Background

Prior to the Points System in 1967, Canada’s immigration policy was shaped by longstanding racial and ethnocultural preferences that overwhelmingly favored immigrants from Europe as seen in the timeline on the prior page.[1] While immigration had been central to Canada's economic and demographic growth, particularly during the Laurier-era Western settlement boom from 1896 to 1914, this openness was deeply exclusionary.[2] Non-European immigrants, including Chinese, Indian, Black, and Jewish migrants, faced systemic legal and informal barriers, often rooted in the belief that they were culturally incompatible with the imagined Canadian nation.[3]

For instance, the Immigration Act of 1910 granted sweeping powers to immigration officials, allowing them to reject any applicant deemed “unsuitable,” a standard frequently applied in racially discriminatory ways.[4] By 1923, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act which effectively banning almost all Chinese immigration.[5] Simultaneously, immigration officials informally maintained “preferred nation” lists that ranked countries based on the supposed desirability of their citizens. This system severely limiting entry from the Global South.[6]

After the Second World War, limited reforms began to challenge these exclusionary foundations. The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947, and the Canadian Citizenship Act came into effect the same year, creating a legal distinction between Canadian and British subjects.[7] Still, the discretionary nature of the immigration system remained largely intact.

By the 1960s, however, growing international and domestic pressures made such policies increasingly untenable. First, the postwar wave of decolonization produced new migratory pressures from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, where former colonial subjects began seeking opportunities in places like Canada. Second, the internationalization of human rights, particularly after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, undermined the legitimacy of racially selective immigration regimes.[8] Third, Canada’s postwar economic expansion created labour shortages and increased demand for skilled immigrants, while traditional European source countries no longer supplied sufficient numbers.[9] Finally, political changes at home played a role: under Prime Ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester B. Pearson, Canada began taking steps away from race-based policy, including administrative reforms in 1962 and 1966 that emphasized occupation, language, and education over ethnicity.[10]

These developments paved the way for a fundamental shift. In 1967, Pearson’s Liberal government introduced the Points System, a revolutionary framework that used objective, rule-based criteria, such as education, work experience, language proficiency, and age, to assess potential immigrants.[11] As the first merit-based immigration system in the world, it effectively dismantled Canada’s race-based admissions policy and laid the foundation for the multicultural immigration model that has shaped the world’s perception of Canada to this day.[12]

__________

[1] Harold Troper, “Immigration to Canada,” Article, The Canadian Encyclopedia, December 19, 2024, https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration.

[2] Dench, “A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada.”

[3] Troper, “Immigration to Canada.”

[4] Dench, “A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada.”

[5] Gov. Can., “Exclusion of Chinese Immigrants (1923–1947) National Historic Event.”

[6] Troper, “Immigration to Canada.”

[7] Gov. Can., “Exclusion of Chinese Immigrants (1923–1947) National Historic Event.”

[8] Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic : A History of Canadian Immigration Policy (University of Toronto Press, 2014).

[9] Troper, “Immigration to Canada.”

[10] Dench, “A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada.”

[11] “Department of Justice Canada: Cultural Diversity in Canada: The Social Construction of Racial Difference,” 3. Changing Immigration Pattern and the Emergence of “Visible Minorities,” August 26, 2022, https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/jsp-sjp/rp02_8-dr02_8/p3.html.

[12] 3 Chang. Immigr. Pattern Emergence Visible Minor., “Department of Justice Canada: Cultural Diversity in Canada: The Social Construction of Racial Difference.”