Deported from Canada

[pottoka]

I recently looked up a family who returned to Britain from Canada in the 1930s and was very intrigued, if not to say a little shocked, to see at the top of the names of passengers column, the word DEPORTEES. The family were British settlers.

I looked at the other pages and found TRANSMIGRANTS for Alien Passengers as well as DEPORTEES IN TRANSIT.

There were whole families being deported, of all ages and nationalities. They surely can't have been even small-time criminals as they were travelling with their families and on a ship with ordinary passengers as well.

Can anyone throw any light on this?

[Mary Anne]

pottoka

I just came up with this reference to a book on the subject. This is a book review from and excellent resource at University of Manitoba in which the Library Association reviewed materials aimed at young people -- see the numerous reasons that I have bolded in the text below:

WHENCE THEY CAME; DEPORTATION FROM CANADA 1900-1935

Barbara Roberts

Ottawa, University of Ottawa Press, 1988. 246pp, paper, $24.95
ISBN 0-7766-0163-6. CIP

Grades 10 and up / Ages 15 and up
Reviewed by Barbara Camfield.

Volume 17 Number 5
1989 September

This book is a serious review of the use of deportation by the Canadian Department of Immigration during the early years of this century. There have been very few studies of deportation from Canada, and Whence They Came fills an important gap in the literature of immigration.

Relying on statistics published by the department, Roberts reports that the numbers of immigrants who were deported from Canada were staggering. Between 1929 and 1930, twenty-seven to thirty-six people were deported for every one hundred who entered the country. From April 1929 to April 1935, a total of 17,229 deportations, not including accompanying family members, were affected.

Roberts documents, through discussion of pertinent clauses of the Immigration Act, just how the Department of Immigration did not always follow the letter of the law in deportation cases. It was theoretically possible for an immigrant to be deported many years after arrival in Canada. It would appear that the Department of Immigration used deportation as a means of controlling unemployment, particularly during the Depression. Other grounds for deportation included diseases, like tuberculosis and venereal disease, vagrancy, prostitution, other immoral behaviour, insanity, criminal activities, and unacceptable political beliefs.

Whence They Came is a valuable examination of a poorly known phenomenon in Canadian history. The study has been thoroughly researched in archival documents, and the sources consulted are carefully footnoted. It would definitely be improved by the addition of an index. The casual reader would also find this thoughtful book more appealing by the addition of more personal accounts of the experiences of deported immigrants.


Mary Anne

[pottoka]

Thank you, Mary Anne. That fits with the fact as well that the father died in the months following the family's return to Britain. It must have been very difficult for them all, uprooted a second time; I wonder if they were given time to sell their homes or farms for a decent price (difficult in a poor economic climate anyway) or whether they were just removed and thus dispossessed.

What would we say today, in our p-c climate, about removing young children from the environment that they had known and sending them to a country that might be theirs, but that they might never have seen. And what a burden for the healthy parent.

[Elwyn Soutter]

You wonder what we would say today about removing children from the environment they had known to another. In fact this still happens regularly. Most countries regularly deport people and their dependants in large numbers. (In the UK, the numbers refused entry or removed from the country are around 70,000 a year). The general philosophy about young children is that they are pretty adaptable and will soon adapt to life in a new environment. It's harder for teenagers but for young children the impact is seen as comparatively low.

On the point about whether criminals would be allowed to travel on a ship with ordinary passengers, the answer is yes they would. Special arrangements are occasionally made for persons who are violent, suffering from mental problems and for those being extradited, where a formal handover to the authorities in the other jurisdiction is required, but for 99% of deportees they are sent unaccompanied on ordinary scheduled flights and ships. A criminal record and most of the other reasons for being excluded do not justify segregation or escorts which in any event would be highly expensive and difficult to administer for the numbers involved.

Elwyn