Chapter 5. Immigration and the Immigrant Experience
Chapter 5. Immigration and the Immigrant Experience
5.3 Immigrants by the Numbers
We have already observed that Canada was a net exporter of people from 1867-1896. Newcomers arrived, but they were very often just passing through. The end to free land in the American West in the 1890s was one factor in redirecting the tide of emigrants from Europe toward the north. Another, from 1896, were the new approaches taken by the Laurier administration under the leadership of Clifford Sifton (see Sections 4.4 and 5.4).
This is not to say that the immigration that was recorded from 1867-1896 did not matter. Hundreds of thousands were added to the mix and the composition of Canadian settler society changed significantly. British immigrants were the most numerous, but people who described themselves as German in origin increased by half from 203,000 in 1871 to 310,000 in 1901. Three immigrant groups stand out in particular in 1901: Chinese numbers reached 17,312 (increasing from 4,400 in 1881 ); Russians at 19,825; and Scandinavians (Norwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, and Finns grouped together) totalled about 31,000. None of these groups had much of a presence in Canada prior to Confederation (although there were Chinese in British Columbia in significant numbers before 1871).
Tables 5.1 and 5.2, respectively, show the growth in population generally and the numbers of immigrants arriving yearly between 1867-1920. What may be seen immediately is: 1) the slowness of immigration’s growth before the 1890s (notwithstanding a couple of spurts); 2) the fact that it was actually in retreat through most of the 1880s and into the 1890s; and 3) the great take-off of immigration as Canada moves into the 20th century. The peak on the eve of the Great War is also unmistakable, in that it is followed by a near-collapse as the conflict rages. In the years 1911, 1912, and 1913 between 300,000 and 400,000 immigrants arrived each year, most of them from Britain and continental Europe.[1]
The complexion of the population overall changed dramatically from the mid-1860s to the interwar years. On the eve of Confederation, fewer than one-in-five Canadians came from somewhere else, principally the British Isles or the United States. Thereafter, the share of immigrants actually fell. The share of Canadians born elsewhere continued to drop until the first decade of the new century. Then, the great waves of pre-WWI immigration reversed that ‘Canadianizing’ trend and once again the population was more than one-fifth foreign-born. Demographically, this meant Canada as a whole — and the West in particular — was now a different place. In 1871 French and English were the norms, although there was a significant German community. By 1911, a quarter of the immigrant tide was coming from continental Europe and most of that from central, eastern, and southern Europe. There was much continuity as well as change: the majority (just over half) of the foreign-born as late as 1931 came from Britain and