Modelo de planeación estratégica institucional

During WWI, immigration to Canada had declined considerably, due to British and European needs for workers in war-related industries and army recruits, and the expense and hazard of transportation at times of war. As a result, the majority of immigrants arriving in Canada during WWI originated in the U.S. (approximately 50,000 annually) (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998; Li, 2003a). Following the war, national economic and political concerns visibly shaped both immigration policy over the next decade and views of ‘foreigners’ within the nation. On the economic side, the return of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to a post-war depressed economy and increasing demands on

federal funds brought about by various payments to veterans led to a rapid increase in both unemployment and the cost of living (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998). Growing labour unrest within the country manifested as a wave of radicalism towards the end of WWI, culminating in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 (Green & Green, 2004; Whitaker, 1991). In the aftermath of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and growing concern over ‘foreign agitators’ and ‘enemy aliens’ within the nation, this strike was constructed in political, public, and legal arenas as evidence of a Bolshevik conspiracy (Horrall, 1980). As Horall (1980) explains:

During the early morning of 17 June 1919 eight leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike were arrested by members of the RNWMP [Royal North West Mounted Police] and charged that as officials of the One Big Union9 they had conspired together to replace constituted authority with a soviet form of government. Although a royal commission which investigated the causes of the strike found no evidence of any seditious conspiracy, nor any connection between the strike and the [One Big Union], seven of the eight accused were eventually convicted by the courts of trying to ‘overthrow’ the state (p.169).

Such suspicions meant that the borders of the Canadian imagined community tightened in the immediate post-WWI years (both literally and symbolically), involving

marginalization and exclusion based on national origin, political anarchism, and labour radicalism. For instance, concerns over ‘foreign agitators’ within the nation prompted expulsions of persons suspected of conspiring against the Canadian government (Whitaker, 1991).

These prevailing conditions also prompted revisions to the existing Immigration Act in 1919. Although not explicitly expressed in the context of concerns over the soviet threat, the new provisions created additional latitude for excluding immigrants by: (1)

9

The One Big Union was a syndicalist trade union, formed in 1919 and dissolved in 1956, when it merged with the Canadian Labour Congress (see Bercuson, 1990).

establishing a literacy test for prospective immigrants; (2) expanding on how

prospective immigrants’ origins were defined by adding the term ‘nationality’ to the word ‘race’; and (3) requiring prospective immigrants from anywhere other than the U.S. or Britain to have a valid passport and/or visa prior to leaving their country of origin for Canada (Green & Green, 2004). Kelley and Trebilcock (1998) argue that these changes were intended to allow the government to screen out immigrants that would place an added burden on an already depressed Canadian economy and

potentially contribute to even more unemployment. However, the policy restructuring also served to expand the government’s power to strictly regulate the composition of newcomers; this served to structure the Canadian imagined community through

inclusion, marginalization, and exclusion on ‘racial’ and ethnic ground. Thus, couched within concern for the domestic economy persisted the belief that certain immigrants were a threat to the Canadian nation, and the assumption that these threats could be screened out on the basis of applicants’ ‘race’ and national origin. Overall, British immigrant families remained the most ‘preferred’ settlers, followed by North

Europeans, then Central Europeans. Southern and Eastern Europeans were much lower on the list of suitable immigrants, while Asian and ‘Black’ immigrants remained explicitly unwelcome (Li, 2003a). Continued restricted access to family-based immigration among marginalized groups remained in effect, thereby perpetuating the distinction between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ within the nation through family settlement rights.

As the nation moved into the 1920s, British immigration to Canada lagged behind Canadian official targets as a result of a lack of both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors.

The lack of ‘push’ factors related to the relative prosperity of Britain at the time and the expense of the overseas journey to Canada. In Canada, desirable tracts of land near railways were no longer in abundant supply; land in more remote areas, although available, was less appealing to potential settler families. At the same time, the

economy was reviving and growing in diversity. As such, although immigrant families of British origin remained the ‘gold standard’ from an ideological perspective, business interests resulted in a moderate level of continued immigration of ‘non-preferred’ groups (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998). In an attempt to continue building the Canadian population along ‘desired’ cultural lines, the Canadian government took strides to guarantee the exclusion of the most undesirable immigrants and the inclusion of the most preferred. For instance, efforts to exclude Asian immigrants became even more rigid. In the revised Chinese Immigration Act, passed in 1923, the head tax system on Chinese newcomers was eliminated in favour of broad provisions that were designed to effectively exclude most prospective Chinese immigrants (see Statutes of Canada, 1923). By the mid-1920s, immigration from China had virtually halted (Li, 1988). In contrast, in order to encourage British immigrant families and thus to promote the immigration of families that best suited Canada’s ideal ‘imagined future,’ the Canadian government entered into several agreements with the British government involving efforts to recruit families for agricultural settlement. In this context, economic and family-based immigration remained synonymous, albeit only for the most desirable (i.e., British) future citizens.

For instance, under the Farm Family Settlement Schemes, the Canadian

provision of land on credit) to British families willing to settle on farms in Canada (Green & Green, 2004), thereby further institutionalizing racialized preferences for certain ‘types’ of families. The original goal of the Canadian government was for 3,000 British families to arrive through this program; in 1927, an additional 1,000 families were expected to arrive under similar programs directed toward settlement in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. However, the Farm Family program was ultimately a disappointment: by the time the program was terminated in 1929, it had attracted a total of only 1,500 families (Green & Green, 2004). According to Whitaker (1991), relatively few competent British farmers had been willing to immigrate, and many of those

recruited eventually abandoned farming for manual work in the cities, wound up on public assistance, or returned to Britain. By 1941, over 50% of those families had abandoned their farms, and a mere seventeen families had repaid their land credit loans (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998).

With the relative failure of efforts to recruit British farming families, the

powerful transportation corporations Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway began placing pressure on the government to open the doors to central and eastern Europeans. The companies’ interest in a more open-door immigration policy was rooted in the fact that larger numbers of immigrants meant more passenger and commercial railway traffic (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998; Whitaker, 1991). In 1925, the government ceded, and signed a Railway Agreement with the two companies. This agreement permitted the companies to recruit agriculturalists and farm workers from countries in continental Europe that had previously been discriminated against.

cost of the transportation companies. Approximately 185,000 immigrants from central Europe entered Canada under the Railway Agreement between 1925 and 1929

(Whitaker, 1991). Among the largest of these groups were Mennonites from Russia, Ukrainians, Poles, and Hungarians (Kelley & Trebilcock, 1998). Despite their entry, the ideological preference for British settler families remained intact, prompting growing anti-immigrant nativist sentiment (Whitaker, 1991). To this end, in 1928, a House of Commons committee recommended that that the Railway Agreement be amended to reinstate greater governmental control over the selection of newcomers.