October 29. 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, will forever be known as one of the most important days of the 20th century. It was on that day that the stock market collapsed, shaking the American and Canadian economies. For Canadians, this period meant unemployment, starvation, homelessness and dependence on government assistance to survive. The Canadian government fell into debt and was unable to provide the resources many people needed to survive, such as many of the social services they needed. Medical care declined, leaving much of the population without the treatments they needed, and people began to despair of survival. Families were struggling as the patriarchs were unable to find suitable work and could not provide the luxuries many had enjoyed over the previous decade. It took an entire decade for the Canadian economy to recover and fully recover from this difficult period. Life was bleak for many people caught in the middle of this period, but there is one group of people who suffered extreme consequences during this time: immigrants to Canada. Immigrants have been hit hard by this recession. and many were unable to continue the lives they had built in the country because they could not support themselves financially or because they were deported and sent home. They were blamed for unemployment and seen as a threat. They were generally not tolerated in society until well after this period had ended and the economy had been restructured. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay The Great Depression had a devastating impact on immigrants to Canada due to high rates of intolerance, entry restrictions and the expulsion that these difficult times have engendered. Immigration was negatively affected by the Great Depression, as it led to significant intolerance and harsh treatment of non-Canadians, which made the lives of these people even worse. During this period, Canadians across the country suffered from debt, job shortages and starvation. They were unhappy and unable to find work to support their families because work simply wasn't available. Immigrants who arrived in the country before the 1930s did so to seek new work opportunities and the majority were therefore laborers. At that time, many people were losing their jobs and blaming immigrants for taking jobs and making money while Canadians were left unemployed. More than a quarter of the Canadian workforce was unemployed in 1933. Additionally, Canada's gross domestic product fell by 30% in 1930, leaving one in ten Canadians dependent on humanitarian aid. Industries began to shut down and people began to lose their jobs, and the shortage of new jobs left many people struggling to make ends meet and relying on government assistance that was barely available. As a result, many people believe that immigrants are a problem and turn to strong notions of intolerance towards those who were not born Canadian. Immigrants were not welcome in their communities and this is widely stated in a variety of surviving newspaper articles, letters and documents written by Canadian citizens of the time. For example, in a well-known 1931 letter, WB Williston, a residentof Ontario, said that "the public is rightly demanding that you expel the Russians and other Europeans from this place" because they were "sending all their earnings back to Europe." » This first part of his letter echoes a common sentiment of the time: that immigrants who had not been in the country for a long time took the money earned in Canada and did not reinvest it in the country's economy. In the eyes of Canadian citizens, this meant that they were enemies of the country and not helping to solve the problems facing the country, since they were supporting the economies of other countries while profiting from them .in Canada. Williston's letter continues to state that they "should not be allowed to carry out construction work on the power grid and RR, while hundreds of Canadians wait in line for bread." Here, Williston raises the fact that many Canadians felt they should not wait for welfare and struggle to make ends meet despite being born and raised in Canada, while immigrants who did not who were not from this country were getting the jobs they could do. Many Canadians relied on government programs funded by their municipalities in order to receive some form of compensation, while some immigrants were still able to work in various industries. This caused Canadians to view immigrants as a threat. They posed a threat to their way of life, their jobs and their families. Immigrants were seen as people to be hated because they did not support the Canadian way of life and deprived hard-working Canadians of opportunities. These types of feelings caused harsh treatment and negative views toward immigrants in the country and changed the way people viewed and treated immigrants. They began to treat them as enemies, not allowing them to group together and forcing them to continue living as strangers in the world of Canadian citizens. In some provinces, immigrants of certain races and nationalities were not allowed to vote and were prohibited from doing certain things or holding certain positions. Anti-Asian sentiment was already present, but it grew worse during the Great Depression because the Canadian people now had more reason to hate those who were not from Canada. These views also encouraged the adoption of new types of laws by the Canadian government that prevented immigrants from entering the country because policymakers believed that preventing immigration was the main element in dealing with the crisis. The Great Depression was one of the most destructive periods in Canadian history for immigration due to the anti-immigration policies and producers implemented to prevent people from settling in the country. Before the 1930s, immigration was an important source of development for the country, as people from Europe and other countries were recruited to come to Canada to meet labor shortages in the agriculture, railway construction and other industries. This has made the country a promising region for immigrants who come to earn money they can send home to their families. However, during the Great Depression, these hopeful ideals were challenged and immigrants became a problem for the workforce. Many policymakers agreed that immigration was worsening the unemployment crisis, and this sentiment was echoed and supported by many major Canadian employers and business lobby groups, including the AssociationCanadian manufacturers. As more and more Canadians become unemployed and face the threat of non-Canadian workers, the government has begun to take steps that could reverse prosperity and prevent what it saw as unnecessary people from entering the country. country. Under the Conservative government of RB Bennett, the majority of immigration offices were closed and promotional activities aimed at increasing immigration were canceled. Next came legislation that would impose stricter regulations on people wanting to enter the country. In August 1930, the Canadian government passed a new law banning immigrants from Europe. The only exceptions to this rule were people who had enough money to support themselves or who had family residing in Canada. The following year, in March 1931, the government passed Order in Council CP 695, which allowed only certain groups of people to emigrate to Canada. PC 695 declared that "the arrival in Canada of immigrants of all classes and professions is prohibited." except for any person “who has sufficient means to support himself or herself until employment is obtained.” This essentially meant that anyone from a lower class from another country could not come to Canada because they would not have enough money to arrive, and only those who were from the upper classes and who had money to spend in the Canadian economy were welcome. Anyone posing a threat to the economy was not allowed. The order also specified that "the spouse or unmarried child under the age of 18 of any person lawfully admitted and residing in Canada who is able to receive and care for his or her dependents" was also permitted. This inclusion was intended to ensure that anyone bringing someone from another country as a family member would be able to support themselves and that these wives and children would not become a burden on the economy or the local municipality. Specific groups of people in the Order also included Britons and Americans with enough money to support themselves, farmers and farm workers, and anyone working in the mining or forestry industries. Additionally, the Order also stated that “the provisions of this Order shall not apply to immigrants of any Asiatic race.” This indicates that widespread anti-Asian sentiment in Canada was still rampant at this time and that the only people allowed into the country at the time were those who were seen as upholding true Canadian values ​​and providing a specific type of 'picture. for the country. These changes made a significant difference in the number of immigrants to Canada. Between 1921 and 1931, immigration to Canada had reached a peak of 1,166,000 people to the country, but between 1931 and 1941, this number had fallen to a total of 140,000 people to the country. As a result, the annual influx in 1930 was 100,000 people per year, but this number was reduced to less than 15,000 people per year by 1933, only three years later. In addition to this new anti-immigration stance, the country also adopted an anti-refugee stance, and the country is known for adopting anti-Semitic attitudes despite what was happening in Europe at the time. In fact, in 1939, Canada refused to allow the SS St Lous, a ship carrying Jewish refugees who had escaped Nazi control in Germany, to dock in the country. This particularly famous voyage is commonly called "the voyage of the damned", because it was not welcome in Canada,in the United States or Cuba, due to the anti-immigration policies of the Great Depression, and he ultimately had no choice. but return to Europe, where its passengers probably faced death. This position would persist over time until the end of the Great Depression and would continue to be enforced as deportation became commonplace as an additional solution to easing the immigration problem. Immigration was also negatively impacted during the Great Depression, as deportation rates in Canada skyrocketed due to the new policies of the Exclusion Act, as well as due to the demands of people who wanted immigrants leave the country. Anyone who was not a legal citizen of Canada faced deportation and began to fear being sent home any day. Deportation tactics were used by Canadians to “rid” their communities of resource-hogging immigrants who were considered “useless.” For many municipalities and communities, unemployed immigrants were a burden because they became public charges and these communities had to pay the cost for them to continue living there. These costs piled up, often amounting to thousands of dollars a day just to help families, at a time when funding was scarce and cities were taking on huge debts to keep their populations afloat. Immigrants who lost their jobs or otherwise became unemployed became public charges dependent on funding from municipalities, but many cities lacked funds and spent beyond their means to support these public charges. Therefore, since these communities were already struggling to make ends meet, and it was this mindset that led these communities to believe that the first thing to do was to resort to immigrants. So these municipalities put pressure on the government to get rid of the “undesirables” and demanded that they be sent home so that Canadian men could find work. This method of thinking was that if more immigrants left, Canadians would be able to work and support their families. At that time, all unemployed immigrants were almost guaranteed to be sent home and lived in fear of being sent back to where they came from. For many people, this meant returning to an oppressive regime that did not provide the opportunities needed to support their families. Anti-immigration and pro-deportation sentiment caused a significant increase in the number of deportations out of Canada, higher than the majority of previous decades in Canada, and led to what many historians consider at the time to be a eviction crisis. Seen as the simplest and most reasonable choice, anyone not born in Canada had to fight to stay in the country, because one wrong move and they would be sent back to their home country. Every time an immigrant was brought to the attention of their municipal government, whether they were in trouble or applying for welfare, they were put on the radar and reported to the Department of Immigration and Colonization. Sometimes this meant something as simple as applying for government assistance, which allowed many people to get noticed who probably wouldn't have been noticed before. Many people were also reported to the government by local community members, such as leaders of organizations or religious groups, who were worried about their own people and wanted the immigrants to leave. In some cities, such as Sault Ste. Marie, any immigrant who.