Postwar Immigration

‘While the public continued to show animosity to foreigners by either – as a Polish refugee states in After the War - pointing and laughing at their poor conditions or rudely burlesquing their accented English, the government pushed on their citizens to make “massive postwar changes in immigration patterns”. In 1952, it was initiated to create a new framework for the Immigration Act which has not been renewed since 1910. The most important aspect the Immigration Act brought was that it provided a firm structure within which the government could adopt orders and regulations that displayed predominant immigration priorities. Laws present in the Immigration Act still continued to limit a considerable amount of races which can be seen from how the Governor of Council possessed the power to prohibit the entry of immigrants for their nationality, ethnic group, customs, habits, and more. However, these general terms were enforced and made more precise in 1956 after the Supreme Court of Canada held that the former regulations were invalid. There were four groups that were arranged in a hierarchy of most to least welcome national origins. The first was of British, American, or French descent; second were from western European countries; third included a few Middle Eastern countries; lastly, at the bottom resided Asians. Since this regulation still presented limitations, the Minister of Immigration explained that it “illustrated more clearly than ever” that it was really a “prohibition act with exemptions” and while appeals were made, appeal boards were scarce during that time. Instead, a few years later in 1962, new regulations were yet again enacted and began the process of ending overt racial discrimination. A large scale of enhancements was made when adjustments slowly developed as documented in the Canada Year Book of 1962-1963 where it states that after February 1 of 1962, admissible immigrants were to be determined “regardless of the nationality or country of origin of the applicant”. From this and other gradual alterations that were made on the Immigration Act in 1952 and even further advancements following the change in regulations, the influence of World War II on the outlook regarding immigrants in Canada can be well recognized.’