“Asian immigrants have already added to the cultural richness and variety of our country, and I am sure that those from Uganda will, by their abilities and industry make and equally important contribution to Canadian society” – Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, August 25, 1972. By Shezan Muhammedi This was Prime Minister Trudeau’s defence of the decision to deploy an immigration… Read more »
“Ever since the war, efforts have been made by groups and individuals to get refugees into Canada but we have fought all along to protect ourselves against the admission of such stateless persons without passports, for the reason that coming out of the maelstrom of war, some of them are liable to go on the rocks and when they become… Read more »
By Laura Madokoro Recently, and perhaps not surprisingly for a historian, I have been thinking a lot about the relationship between the present and the past. In particular, about the use of history by advocates seeking to draw attention to the current refugee crises in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas. In the past few weeks, there has been considerable news… Read more »
By Chris Dickon On the American Armistice Day, November 11, 1927, the United States and Canada came together at Arlington Cemetery outside of Washington DC to dedicate a monument to Americans who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), Canada’s First World War army. The representatives that day remarked upon a feature of their shared history that was not well… Read more »
The 2013 History Matters lecture series kicked off on January 31st, when migration historian William Jenkins (York University) gave a talk to a crowded room at the Parliament branch of the Toronto Public Library. His presentation examined immigration patterns and political allegiances of Toronto’s Irish between 1870 and World War I, and how struggles at home and abroad had an… Read more »
