Ethnic Diversity In Canada Essay

It is without question that Canada is a nation of immigrants. The cultural and ethnic diversity of the current population, combined with exceptionally well-maintained immigration records, provides ample evidence to support this claim. In spite of Canada’s current standing as a bastion of tolerance and multiculturalism, there exists a detailed history of discrimination towards newcomers and minorities in Canada. This research project will examine Canada’s discreditable actions towards landed and would-be immigrants from ethnic minorities in order to expose the romantic façade that Canada has always been a benevolent and tolerant nation. It is important that Canadians understand the reality of this country’s immigration history – understanding

Immigration policies and advertising campaigns promoted settlement of the West as a means to develop what would become Canada’s agricultural cornucopia. While the government targeted particular people for their hardiness and agricultural abilities, these newcomers often found themselves to be less than enthusiastically welcomed by the Canadians already living in the prairies. The federal government targeted preferred races and ethnic groups for immigration, but by during the First World War many of these recent immigrants found themselves labelled enemy aliens. During both the First World and the Second World War, Canada established internment camps for people deemed to be threats to national security – for no reason other than their particular ethnic origin. During the interwar period, Canada experienced some of its most hostile resistance to immigration, especially during the era of the Great Depression when jobs were scare and anti-Semites made Jewish people the scapegoats for the economic woes that threatened the stability of the Western