The Change and Continuity in Post World War-II Canadian Immigration Policy Essay by Top Papers

By the end of the Second World War, Canada was looking at a situation wherein it was trying to deal with its own war wounded and with the scars left behind by the war; it (or at least Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King) really had no interest in becoming a "dumping ground" (if that is not too strong a word) for the dispossessed masses of Europe. King's hesitancy, as it turns out, was shared by Canadians who, by the end of the 1950s, felt that too many immigrants were being allowed in just as the economy was beginning to slow. Perhaps capturing the anti-immigrant sentiments of many Canadians - and certainly some of the prejudices of the era - it is instructive to note that, while doing away with the ancient Chinese exclusion law of 1923 (in 1947), the federal government continued to place tight limits on the number of Asians who could enter the country (489-90).