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1867-1914: Background / Fitful Growth / Changing Conditions / First Wave / Laurier Boom
Laurier Boom
Clifford Sifton
Economic Takeoff
Demography
Frank Oliver
He entitled his first chapter with the question: "Who Are We?" The first wave of immigration prompted community members across the country to ask this very question. Woodsworth indeed attempted to identify a "Canadian type… a certain indefinite something that at once unites us and distinguishes us from all the world besides…" 13 To many, this "type" was British, or at least Anglo-Canadian. The Western provinces gained the majority of their first populations and drew most of their leaders from Ontario. They saw the increasing numbers of "non-British" within Canada, and especially in Western Canada, forming a new policy debate in which they were about to take a side.
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James S. Woodsworth, Strangers within Our Gates or Coming Canadians (Toronto: F.C. Stephenson, 1909). |
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Romanians in National Costume, Winnipeg, MB, ca. 1909. After 1896, tens of thousands of non-British immigrants flowed into cities such as Winnipeg. This influx prompted writer and social activist J.S. Woodsworth and other Anglo-Canadians to ponder what ought to be the appropriate ethnic composition of Canada. |
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