Reviews
The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy by Ninette Kelley, M. Trebilcock
rossbm's review
4.0
Making the Mosaic is basically a textbook that describes the history of Canadian immigration policy chronologically. Each chapter covers a different period, starting off with Chapter 2 covering 1497-1867 (Pre-Confederation) and finishing off with 1995-2008 being covered in Chapter 11. The chapters have subsections dealing with different aspects of immigration policy. These subsections change over the course the book, reflecting the changes in Canadian immigration policy. For example, the first few chapters have sections dedicated to promotional grants and land grants, while later chapters discuss refugees and other formal immigration streams. On section that appears in all chapters is related to exclusion and deportation.
I really enjoyed this book, even though it was a bit dry and repetitive at times. Immigration policy is a good lens to look at Canadian history, considering how important immigration has been to Canada. One thing that a bit surprised me was that throughout most of Canada’s history, population growth has mostly come through natural population growth rather than immigration. For example, in the 150 years that Canada was French colony, no more than 10,000 immigrants came from France. Partly this was a result of Canada’s relatively poor climate. It was only at the end of the 19th century that technology, such as rail and wheat varieties, had advanced enough that settling in the prairies was attractive, despite decades of efforts by the Canadian government to attract settlers. Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough by Doug Saunders does a good job of explaining how the government’s quixotic focus on attracting farmers, rather than skilled city dwellers, lead to high emigration from Canada to the United States. Another factor for the low rate of immigration was the government’s racist immigration policies.
From reading The Making of the Mosaic, it becomes clear that Canada’s migration policy has primarily been about keeping out “undesirables”, rather than attracting and retaining people. It wasn’t until the 60s that Canada permanently shifted away erecting barriers to non-British immigration. Prior to then, the preference went from British immigrants, then Western Euoprean and Northern European, and finally southern and eastern European. Non Europeans were not welcome at all, even if this was not usually explicitly laid out in written policy. Instead, the executive often retained a great deal of flexibility when it came to immigration, allowing it apply more stringent criteria to non-Europeans, or impose requirements such as the need for immigrants to travel directly to Canada from their original point of departure, that had the effect of keeping out migrants from Asia. While he Chinese head tax is relatively well known and condemned in Canada, the quota imposed by the Japanese government on emigration was more typical of the approach used the government to limit immigration from Canada without being explicitly racist.
I see this book as good starting point to learn more about complementary immigration policy and how it could evolve in the future.
I really enjoyed this book, even though it was a bit dry and repetitive at times. Immigration policy is a good lens to look at Canadian history, considering how important immigration has been to Canada. One thing that a bit surprised me was that throughout most of Canada’s history, population growth has mostly come through natural population growth rather than immigration. For example, in the 150 years that Canada was French colony, no more than 10,000 immigrants came from France. Partly this was a result of Canada’s relatively poor climate. It was only at the end of the 19th century that technology, such as rail and wheat varieties, had advanced enough that settling in the prairies was attractive, despite decades of efforts by the Canadian government to attract settlers. Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough by Doug Saunders does a good job of explaining how the government’s quixotic focus on attracting farmers, rather than skilled city dwellers, lead to high emigration from Canada to the United States. Another factor for the low rate of immigration was the government’s racist immigration policies.
From reading The Making of the Mosaic, it becomes clear that Canada’s migration policy has primarily been about keeping out “undesirables”, rather than attracting and retaining people. It wasn’t until the 60s that Canada permanently shifted away erecting barriers to non-British immigration. Prior to then, the preference went from British immigrants, then Western Euoprean and Northern European, and finally southern and eastern European. Non Europeans were not welcome at all, even if this was not usually explicitly laid out in written policy. Instead, the executive often retained a great deal of flexibility when it came to immigration, allowing it apply more stringent criteria to non-Europeans, or impose requirements such as the need for immigrants to travel directly to Canada from their original point of departure, that had the effect of keeping out migrants from Asia. While he Chinese head tax is relatively well known and condemned in Canada, the quota imposed by the Japanese government on emigration was more typical of the approach used the government to limit immigration from Canada without being explicitly racist.
I see this book as good starting point to learn more about complementary immigration policy and how it could evolve in the future.
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