The Peopling of Canada: 1891-1921

Scottish immigrants on train.
National Archives of Canada, PA 008497.

In these decades Canada received approximately 3.8 million immigrants, the great majority arriving from the turn of the century to the outbreak of World War One in 1914. The peaks and valleys of Canadian immigration can be linked to a variety of domestic and foreign factors. Canadian conditions such as economic prosperity or depression, demand for unskilled labour, war and immigration policies affected rates of immigration. "Push" factors also affected who came to Canada and in what numbers they arrived. Between 1891 and 1914, nearly 350,000 Central and Eastern Canadians moved West in search of land and opportunity. Many migrants left their homelands to escape from urban slums or rural poverty. Others sought temporary employment to support families left behind. Some came to Canada in search of wealth and adventure. Freedom from religious or political persecution in their countries induced many other immigrants to come.

Immigration to Canada, 1891 to 1921

In addition to large-scale immigration, Canada lost approximately three million persons through emigration. Although Canada received millions of immigrants during this period many did not settle in Canada. Some migrants chose to travel through Canada on their way to the United States or returned to their homelands shortly after arriving in Canada. Many other immigrants merely replaced the great numbers of Canadians emigrating to the agricultural frontier of the western United States or taking industrial jobs in New England. Thousands of French Canadians left Quebec during these decades for employment opportunities in the northeastern United States. Several hundred French Canadian immigrants were employed at the Hoyt Shoe Company circa 1908.

Hoyt Shoe Company, ca. 1908. "Emigration: A Franco-American Experience," OVO Magazine,
Volume 12, no. 46, 1982.

Immigrants already settled in Canada, especially in the major urban centres of Toronto and Montreal, encouraged family members to join them, setting in motion a system of 'chain migration.' Italians in Toronto, for instance, sent pre-paid steamer tickets to relatives at home. Chain migration made it possible for family members to become reunited after spending many years apart. It also offered the possibility of circumventing Canadian immigration policies which became increasingly more strict during the twentieth century.

Internal migration also contributed to changes in Canada's population distribution. In this era the Canadian West was an attractive destination for native-born migrants from the Maritimes, Quebec and Ontario.

As this chart demonstrates, up to 1921 migrants increasingly left the Maritimes to settle elsewhere. The chart also demonstrates the importance of the West in attracting migrants from other parts of Canada. Not until after 1921 did the West lose its popularity as a settlement location for either internal migrants or immigrants from overseas.

Many of these migrants came from farming districts in Ontario where high birth rates, land shortages, and limited opportunities for employment made migration to the West a popular option. Ontario was, by far, the single greatest contributor of internal migrants into the West. This photo, taken in 1889, shows teacher John Corbett and his fifty students at the Thornton school, just south of Barrie in Simcoe County, Ontario. Forty-four years after this photo was taken at least one out of four of the pupils at this small rural school in Ontario eventually settled in Western Canada.

The late Peter Scott, Simcoe County, Ontario; and D.L. Small, Ottawa, Ontario.

Although the Canadian government held a series of conferences on immigration by the latter half of the nineteenth century, entrance requirements remained lax. The interest of the Canadian government was to attract as many immigrants as possible, and as of 1862 the only restrictions in place directed that penniless, aimless, or otherwise shiftless persons would not be admitted to Canada. In 1892, immigration control passed from the department of Agriculture to that of the Interior, where it remained until 1917, in the hope of stimulating immigration to Canada's northwest.

The Immigration Act of 1906 halted the earlier policy of free entry. The new act provided for the deportation of immigrants who might become public charges, or infirm. By 1914, the prohibited classes widened to include the: feeble-minded, insane, idiots, imbeciles, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or any other loathsome disease (unless the disease was treatable on board ship or at dockside medical facilities). It also banned the mute, blind, or otherwise physically defective, unless self-supporting. Persons convicted of "... any crime involving moral turpitude, prostitutes, pimps, professional vagrants or beggars could not enter." Immigrants to whom charitable monies for the purpose of enabling them to qualify for Canada's immigration requirements were likely unfit as were alcoholics, psychopaths, and public charges. In 1907 the government began to require between $25 and $50 in landing money from everyone except agricultural workers, domestic servants, and family members seeking reunification with family already in Canada. In 1908, controls along the American border reduced the incoming flow of Americans. (from: The Immigration Act and Regulations (Ottawa: King's Printer 1919) effective July 14, 1914)

In the aftermath of World War One anti-foreigner sentiment strengthened immigration requirements. The government between 1918 and 1923 excluded enemy aliens, including Japanese, Germans, and Ukrainians. In 1918, regulations prohibited admission of people not possessing evidence of exemption from military service. This was followed by an order-in- council, which barred admission of any immigrant because of customs, modes of living, methods of holding property, probability of becoming assimilated, and of assuming the duties and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship within a reasonable length of time after entry. (rescinded in 1922) In 1919, immigrants were required to possess $250.00 in landing money. In 1921, another new rule was introduced. Now everyone needed a visa to get into Canada, and this visa had to be obtained overseas.