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1914-1945: Overview / War Years / Interwar Years / World War II / Changing Attitudes
Interwar Years
Interwar Legislation
The Second Wave
Exclusion
Besides seeking to restrict the numbers of newcomers, post-war immigration policies discriminated between the most preferred British immigrant, usually seen as a potential farmer in the West, and the now socially undesirable and likely unemployable continental European. Immigration officials demanded that Eastern and Southern European immigrants carry larger amounts of money in order that they not become public charges. By 1924, they instituted occupational requirements of Northern Europeans and admitted Eastern and Southern Europeans from "not preferred" nations only if they had "permits" to work in Canada already arranged with Canadian businesses.
No similar requirements existed for potential immigrants from Britain or the United States. Rather, throughout the 1920s, Canada undertook numerous immigration schemes to attract British immigrants. The Empire Settlement Agreement (which recruited non-Black British Empire immigrants and helped with their transportation to Canada), the Farm Family Settlement scheme (which brought to some 500 British families each to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by 1927), and the government's subsidy on transportation rates to British farm hands (which reduced passage from Liverpool to Winnipeg from $120 to $30) all attempted to draw farmer immigrants believed to be best suited to Canada.
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Resettlement of British Subjects, 1922. The Empire Settlement Act facilitated the resettlement to the dominions of White inhabitants of the British Empire. This legislation both encouraged British immigration to Canada and reflected the racial prejudices of Canadians in the post-First World War period. |
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