A Depressing Period (1930s)

Introduction

The economic realities of the "dirty thirties" had a significant impact on Canadian immigration policy and on the immigrant experience. Recognizing the threat that new immigrants posed to Canadians who were already competing for scarce jobs, the federal government passed restrictive orders-in-council that essentially closed the doors to all but a select few. To make matters worse, fears about the growing threat of unemployed "radical" workers inspired the government to go even further by establishing a more rigorous deportation strategy. This was not an ideal period for those intending to emigrate, or for those recently arrived.

In this section you can get an overview of Canada's restrictive immigration policies in Radical Policies; assess Canada's deportation policies and the impact they had in Shipped Out; learn more about Canada's attitudes towards refugees in No Refuge; and explore the impact of the Depression on a specific community in Quebec's Last Frontier.