Over the two decades following the Second World War, the policy that
would create "a nation of immigrants," as Canadian multiculturalism is
now widely understood, was debated, drafted, and implemented. The
established narrative of postwar immigration policy as a tepid mixture
of altruism and national self-interest does not fully explain the
complex process of policy transformation during that period. In The
Least Possible Fuss and Publicity Paul Evans recounts changes to
Canada's postwar immigration policy and the events, ideas, and
individuals that propelled that change. Through extensive primary
research in the archives of federal departments and the parliamentary
record, together with contemporary media coverage, the correspondence
of politicians and policy-makers, and the statutes that set
immigration policy, Evans reconstructs the formation of a modern
immigration bureaucracy, the resistance to reform from within, and the
influence of racism and international events. He shows that political
concerns remained uppermost in the minds of policy-makers, and those
concerns – more than economic or social factors – provided the
major impetus to change. In stark contrast to today, legislators and
politicians strove to keep the evolution of the national immigration
strategy out of the public eye: University of Toronto law professor
W.G. Friedmann remarked in a 1952 edition of Saturday Night, "In
Canada, both the government and the people have so far preferred to
let this immigration business develop with the least possible fuss and
publicity." This is the story, told largely in their own words, of
politicians and policy-makers who resisted change and others who saw
the future and seized upon it. The Least Possible Fuss and Publicity
is a clear account of how postwar immigration policy transformed,
gradually opening the border to groups who sought to make Canada home.
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The Politics of Immigration in Postwar Canada, 1945-1967
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780228007289
Publisert
2025
Utgave
2. utgave
Utgiver
ACP - McGill Queen's University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter