The immigrant question in Canada in perspective

Abstract

The proposal of this work is to analyze the historical evolution of Canada in its migratory aspects focusing on the policies that the Canadian State elaborated in this respect throughout its 150 years of history. The flows received, their qualitative/quantitative characteristics and the internal and external economic context in which they took place will be taken into account. The theme is highly relevant given the renewed intensity and variety of its flows, its effects on labor markets, the cultural effects and its interrelation with the evolution of capital at national and international level. We will take the first period of analysis when the expansion of the capitalist system took place (1867-1930). The Industrial Revolution allowed Canada to enter the international market as a supplier of raw materials, the opening policies of the State, focused on the need for workers. In particular, Europeans who arrived to occupy empty spaces and fertile prairies. Canada, from the second postwar period, second period (1945-2001), in a privileged situation, shared the industrial development of the northern hemisphere and also benefited from a large volume of US investments. We will see how its immigration policy focused on ethnic diversity, generating the so-called multiculturalism, A third stage would begin in 2001 (11-S) and comes to our day, when the western paradigm immigration changed from the need for workers towards security and control issues where we established what could be called the “discomfort of diversity” since the other, the different persons became someone to must be controlled because they generate rejection and suspicion.