Immigration Policy In Canada

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Immigration is a worldwide phenomenon with a long history. Reasons for immigration are various, including political or economic instability in the original country. On the other hand, the reasons for a country to open its borders to immigrants are also various. Canada is internationally known for its Multicultural and Multiethnic society, as it identifies itself as an immigrant country. Thus, Canada is one of the most popular destinations for immigrants, given its high level of development, living standards and such. Today, the Canadian government and society are relatively more experienced on dealing with immigration policies; however, the experience and improvements were based on historical incidents and learning. The following paragraphs…show more content…
As a newborn state, creating a fundament for future sustainable economic developments was critical. Thus, Canada needed to promote and attracted itself new populations in order to support growth in economy. The Canadian history was an immigration history. Its national identity and the current population were constructed upon immigrants and their descendants. Up until the 1930s, immigration policy was part of a general set of national policies. Canada received its first few waves of immigrants, primarily due to Europeans fleeing away from the war zones before and after WWI. During this period, due to the large inflows of population, the Immigration Act, 1910 was designed and implemented to match the needs. This Act had given the Cabinet the control over immigration policy compositions. However, like any policy, there are merits and demerits regarding the Act. On the positive side, the supporters claimed that the Act provided the government more flexibility regarding admission controls and short-run adjustments. This flexibility provided convenience to support and manipulate short-run economic goals. On the downside, critics claimed that the Act lacked considerations in avoiding possible concentration of power among the Cabinet and the resulting unfairness in policymaking, as the process was not transparent to the public. Generally speaking, given the strong focus on labour…show more content…
One of the most common concerns among immigration was the possible job and resource competition between settlers and natives. Given the previous strong promotion from the Canadian government, Canada received an overwhelming inflow of populations resulting in the trend of numerical and nationality control on new immigrants. This discriminating restricting and immigrant selection trend was implemented in the 1919 revision of the 1910 Act, which later became the core element of the immigration policy construction up until the 1960s. As a result, during this period, various ethnic groups were affected and treated unfairly. During this period, the non-preferred immigrants, which broadly speaking, the non-Europeans had a relatively negative image in the Canadian society both politically and economically. A perfect example would be the Canadian parliament debate in May 1922 on excluding Asian immigrants with a focus on the Chinese population. A year after the debate, in 1923, the Canadian government started to limit entries to diplomats, college and university students, and merchants, which were also ethnic discriminated. However, the restrictions became more strict and reached its peak during the 1930s when Canada experienced an economic depression. A common concern among migrants is the possible competition on jobs and resources between settlers and natives.

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