that does not match the rhetoric we hear in Canada, but maybe that is the reality. And if that's the case, let's not white-wash it for the sake of political correctness. Either that or please help me identify some real evidence to the contrary. Deet 23:23, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, let's see what we can find. Having said that, the economics of immigration is only one factor in the overall question of whether or not immigration is socially beneficial. I for one like the fact that my local neighborhood has Thai, Japanese, Ethiopian, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese restaurants, for example. --Ggbroad 23:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like the labour market need to establish ethnic restaurants in your neighbourhood has already been filled. I can see adding a small note related to your point into this article, but there are a few articles that also address the benefits of diversity: Canadian identity, Multiculturalism (Canadian section), Culture of Canada, and even Canada, etc. Deet 03:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was being a bit glib. My point is that the benefits or problems associated with immigration can't simply be reduced to economic terms; a society is, after all, much more than an economic base. Unless you're a Marxist. --Ggbroad 03:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This claim: "From the very beginning of the country in 1867 up until 1947, immigration was largely matter of British control, as all citizens of Canada were also British subjects" is incorrect. The BNA act gave jurisdiction over immigration to federal and provincial governments, but the government left most of the responsibility for immigration to the private sector in practice until 1896. --Ggbroad 01:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Please fix the section, and also check the History of Canadian nationality law article to correct it also if needed. Deet 00:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is in need of an overhaul. Canada has had laws pertaining to immigration in place since 1869. Further, there is no mention of the fact that 20% of the population was not born in Canada, that is noteworthy but mention is only made of visible minorities. There was no Canadian Citizenship prior to 1921, and the monarchy is most certainly both a British and Canadian institution after the passage of the Statute of Westminster. This is just what comes to mind. "The level of immigration was increased in the 1990's by the then governing Liberal Party of Canada who in 1993 set a target of an annual 1% per capita immigration rate. While the actual immigration rate subsequently tracked lower than that target, the Liberals committed to raising actual immigration levels further in 2005." This isn't true and makes the Liberals under Chretien appear very pro-immigrant when in actuality there is little to warrant this. Immigration peaked under Kim Campbell in 1993 at 255 819. In 1994 immigration decreased to 223 759, Chretien's first year in office and has not returned to 1993 levels. Under Chretien, family class immigration was reduced and a Right of Landing Fee was introduced for immigrants and controversily refugees. Chretien's administration marked slightly more restrictionist immigration approach but this was caused by financial constraints more than any genuine anti-immigrant sentiment. For the numbers of immigrants coming to Canada- see “Multicultural Canada: An Overview” -http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/multi/assets/pdfs/multidem_e.PDF For the Right of Landing Fee- see http://www.web.net/~ccr/headtax2.htm

Canadians of Convenience

The caption on the image from "Come to Stay" in the history section should not contain a reference to "Canadians of Convenience." I would argue that it is out of context, and it makes no sense to draw a parallel between the history of Canadian immigration and so-called "Canadians of Convenience." Furthermore, I don't think its fair to call this a debate. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, the term was coined by a few right-wing journalists in Canada, but this is not something which is in the mainstream. Kesahun 02:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary it is very much a mainstream concern. Just the most recent example: I came to this article in response to the recent release of the head of Lashkar, the group responsible for the Mumbai massacre, and was particularly interested in exploring the Canadian connection. The timeline shows that Rana, (whose Canadian passport for some reason shows his surname as Hussain), the 'Canadian citizen' who was convicted for his facilitation of David Headley's casing of targets (all the links are already on Wikipedia under those headings) was actually a resident of Chicago even while he was succeeding in getting Canadian citizenship. I expect that it's no accident that the first business he set up was an immigration consultant firm. I only have one citizenship and am not only dismayed, but incrasingly outraged, that that citizenship is demeaned to the status of a commodity for use by people who want to perpetrate mass murder! alacarte (talk) 06:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Immigration and Crime

I'm not sure I understand why this is even a subtopic. Is it really relevant to the topic of immigration? I see it as challenging the neutrality of the article. It's as if listing crime as essential to the discussion of immigration we are inherently saying that immigration is linked to crime. This is problematic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.0.157 (talk) 02:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Funny, that's exactly what I came in to say. It's completely off topic, and the very last sentence explicitly states that no studies have been done and so no conclusions can be made. If no conclusions can be made, why has this been included? I'm going to jump in and delete it and hope for the best. If you think this is an important issue, start a new article about it. --Bakarocket 03:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Also deleted economic impact, another irrelevant and ephemeral subject. Both are subjects that, if they could be better sources, would deserve their own articles. When read in the context of an article on immigration, they seem very weasel-like, whereas on their own they would not. -- Bakarocket 03:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you even reading what you are deleting? There is already a main article on Economic impact of immigration to Canada. Deet 18:59, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

External links

Added a link to a resource for immigrant brides. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Manic-pedant (talk • contribs) 17:39, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the references linked to Google Books; I changed the link to the reference's original/home site where I knew it would be available free and without logging in or registering or any of that intrusive, oppressive nonsense. (The site was the Fraser Institute - they almost always provide copies of their publications free for all). But this raises a serious question in my mind - on the day that BBC World News America was reporting that Google is being investigated in Europe for monopolistic behaviour. I am finding that these guys are everywhere, and I'm extremely unhappy about it... given that I wasn't born yesterday and I knew where this is going. Wouldn't it make sense for Wikipedians - given this site's philosophy - to always try to avoid using sources like Google books whenever possible? alacarte (talk) 09:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

NotCanada.com

I do not understand why one should delete links for www.NotCanada.com. First of all this is to provide information from both side of the story. And this necessarily does not mean that NotCanada.com is right but at least it gives an idea from the people who have gone through it. Second, why do you feel so insecure? Wikipedia is to provide free information for all so let us not forget the purpose and project the phenomenon truly as it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.170.133.90 (talk) 04:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Commonwealth Immigration.

Should there not be a section on Commonwealth immigration? The UK and India and Pakistan are noted as having many migrants to Canada (by my count about 20% of immigrants in 2004 and there are many more Commonwealth nations for which there aren't figures so the total will be higher). what are peoples thoughts?(Morcus (talk) 19:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC))

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "CIC1" :
  • [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pub/facts2005/overview/1.html Annual Immigration by Category], [[Citizenship and Immigration Canada]], URL accessed 2 July 2006
  • [http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/menu-fact.asp Annual Immigration by Category], [[Citizenship and Immigration Canada]], URL accessed 2 July 2006

DumZiBoT (talk) 21:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding DrKiernan's reassessment and downgrade

I agree with the downgrade. Regarding his comment that the article seems short, some deletionists did some major culling back in the fall of 2007. Depending on one's perspective, much of that may have been legitimate content. Regardless, we should look forward now consider what content should be in such an article. Deet (talk) 01:52, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Invisible minorities

Surprisingly, there's no wikipedia article on Invisible minority yet, or not in the plural-title form yet I suppose (that article now has a delete on it, placed by me, as it was only a redirect to itself...talk about a tautology), I'll see if that's a bluelink once I post this....it's all the political/cultural fashion/doctrine to only speak of ethnicity and multiculturalism in terms of visible minorities, i.e. in terms of race and skin colour, but the reality is that multiculturalism was sold to the Canadian people as a way of incorporating the German, Ukrainian, Scandinavian, Slavic and Mediterranean peoples as well as the Chinese and other non-European groups into the Canadian identity, i.e. "not just British". Somehow since multiculturalism was implemented in 1970, the European minorities have been relegated to being just "European", a term which now includes the British and Irish but which we used to use to mean only those peoples from Europe proper, i.e. "the continent" (+ Iceland, by extension an "island of Scandinavia"). Between academia and the visible minority-driven polity/media in this country, the important German, Scandinavian, Slavic and Mediterranean heritage of this country has been "levelled" and we've found ourselves shoved to the margins of the political/ethnic "debate"; StatsCan panders to this because Immigration Canada does, i.e. because as the concept of multiculturalism evolved it began to focus on race ("visible minority") but even so the arbitrariness of the definitions means that explicitly European-origin peoples from Peru, Argentina, Brazil etc are now "visible minorities" by dint of being Latin American. Anyway, the Germans remain a larger proportion of the Canadian population than the Chinese but you never see that in print much, or admitted to (for the record I'm not German ancestry) and Italians and Ukrainians are highly-visible parts of Canadian society as well as nearly as numerous as the Chinese and more numerous than East Indian, black etc (we don't have "Ukrainiantowns" but we do have Little Italys, after all). I dispute the meaning of "visible minority" as defined by StatsCan and conventional usage as racist in context, as it omits the very visible and distinct non-British European groups who built this country, and whose presence helped mandate and justify the imposition of multiculturalism by Pierre Trudeau (whose anti-anglo bigotry and ignorance of these "other minoritiees" is evinced by a famous quote "English Canada doesn't have a culture, I'm going to give it one). OK, that's my morning rant, time for more coffee, and to note that I've expanded the ethnicity section with non-visible minorities, who have a right ot be mentioned, and also gotten rid of teh "ethnocultural ancestry" confection which the StatsCan's source does not use and replaced it with "Ethnic origins" which they do use.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Re Invisible minorities an article is definitely needed as a googling will turn up the phrase, and it's also used in some wikipedia articles.Skookum1 (talk) 14:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

And for those of you who get your nose out of joint at someone daring to overturn the ethnoculturally/politicall-currect doctrines of the current age, be aware that a hundred years ago neither Irish nor Mediterranean peoples were considered white, and even Scandinavians, just like Poles and Ukrainians, suffered similar forms of discrmination than what hte visible minorities liike to bleat about so loudly. Yes, I do have strong feelings about this because I'm so consisntely offended at the combination of arrogance and ignorance towards "Europeans" by visible-minority advocates an their revisions of Canadian history and identity.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Globalization added

I have added WikiProject Globalization to the list here because I cannot find more deserving Canadian articles that cover the Temporary Foreign Worker Program story uncovered by the CBC. Can anyone help? XOttawahitech (talk) 13:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure with what you are needing help. Given that WP doesn't have an article on Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program, criticisms of the program will probably be posted elsewhere. Perhaps you would like to start the article Temporary Foreign Worker Program (Canada) and include a criticisms section? I see several articles that mention the program in WP search. Regards, Meclee (talk) 15:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Head Tax

The imposition of the head tax had nothing to do with Chinese railway workers except indirectly as their work turned Vancouver and area from an undesirable swamp to a commercially viable community. As early Chinese settlers had cleared and developed large parts of the Vancouver area and established viable and successful businesses they were a target for later arriving American and British immigrants. It was strident and continuous complaint that forced the Macdonald government to impose the head tax of $50 then subsequently increasing it to $200 and then $500 as the complaints continued (a basic problem that parallels current complaints is that China has a good supply of wealthy individuals wishing to come to Canada). The head tax had an unintended consequence resulting in the 1907 and 1908 race riots: Japanese immigrants were not subject to the head tax and Japanese had a long history of fishing and logging going back centuries, consequently drawing the ire of white business leaders. The penultimate event was the arrival of 1177 Japanese which inspired a heated meeting at city hall where a clergyman advised that "British Columbia is to be white man's country", one of the less inflammatory remarks. The crowd then went on a rampage first trashing Chinese residences and businesses (later evaluated at $26,000), apparently unable to distinguish Chinese from Japanese or more likely democratic racists, before proceeding to trash Japanese residences and businesses (to the tune of $9000). It is often repeated that no one died, an apparent white wash (emphasis on white) possibly to exonerate city officials and protestant clerics who incited the crowd; in actual fact, several individuals died including a Chinese man who appeared to have been lynched and four rioters who were clubbed to death by Japanese resisters. The riot is usually portrayed as a one time event when it was actually part of a continuing conflict. It should be noted that the federal government first denied Chinese Canadians the vote in 1885 but gave it back in 1898 then chose to mimic provincial election law again disenfranchising Asian Canadians, thanks to BC governments, from 1920 up to 1948. 99.228.158.245 (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2016 (UTC)