1867-1914: Background / Fitful Growth / Changing Conditions / First Wave / Laurier Boom

Laurier Boom

Clifford Sifton

Economic Takeoff

Demography

Frank Oliver

When Frank Oliver replaced Clifford Sifton as head of the Interior Department in 1905, Canadian immigration policy took a new direction. The issue of Asian immigration in British Columbia had revealed the divisive nature of the federal government's open door policies. Frank Oliver heavily criticized Sifton's policies for disregarding what he believed were the necessities of an Anglo-Canadian, British, society. As a member of parliament, Oliver had said that settling the West was not "merely a question of filling that country with people who will produce wheat and buy manufactured goods" but also of "building up of a Canadian nationality so that our children may form one of the great civilized nations of the world." He worried that immigration could "deteriorate rather than elevate the conditions of our people." 14

Oliver's department significantly revised immigration policies in ways to safeguard British society from threatening foreign cultures. Under his administration, the numbers of immigration agents in Britain increased. The department offered more generous bonuses to those who signed up these preferred immigrants, and, after 1906, the numbers of British immigrants increased dramatically. Where, in 1906, British migrants numbered only 86,796, by 1914 they numbered 142,622.

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