§ Immigration from the West Indies (& Coloured Immigration General)
Policy & Instructions. R76; Vol. 830, File 552-1-644 (Part 3)
§ Department
of External Affairs, Canada. Numbered
Letter to the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, Ottawa,
Canada. From Office of the Commissioner
for Canada, Port-of-Spain, R.G.C. Smith.
October 24th, 1961.
o
“The Emigration Problem for the West Indies”:
§
“On page 113 of the overseas edition of The
Economist of the 14th of October there is an interesting article
on this problem. In that the absurdity
of trying to argue that the restrictions are not aimed at coloured immigration
is pointed out. I am quite sure that
this is a correct criticism. Nobody will
be convinced that the proposed restrictions are not based on colour. To try to make it appear so is an insult to
the intelligence of the coloured people.”
§
“From my own experience here, I have found that
when talking of Canada’s immigration policy it has always been best to
acknowledge the colour problem, to say that it is not Government policy to
encourage or acquiesce to racialism in immigration or in anything else, but
that public opinion based on years of prejudice cannot be changed over night,
that the unfortunate fact remains that in a period of unemployment if two
people apply for a job, it will be the white man who will be chosen as a
general rule, that it is to avoid pockets of coloured unemployment that we must
restrain immigration.”
§
“Should the British restrictions come to pass,
inevitably this will increase the pressures on us to allow more West Indians
into Canada…We can expect, therefore, that whatever move the British take in
this field, almost regardless of whether the restrictions are real or token,
this will develop pressures on Canada.
§ Immigration from the West Indies (& Coloured Immigration General)
Policy & Instructions. R76; Vol. 830, File 552-1-644 (Part 4)
§ Globe
and Mail, Nov. 5, 1963
o
“Questions”:
o
“In February, 1962, the Progressive Conservative
Government altered immigration regulations so that admission to Canada depended
more on the skills offered by would-be immigrants than on their color or
country of origin. It was admitted at
the time that the success of the change would depend on the administration of
the regulations.”
o
“In 1961, 1,249 persons came to Canada from
British and other West Indian Islands.
In 1962, after the regulations were changed, the figure was 1,586. So far this year, 1,542 have arrived. These increases are disappointingly small and
raise some questions which Mr. Favreau might ask.”
§ Department
of External Affairs, Canada, Numbered Letter to the Under-Secretary of State
for External Affairs, Ottawa Canada.
From, Office of the High Commissioner for Canada (G.C. McInnes),
Kingston, Jamaica, August 2nd, 1963.
o
“Jamaican Immigration to Canada”:
§
“West Indians have long been unhappy about
Canadian immigration restrictions. This
attitude may have been diminished by the new immigration regulations, but the
frequency with which the subject is raised with us here is ample evidence that
it is far from eliminated. This can be
partly explained by the time it takes for the effect of the changes to become
clear. But many Jamaicans who wish to go to Canada do not meet the
requirements of the new regulations, and Jamaicans in general are reluctant to
recognize the deficiencies which make them unacceptable as immigrants.”
§
“Generally
speaking, negro Jamaicans tend to attribute their inability to meet standards
accepted in Canada and other countries to racial prejudice, and refuse to
recognise that common Jamaican attributes, such as irresponsible parenthood and
indolence, are not regarded with indifference elsewhere.”
§ Barbados –
OVERPOPULATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT A MEANS FOR EMIGRATION
§ Report
on the October 25-27, 1963 Conference on “Commonwealth Partners in the West
Indies” sponsored by The Canadian Institute of International Affairs (Fredericton
Branch) and the University of New Brunswick.
o
“Two or three of the Canadian speakers insisted
that Canada’s immigration door should be opened wide so as to accept all West
Indian immigrants who wished to settle in this country. “
o
Overpopulation and
Unemployment:
o
“All agreed that population pressure was very
great in the islands, especially in Barbados where unemployment averaged close
to 15% of the labour force. Population
was increasing so rapidly that a very high rate of economic growth was needed
just to provide enough jobs to keep pace with the increase.”
o
Before CIA in Britain in first 6 months of 1962,
she accepted 40,000 WI emigrants. Last 6
months, only 4,000.
o
After regulations relaxed a bit in Canada,
Canada accepted 1400 WI IGs in 1962; however, “it was mentioned time and again
that Canada should relax its regulations even further”.
o
“Most
Canadian speakers felt that Canada still discriminated against West Indians
because of their colour; this was done not under any law or regulation but by
the immigration officer on the spot who for years had been working under the
old regulations and so interpreted the new ones in light of his past
experiences.”
o
“A strong
feeling existed among many of the Canadian delegates that Canada still has two
immigration standards, one for whites and another for blacks.”
§ Memorandum
to A/Chief of Operations. From Head, Administration Section, February 28th,
1963.
o
“Visit of Immigration Officers to Caribbean and
South America”
o
Total
Number of Immigration Cases approved in Barbados: 15 cases of 19 persons
o
Total
Number of Immigration Cases refused in Barbados: 23 cases of 53 persons
o
Jamaica:
120 cases and 251 persons approved VS. 181 cases and 427 persons refused
§ CANADA’S NEW IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION, FEBRUARY 1ST,
1962
§ Memorandum
to Cabinet. Re: Opening a Canadian Immigration Office in The West Indies. From
the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration (No specified date of
revisions. First draft dated November
1962)
o
“Canada’s
new Immigration Regulations which came into force on February 1, 1962, provided
that anyone in the world could apply to come to Canada without regard to his
race or country of nationality, subject only to standards of health, character,
education, training, etc.”
o
Paragraph 11 of Memorandum dated October 16,
1961:
§
“The new
regulations assume that for all the countries of the world the Canadian
Immigration authorities will be able to apply the new criteria of admissibility
successfully. It should however be
pointed out that in many of these countries we have no staff of our own: In
addition, these tests must inevitably be subjective to a large extent, and this
fact places a heavy pressure on our overseas visa officers. It may well be necessary to open new offices
in countries where no Canadian immigration officers presently are operative
(e.g., West Indies, Spain, Japan): and to strengthen staff elsewhere, to assume
these new and difficult responsibilities.”
o
“Thus far the most noticeable effect of the new
Immigration Regulations has been in The West Indies. Applications from persons in the Caribbean
area began to build up as soon as the new regulations were announced and in
June of this year an Immigration team was sent from Ottawa to the Caribbean to
examine 311 family units which had been tentatively selected on the basis of
‘paper screening’.”
o
Total of 3,025
applications from The West Indies since the new immigration regulations
came into effect.
o
Kingston, Jamaica being the logical site for an
Immigration Office that would serve the West Indies (including Barbados). Was not finalized. Geographical, travel, and logistical issues
trying to serve the entire Caribbean.
Traveling Immigration Missions thus served the Caribbean yearly
following the new Regulations of 1962 up to and including 1966.
§ Foreign
Trade Service. To Mr. D.A. Reid, Chief
of Operations, Immigration Branch, Department of Citizenship & Immigration,
Ottawa. From Roy W. Blake, Canadian
Government Trade Commissioner, Kingston, Jamaica. February 8th, 1962.
o
“The news about the revision of Canada’s
immigration laws first appeared in the Jamaican press on Saturday, January 20th,
and naturally more emphasis was placed on the lifting of the colour bar than on
the necessity for skills. Today is our
fourteenth working day since then and we have now handed out over 1000 forms;
in other words there is an average of 70 persons coming to our office each day
regarding emigration.”
o
In the Letter of Refusal to those JA IGs, the
sentence, “ ‘you do not come within the categories of persons being admitted to
Canada’ has been particularly offensive to unsuccessful applicants in this
territory. They understandably feel that
‘category’ refers to colour, and if the use of the same sentence is continued,
many will think that there has been no change in Canadian immigration policy.”
§ Immigration from the Caribbean Area. RG76; Volume, 820; File, 552-1-533
§ July
14th, 1966. Canada-West
Indies Conference – Follow-up action.
Assistant Deputy Minister (Immigration).
Director of Policy and Planning.
July 14th, 1966.
o
“In
general we are committed to dealing with West Indian immigrants on a completely
non-discriminatory basis. This means
that special care must be taken to ensure that the criteria applied in Europe
are applied by our selection teams visiting the Caribbean having regard to
characteristic West Indian sensitivity towards real or imagined discrimination.”
o
“Arising from the Conference and the publicity
which has been given to our selection criteria we can expect an increased
number of applications from the West Indies.”
§ Commonwealth
Caribbean-Canada Conference, Ottawa, July 6-8, 1966. June 1st, 1966.
o
“Immigration to Canada from the Commonwealth
Caribbean (Background paper prepared by Canada”:
§
“Immigrants from Commonwealth countries of the
Caribbean are admissible to Canada under the broadest of the admissible
categories provided for in Canadian immigration law. The Canadian Immigration Act and Regulations
permit the admission of immigrants from the Caribbean area in two separate streams.”
·
Selected Immigrants: education, skills,
training, or other special qualifications to “enable them to establish
themselves successfully in Canada”.
·
Unsponsored Immigrants: spouses, sons or
daughters and their spouses and children if under 21 years of age, brother or
sisters and if married with their spouses and children under 21 years of age,
parents and grandparents, fiancé or fiancée, “unmarried orphan news or nieces
under 21 years of age”
o
The paper states, “Aside from the admission of a
few individuals under special authorities, there was little immigration from
the Caribbean prior to 1955”. In 1955
the beginning of the Domestic Scheme.
§
The previous statement
is not true because Black WIs attempted to emigrate to Canada but the door was
firmly closed and Canadian legislation, specifically that denying Black West
Indians were British Subjects, excluded them from migrating.
o
“Allegations of Racial Discrimination”: Canada denies racist immigration policy
§
“Canadian immigration law makes no distinction
between the racial origins of immigrants.
The degrees of relationship of persons admissible as sponsored
immigrants do at present vary from country to country.”
§
“Normal and necessary criteria with respect to
such matters as health, financial responsibility and absence of criminal record
are applied impartially to all applicants without distinction to race.”
o
Barbadian
Immigrants -1965:
§
Sponsored:
327
§
Unsponsored:
233
§
Total:
560
§ Memorandum
to Deputy Minister from Assistant Deputy Minister (Immigration). January 21, 1966.
o
“Forthcoming Canada – West Indies Conference.”
§
States Canadian immigration law is not “racially
biased” but admits that they do concentrate most of their immigration offices
in the US and Europe.
§
Since 1962 they have varied the racial selection
of immigrants, but “have proceeded with some caution in order to avoid a
too-rapid rate of change which might result in adverse reaction by the Canadian
public which in turn could weaken the whole concept of a universal
non-discriminatory policy.”
§
“The
repeated West Indian charge that Canadian immigration policies are racially
discriminatory is a convenient screen for their real objective, namely a preferred
place in our policies under which we would relax our selection standards and
take large numbers of their unskilled and surplus population. The West Indians must realize that this is
out of the question.”
§
Canadians accusing West
Indians of using the very real fact of Canadian racialization of their
immigration policy. CDN Gov saying that
West Indians simply want Canada to take its unskilled surplus population. The Deputy Minister must stand down from his
defensive stance and not turn and realize that there was substantial legal and
legislated evidence substantiating the West Indians claim of racial
discrimination in Canadian immigration policy.
Comments
Post a Comment