Nathan Keyfitz intitulé: Some Demographic Aspects of French-English Relations in Canada

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“Some Demographic Aspects of
French-English Relations in Canada.”

Nathan KEYFITZ

Department of Political Economy, University of Toronto

1955

THE FIRST CENTUTRY AND A HALF of Canada's population history, from 1605 to the war that ended with the cession of the colonies, was almost exclusively French-Canadian history. Fortunately the keeping of records both civil and ecclesiastical was an early habit of the colonists. The records include baptisms and a series of complete censuses at dates starting from 1666 ; more is known of what was happening demographically in Canada prior to 1760 than in some periods since.

The first significant event in the history of European settlement in Canada was the founding of Port Royal in 1605, and the survival of forty-four settlers out of seventy-nine who had undertaken to spend the winter on Ile Sainte-Croix. [1] In 1608 Champlain with twenty-seven French settlers spent the winter at Quebec, and in 1613 sixty-two English wintered at St. John's, Newfoundland. French settlement moved up the river from the base now established in Quebec, and Montreal was founded in 1642. But population grew slowly in those days ; between disease and wars with the Iroquois and the English, births in the small colony did not exceed deaths until 1638. [2]

GROWTH OF CANADIAN POPULATION

By 1666 the population of New France was 3,215. [3] This number is known as the result of a census taken in modern style, showing the name, age, sex, and other facts concerning each person. The census of 1666 is one of which Canadians are proud, for in basic method it is [130] the earliest expression of the census-taking tradition which spread through the countries of western Europe and North America in the nineteenth century.

Canada, unlike the British colonies to the south, did not receive a flood of dissenters who sought an opportunity to practise their religion ; in fact it was by royal intention closed to French Huguenots. Immigration was slow, but some 2,500 colonists arrived between 1660 and 1672 in the favourable atmosphere created by Louis XIV and fostered within the colony by Intendant Talon. Henceforth the population grew rapidly and by the end of the seventeenth century New France contained a white population of 14,000. [4] At the same time Acadia showed 800 persons ; Newfoundland had 2,400 British residents in 1702 and 600 French in 1706. The eighteenth century showed a continuance of the rapid rate of increase so that by 1736 New France bad reached 40,000 persons, thus almost trebling in thirty-eight years, an increase of 3 per cent per year. The largest part of this high increase was due to the excess of births over deaths. Thus it is stated that : "With the end of the work of Talon little interest in colonization was taken and emigration from France practically ceased at the end of the century apart from some Acadians who moved to the St. Lawrence and some discharged soldiers." [5]

It is not certain how many immigrants there were in the whole period of the French colony ; A.R.M. Lower refers to estimates varying from 4,000 to 10,000. [6] There was a good deal of travel in both directions ; while new settlers were coming some of the old were returning. The population of New France by 1758 was estimated [7] at 72,000, an increase of 80 per cent in 22 years, or 21 per cent per annum. This number somewhat exceeded the count made in 1765 of 69,810 for Canada, which included substantially the territory of New France ; there was some return to France after the conquest and Louisiana was no longer included.

That fewer than 10,000 immigrants could be the ancestors of the 70,000 or so who were present in 1763 implies fairly settled conditions and a rate of fertility among the highest ever reached, even among small populations occupying practically limitless areas. That the 70,000 of 1763 could be the recognized ancestors of over 4½ million Canadians and perhaps 1½ million Americans implies a continued high fertility, [131] as well as a degree of cultural continuity in the face of majority pressures of many kinds that has few parallels in world history.

Since immigration from France was negligible subsequent to the Peace of Paris it is of special interest to calculate the annual rate of growth that is implied by the fact that in the eighty-six years preceding 1851 the population of Lower Canada multiplied by thirteen to 890,000. Population (or money) which multiplies by thirteen in eighty six years is growing at the rate of 2.7 per cent compounded annually. If the deaths were at least 25 per thousand the births would have to be at least 52 per thousand. All the differentials which later, more detailed statistics have revealed favoured this population ; it was rural, farming, Roman Catholic, and not wealthy.

The British had taken Nova Scotia in 1713, and in 1749 Halifax, the first British settlement, was founded. It seemed to the leaders of the time that the best way out of their difficulties was to expel the Acadians, and this expulsion altered the demographic balance. After 1763 when the British took over the administration of the St. Lawrence Valley, the growth of the British population was slow, for the richer colonies to the south exerted a strong attraction. With the revolt of the Thirteen Colonies the United Empire Loyalists, estimated at 35,000 [8], came north, and helped found what became the provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario. At the same time the current of emigration from the Mother Country was deflected towards a more northerly destination ; after the Napoleonic Wars, Upper Canada, established as a separate entity in 1791, began to receive British immigrants in considerable numbers.

The French Canadians continued to farm, and each generation sought new lands for its sons. When the lands that were available within the boundaries constituted by the English holdings in the south and the infertility of the north were fully occupied there was a migration, most of it to the United States. Montreal became a largely English city during the first half of the nineteenth century, and only about the time of Confederation did some of the overflow from Quebec farms enter it in the search for jobs, and restore the French majority.

Confederation had important consequences for Canadian population through the integration of vast new territories. One of the tasks of the new federation was the development of the west. [9] In 1870 the province of Manitoba was established and British Columbia joined the Confederation [132] in 1871. However, the growth of the prairies seemed to have to await the filling of the United States west, and it was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that population figures start to rise rapidly. Manitoba was the first of the three prairie provinces to be occupied, and it counted 62,000 inhabitants in the 1881 census, 153,000 in 1891, 255,000 in 1901, and 461,000 in 1911. The cycle of expansion of the other two was only slightly behind that of Manitoba ; the largest growth of any of these in any intercensal period was that of Saskatchewan between 1901 and 1911, when an increase of over 400,000 was shown.

Partly to guide federal activities aimed at settling the country, a ten-year census had been made one of the articles of Confederation in 1867. When the prairies attained a growth early in the century of nearly a million persons per decade, it was plain that more frequent censuses would be necessary to keep track of it. Accordingly a special five-year census of the present prairie provinces was arranged, and this continued from 1886 to 1946. In 1956 the scope of the prairie census will be somewhat reduced, and it will be extended to the whole of Canada. The purpose is to take account of a new phase of population growth, not primarily agricultural but rather urban, suburban, and oriented to the development of resources.

The number of French in 1881 was 1,299,000 and by 1951 these had increased to 4,319,000. This multiplication by three and one-third or an increase of 1% per cent per annum in the period of seventy years is rapid but somewhat lower than the phenomenal rates previously shown : it would imply an average birth rate of 40 to 45 per thousand and a death rate of 20 to 25 per thousand if there had been no emigration, but we shall see below that emigration was important and that the birth rate must have averaged over 45.

It is convenient to arrange population data in the form of a table which shows how the changes from one census to the next have occurred (see Table I). The four possible ways in which people can enter or leave a population are by birth, death, immigration, and emigration. But when we seek to analyse changes from one census to the next in terms of these four items we find that the official vital statistics series for Canada only go back about thirty years. We are compelled to make estimates of the births and deaths ; for deaths we can only assume the applicability to Canada of rates tabulated for other countries at the dates concerned. The assumption that mortality in Canada was similar to that in England and Wales a hundred years ago fortunately has rather little effect on the calculation as compared [133] with mortality 10 per cent higher or lower. The number of children under ten years recorded at the successive censuses gives adequate information on births once we assume infant mortality rates.

Among others Coats, Hurd and MacLean, Marshall, and the writer have made estimates for the period prior to that covered by the national registration system [10] Reconstructions of the past are difficult to verify, but something can be done by comparing the outgo of Canadian-born, estimated census by census, with the increase in the Canadian-born population of the United States. This method serves (among other things) as a check on the assumed mortality rates, because too low an estimate of deaths would exaggerate the number of immigrants from Canada, but diminish the apparent immigration into the United States, and so reveal itself. The general conclusion from the checks used is that most of the figures in Table I are within 100,000 of the truth.

To sum up the sources of data : official figures on immigration are at hand for at least a hundred years ; the number of births is inferred from the count of those less than ten years old at the successive censuses ; and the rate of mortality is taken to be the same as in other countries whose registration systems antedate that of Canada.

Given this information emigration may be calculated as a residual. The writer followed a well-beaten path in making this calculation [11] and there is no point here in taking the reader over all the statistical hurdles again ; it should be explained, however, that the data from 1941 to 1951 are corrected on the basis of the 1951 census, that official vital statistics are used for 1921 to 1951 in place of the previous life table methods, and that an attempt is made to make the reconstruction throw light on the relative growth of the French and the English.

The purpose of the construction in Table I is to show the roles played by natural increase and migration in the building of Canada. It appears that the difference between the numbers of immigrants and of emigrants during the hundred years is only about 700,000, whereas the difference between births and deaths is over 10 million. The 700,000 net does not mean that of the 7 million immigrants only [134] 10 per cent stayed, but rather that if the doors of both immigration and emigration had been closed the total population at the present time would have been less by the descendants of 700,000 persons. This statement does not fully clarify the role of immigration in attaining our present population, for we have the "loan" of population if the immigration comes before the emigration, and we receive some "interest" if the people in question are more than reproducing themselves. Thus, through immigration, we had a net gain of 700,000 in the first decade of the century ; if we were to lose 700,000 at the present time-a highly unlikely contingency presented only as an example of the arithmetical point-we would still be ahead of where we would have been if the doors both ways had been closed in 1901-11. In so far as the immigrants have high birth rates and the emigrants lower ones, the process gives Canada an additional demographic gain- though, some writers insist, a cultural loss.

TABLE I

A RECONSTRUCTION OF CANADA'S POPULATION RECORD, 1851-1951
(000's omitted)

	Brths	Deaths*	Immigration	Emigration (residual)	Population at end of decade
-1851	—	—	—	—	2,436
1851-1861	1,281	611	209	86	3,230
1861-1871	1,369	718	187	377	3,689
1871-1881	1,477	754	353	439	4,325
1881-1891	1,538	824	903	1,110	4,833
1891-1901	1,546	828	326	505	5,371
1901-1911	1,931	811	1,782	1,067	7,207
1911-1921	2,338	1,018	1,592	1,330	8,788
1921-1931	2,414	1,053	1,195	967	10,377
1931-1941	2,291	1,070	150	241	11,507
1941-1951 †	3,205	1,216	548	380	14,009
1851-1951	19,390	8,903	7,245	6,502
* Includes 36,000 overseas casualties of the Second World War, and 150,000 extra deaths due to the First World War and the influenza epidemic. † Including Newfoundland from 1949 ; estimated population at that date 345,000.

The extent to which the immigrants are themselves the emigrants of the same period has been much discussed. Successive censuses provide data on this point when set alongside statistics on immigration. It turns out that from January 1926, to May 1931, the number of immigrants who were recorded as entering Canada was 742,000, but that only 468,000 people reported to the 1931 census enumerators that [135] they had come to Canada in that period. The latter figure is only 63 per cent of the former - our rate of retention to the end of a five-year period was not high. The next census that was preceded by a major amount of immigration was that of 1951, and this time we find that the number of immigrants in the preceding five-year period was 491,000, and that the census counted 386,000 of these, or 70 per cent. It looks as though Canada's ability to hold immigrants was much higher then than in former times, perhaps partly owing to some closing of the United States immigration doors, but mostly to our solid growth and the opportunities it offers for satisfying and remunerative work.

Birth and death rates for the period of Canadian history covered by Table 1, and indeed for a longer period, are discussed in the chapter of this volume written by Mr. Henripin. In Table II we shall attempt to split the totals from Table I into French- and English-speaking persons.

TABLE II

PERSONS OF FRENCH ORIGIN AND TOTAL POPULATION, 1851-1951
(000's)

Year	Total population	French	French % of total
1851*	1,842	696	37.8
1861*	2,508	881	35.1
1871 †	3,486	1,083	31.1
1881	4,325	1,299	30.0
1891	4,833	1,405	29.1
1901	5,371	1,649	30.7
1911	7,207	2,062	28.6
1921	8,788	2,453	27.9
1931	10,377	2,928	28.2
1941	11,507	3,483	30.3
1951 ‡	13,648	4,309	30.8
* Upper and Lower Canada only. † Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario only. ‡ Exclusive of Newfoundland.

The periods of immigration (for example 1901-11) tend to show a decline in the percentage of French, whereas the negligible immigration of the 1930's brought the French to a higher proportion than had been seen during the present century. One may summarize by saying that after some decline, the proportion of French by 1951 was not appreciably different from that shown by the first census after Confederation.

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Birth and death rates are shown in Table 111, and from them it seems a reasonable guess to take the French births as 39 per cent of all births, and French deaths as 32 per cent of all deaths for the period prior to the time for which complete statistics are to be had. For our rough purpose we can take it that there was no French immigration, and we will infer the amount of French emigration.

TABLE III

FRENCH AS PERCENTAGE OF ALL ORIGINS *

Years	Births (%)	Deaths (%)
1921-30	39.2	34.2
1931-40	38.9	31.7
1941-50	38.8	29.6
* Exclusive of Newfoundland, Yukon, and Northwest Territories.

The result of all this for the French is 7.6 million births, 2.9 million deaths, and 1.2 million emigrants. For the non-French the corresponding figures are 11.8 million births, 6 million deaths, 7.2 million immigrants, and 5.3 million emigrants. The most important of these figures is the 1.2 million French emigrants, presumably largely to the United States; this figure is too low by any immigration from France into Canada, too high by any understatement of deaths or overstatement of births. Esdras Minville speaks of a million departures in the century that ended in 1932. [12] Such figures may be compared with the United States census, which shows the number of Canadian-born divided into French and other. The absolute number of French who were born in Canada reaches a peak of 395,000 in 1900, and is 238,000 in 1950. The proportion of French Canadians in the population of Canadian birth residing in the United States is declining, being almost one-third in 1890, and less than one-quarter in 1950.

The United States census does not ascertain origin, but it does ask the birth-place of parents ; and the number of persons described as being of French-Canadian parentage was 908,000 in 1940 and 758,000 in 1950. We do not know how many of the people of French-Canadian ancestry who now reside in the United States are the grandchildren of emigrants ; there seems no basis for proceeding from our 1.2 million emigrants to an estimate of their descendants now living. The literature abounds in figures, however. Senator Belcourt gives 1¾ million as the [137] number of French Canadians living in the United States. [13] In the same issue of the Annals (pp. 10, 12) G. E. Marquis, Statistician for the province of Quebec, gives their number as one million. Other estimates run a great deal higher – O.A. Lemieux has drawn my attention to a recent one of 2½ million. The wide range of figures quoted on a simple fact is an example of the difficulty of providing a clear picture of an aspect of our social world for which the necessary statistics are not present.

THE DIVISION OF LABOUR

Census figures throw light on the division of labour - how the French and English associate with one another in earning their individual livelihoods and in turning out the product of their joint industry. The way in which Frenchand English-speaking Canadians are related to one another in the world of work is no new topic. It has been studied by Jamieson, Roy, and above all by Hughes. [14] In an earlier essay this writer introduced the issue with some thoughts, largely due to Hughes, which constitute an extension of the notion of qualification for a job beyond that ordinarily understood. [15]

The process of qualifying for a job begins of course with the technical knowledge which is gained in schools ; it includes experience gained on the job as well as such qualities as initiative and reliability and the ability to fit into a social organization. For some posts, as Professor Hughes points out, an appointee's background must be such that he can be safely and comfortably entertained at dinner. For other posts this is not a requirement at all. Where the confidence of management is primary to the job, the appointee is likely to resemble management, both ethnically and in other ways, but when the confidence of staff is primary to the job, he will resemble staff. The suitability of a person is not established once and for all, but in a series of separate gestures, in the form for example of promotions, each of which constitutes, in Hughes's words, a "vote of confidence."

In the sorts of occupations in which the French and English work, [138] no great change was revealed between the 1931 and 1941 censuses. The situation is described by a French-Canadian writer after a review of the literature [16] :

The English owner establishing himself in Quebec saw the advantage of labour which was cheap, docile, demanding little because it did not know what to demand. He did not entrust responsibilities to these people... The situation has probably greatly changed since the war, particularly now that the people who had rushed from the countryside to the city could send their children to the primary schools for a longer period and then on to the technical schools... In brief a majority of French language and culture is invaded by an English-speaking minority which gives it work, but at the same time keeps it in subordinate positions. Only a small number of French Canadians can rival the English, and it seems that these are French Canadians who are anglicized, that is to say who have adopted this impersonal attitude in business.

To quote an English-Canadian writer [17] on the division of labour :

"The French education system of Quebec has, until very recent years, been slow in adapting itself to the needs of an industrial society. It has turned out an excellent supply of practitioners of the older professions, but few experts in engineering, chemical industry, commerce, and finance. This is being remedied, but the remedy comes somewhat late."

M. Lortie goes on to discuss the resentment which French Canadians feel because so few of their group are in high-salaried positions. The problem is of course only partly that the educational system does not provide the background needed in modem industry, but partly also that "the control of capital is largely in English-language hands."

The French were under-represented in high-salaried positions in proportion to their numbers in 1941 as in 1931, especially where the activities of modern industry were involved. Among professional groups, for instance, there were three in which the French were found in greater proportion than in the working population - lawyers, clergymen, and professors and college principals ; but among chemists, architects, and especially engineers they were a much smaller proportion. It is plainly not education that was lacking, but certain kinds of technical education.

We said then that though there did not seem to be a change between 1931 and 1941 the figures were not entirely unambiguous, and besides the 1930's were a time of regression for everybody. [18] It was therefore with keen anticipation that the 1951 census data were awaited. The [139] war had brought many changes to Canada - a change in the division of labour between French and English might be one of the most fortunate.

Occupations of course do not tell the whole story, for an occupation as recognized by the census is something of a mixed bag. Thus carpentry includes many grades of skill and experience ; when we say that the proportion of carpenters who are French is the same as the proportion of the whole working population who are French we have said nothing about how the French carpenters stand in skill and in pay in relation to other carpenters - they may be higher or lower. However, the classification of occupations used by the census contains the most homogeneous classes that can be devised if the number of these classes is to be kept small enough for the results to be easily reviewed.

Extensive results for men are given in Table IV ; a few figures may be extracted and presented here with simplified occupational titles. The construction trades group is a good place to start. For the whole of Canada, this group of occupations was 34 per cent French in 1951. But among foremen and inspectors, whom we may expect to be better paid and regarded, only 28 per cent were French, while among carpenters 37 per cent were French, painters and decorators 34 per cent, and plumbers 36 per cent.

Logging is another activity in which the French are represented in greater numbers than they are in industry as a whole ; 48 per cent of persons in all the logging occupations are French. But only 40 per cent of foremen are French against 49 per cent of lumbermen, and these figures, like those for construction, had not changed greatly since 1941.

To turn to transport, we find that 42 per cent of taxi drivers are French, but only 20 per cent of locomotive engineers. Since driving a locomotive is more highly regarded than driving a taxi the question arises (this writer does not have the data to answer it) why the French should have a higher proportion in the one than in the other. Such a question, like similar issues elsewhere in Table IV, can be answered on many levels and the answers in general will turn on historical considerations. We only note here that this is one situation in which there has been an improvement between 1941 and 1951, in the sense of an increase in the proportion of locomotive engineers who are French and a decline in the proportion of taxi drivers.

About 35 per cent of labourers both in agriculture and elsewhere are French, as against 28 per cent in all occupations. At the other end of the scale are the proprietary and managerial ranks in mining (10 per

TABLE IV
PERCENTAGE OF FRENCH TO TOTAL FOR SELECTED OCCUPATIONS,
CANADA AND QUEBEC, 1931-51
VOIR LE TABLEAU IV.

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cent French) manufacturing (18 per cent French), and wholesale trade (15 per cent French). These have not shown any important change since 1941. On the other hand clerical occupations have changed. The proportion of French among clerks has gone up from 20 per cent in 1941 to 24 per cent in 1951.

We suggest that the reader glance over the occupations listed in Table IV and make interpretations from his own knowledge. What the table does not show is that almost everybody has gone up in income between 1941 and 1951, and this applies both to French- and English-speaking Canadians. Also shared as far as we know are mechanization and its consequent substitution of fighter work, shorter hours, and similar changes. What the table reports on is only the relative position of the French, and it seems to this reader of the table that the relative position of the French has not improved.

A regional qualification may be mentioned. The first column of the table is concerned with the situation in the whole country ; if there was a shift of some activity into the province of Quebec, there would probably also be an increase in the proportion of French in the occupations concerned. The last set of columns of the table shows the figures for the province of Quebec, and is presumably free of this effect.

One explanation of the figures which has been suggested may be quickly dismissed. If the French who rise in the world were in a certain proportion of cases to forget that they were French when asked their origin by the census enumerator, then the French would be underrepresented in the upper-income occupations. However, the French whose conception of their origin has changed would most likely answer "Canadian" and the number of persons who so answered the question of origin in 1951 was small enough (about 75,000 in all occupations and both sexes), that this possibility must be dismissed.

Although the qualifications ought not to be overlooked, the news from the 1951 census shows little change in the relative standing of French and English in Canadian industry. But educational measures have been taken - the provision of courses for construction workers in the province of Quebec is one example - and the effect of these may be expected to appear in later censuses.

POPULATION AND PUBLIC OPINION

Students of politics from Plato to Gallup have always seen opinion as associated with a date. During the past twenty years there have been times when almost everybody in Canada thought there ought to be immigration, and there have been times when almost nobody [143] wanted it. The birth of this question as an issue in Canadian thinking and politics occurred about the time of the peace settlement of 1763 when the English victors looked out over a vast territory taken from France after a costly struggle, occupied largely by French settlers who had little wish to return to France.

The colony had few people compared with the other portions of British North America, and many felt that it was only a question of time before the French would be swamped. This notion even then overlooked some important facts, and it has become increasingly untenable during the years since the Thirteen Colonies separated in 1783. The thought that the French might in some way be assimilated has turned up from time to time, and as eminent an observer as Lord Durham thought they might be drowned in a flood of immigration. It is an aspect of the subsequent fine adaptation of Canadians to biculturalism that the suggestion that either group simply disappear no longer enters public discussion. Everybody desires Canadian unity first of all and a fine etiquette has developed by which it is not proper to make public remarks on whether our neigbbour's religion is right or wrong, and whether he has too many or too few children. Published observations on population are strictly non-normative, confined to the presentation of facts in a tone set by the restrained publications of the census. There is one exception - immigration is an aspect of population that is fair ground for controversial discussion. So extensive in fact is this discussion that it appears to channel the sentiment on the forbidden topics ; whether it actually does so would furnish an interesting theme for investigation.

The excerpts from this discussion which we shall present make it clear that the differences between French and English have their place in a spectrum of opinion that includes differences between farm and city people, between employers and labour, between growing provinces and those that are stable.

One might speculate on how immigration would be regarded in an economy in which limited natural resources were the economic base, and how in one centred on manufacturing, which offered productive work for a more expandable labour supply. We need not formulate this issue here, still less try to resolve it. Whether Canadian wealth is a cake of fixed size so that we should keep down the number of people for whom slices are cut, or whether newcomers expand the cake, would seem to be a matter of fact, though one on which agreement has not been reached ; our being divided on this issue may account for some of the ambivalence with which Canadians face the immigration issue.

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The Canadian Chamber of Commerce considers that immigration will make the cake bigger. It says that Canada should aim at 30 million people by 1975, and that immigration "creates more jobs, creates more homes and raises the standard of living... Immigration has increased employment rather than unemployment... Of every 100 immigrants 50 are dependents or self-employed... Each year in the past five years immigration has added to Canadian life a consumer population larger than many of our fair-size cities. There is no doubt that these new consumers have helped to maintain the momentum of Canadian prosperity." [19]

Moderate opinion has tended to insist that it is not a question of immigration versus no immigration, but rather one of finding the right kind of immigrants, and in the right numbers. Thus Herbert Marshall, testifying before the Immigration Committee of the Senate as far back as 1947, gave the statistics on past immigration, and then was asked about the future ; he developed his viewpoint in terms of Canada's "absorptive capacity." More recently Walter Harris, Minister of Immigration, said that "Canada cannot absorb more than from 150,000 to 200,000 each year... [the labour unions] don't want immigrants admitted beyond the country's absorptive capacity." [20]

This limitation of numbers is to be taken both in reference to the economy as a whole and to particular occupations. After the war it was assumed by nearly everybody that Canada needed forestry workers, miners, farm help, and domestic servants. The need for farm help was especially stressed, in continuance of a tradition going back long before the Second World War that immigration ought to be primarily a handmaid to our agricultural development. Even during the 1930's when the stream of immigration had dwindled to its lowest point in a century, farmers and persons with capital were still wanted. H.F. Angus comments that "Canada's economic vicissitudes should not be interpreted as a settled belief that in nation-building capitalists and peasants are more important than the petite bourgeoisie or the proletariat. It does however indicate the political strength of the two latter classes in Canada, who have been able to exclude those most likely to compete with them." [21] It perhaps also reflects the view, especially prominent during the 1930's, that at the worst the farmer could eat his produce but that the unemployed industrial worker would be a burden on others.

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The Gallup Poll of May 31, 1952, turned up an interesting result on this topic. It asked, "Would you say that Canada needs immigrants, or does not need immigrants at the present time ?" Thirty-six per cent thought that Canada needed immigrants. People were asked to name those occupations in which immigrants were particularly needed, and the most common answer was "farm help." But it turned out that the proportion of farmers who thought that Canada needed immigrants was no greater than the proportion of the general public. This result surprised some of those who had thought of the farmers as so desperate that their need for help would determine their opinion on the subject of immigration. However, spokesmen for the farm community, notably James G. Gardiner, Minister of Agriculture, have been consistent in urging measures for a larger population.

Labour has in all periods looked on immigration in the light of the unemployment position. Says one newspaper writer, "Labour, of course, favours immigration in principle - but only if there are already more than enough jobs to go round." [22] Many well-reasoned expressions through the post-war years by organized labour and by organizations speaking for labour impress the need for caution on the part of the government. A Canadian press dispatch of October 7, 1954, reports a convention of the army, navy, and air force veterans of Canada, in which one resolution urged the federal Government to control the number and types of immigrants. It was explained that the resolution was directed against new Canadians working for too low wages while veterans were idle. Gallup polls, at various dates, in particular in August 1947 and May 1952, showed that a majority of business men wanted more immigrants, while a majority of white collar and manual workers wanted fewer.

We might perhaps identify attitudes on immigration with economic strength and weakness, real or imagined. The people who see newcomers to the country as providing a labour force for them to command will take a different attitude from those who see them as potential competitors for jobs. And the census indicates a larger proportion of English among employers and of French among employees.

But thought on immigration is not entirely determined by economic issues. One cultural concern is the ethnic composition of the country. Rather little has been heard since the 1930's to the effect that immigrants drive out native Canadians. Mabel Timlin shows some of the weaknesses of the "displacement theory." [23] It was never easy to show that the native Canadians who left did so in greater numbers than they [146] would have if there had been no immigration. The decline of this view happens to coincide with the decline of emigration from Canada ; the number of immigrants coming in was greater earlier in this century than it is now, but there has never been a time in our history when the number of immigrants retained has been greater.

Underlying some declarations on immigration appears to be the view that the number of unemployed in the country has been equal to the "excess" of our population - in other words, if the population had been less by the number of unemployed and their families through more restraint in our past admittance of immigrants there would be no unemployed. The over-simplified economics which this implies is no longer current. Immigration and unemployment have been linked in a much more reasonable argument that immigrants should not be admitted during the winter months when unemployment reaches its seasonal peak.

There are clear regional differences in opinion on the need for immigration. The Gallup Poll of May 1952 showed that in Ontario 37 per cent of the respondents thought the country needed immigrants, in Quebec only 20 per cent, and in British Columbia 47 per cent. This and other polls indicate that the regions that are growing the fastest are the ones that want immigrants - British Columbians, for instance, see a greater need than Maritimers.

In this inventory of the directions in which Canadian opinion is split on the need for immigrants we come at last to the cultural dimension. The generalization that the English want immigrants as a weapon to counter French children does not cover today's expression of opinion. All groups would like to see more Canadians born - to all this is the ideal way of filling the empty spaces. But more Canadians are being born than ever before, and it is especially the former low fertility groups that have shown the increase - the better off, the urban, the English-speaking. That the differential has diminished is often mentioned by French-Canadian writers. The tendency of birth rates to approach one another may have helped bring about a convergence of opinion on immigration between French- and English-speaking Canadians.

Father Mailhiot asked a series of questions of a sample of French and English residents of Montreal, and used the answers to divide his subjects into six classes of attitude to immigration. [24] The class that was most adverse favoured the immediate abolition of all immigration. It turned out that in his sample 43 per cent of the French were in this class, and 23 per cent of the English. Within the two culture groups [147] there were differences according to income. Of the French who were well off only 12 per cent favoured abolition of all immigration, against 32 per cent of the French who were middle class and 58 per cent of the poor. The three corresponding percentages for the English were 5, 21 and 29. It looks as though income is more decisive than being French or English in determining opinion on migration. Father Mailhiot's careful study went much further and attempted to find the kind of thinking that lay behind these opinions. He found prominent among the reasons for the opposition the housing shortage, unemployment, and inflation. Father Mailhiot's, students have extended this research in various directions.

The debate on immigration on the cultural side has recently tended to focus on where the immigrants ought to come from. A mémoire presented by the Société d’Assistance aux Immigrants to the Royal Commission on Constitutional Problems lays a good deal of stress on the fact that even among the immigrants who settle in the province of Quebec some three-fifths become assimilated into the English-speaking community. Quebec, says the brief (p. 38), ought to attack this matter in a positive way, for example by doing something about the selection and recruitment of the immigrants who will settle in Quebec, as the constitution permits it to do, and as some other provinces are actually doing.

A Canadian Press dispatch of September 27, 1954, quotes Antoine Rivard, Solicitor General for the province of Quebec, as saying that "The right to immigrate is a natural right," but that if "the apostolic role of French Canada is to be continued effectively with regard tothe immigrants of tomorrow those immigrants must come to us only after being judged able to integrate themselves into the Quebec family." Le Droit [25] then complained that there were too few "Franco-Latin" immigrants. Shortly after this the Globe and Mail made the suggestion that Canada should seek more French immigrants, who could bring new blood to Quebec. Le Devoir [26] does not agree. In the first place it points out that Quebec has been a source from which immigrants have gone forth to the other provinces. However, it considers that some immigrants would be valuable, preferably solidly educated technicians rather than intellectuals, fewer than Ontario needs, but more perhaps than in the past.

One element that lies in the background of all Canadian thinking is an awareness that American ways of doing things are making inroads on local cultures everywhere in the world. This fact is variously evaluated ; but both those speaking English and those speaking French [148] consider that as Canadians they have something distinctive to defend and to create. It has been suggested that the French are perhaps more sensitive on this matter ; Hughes observes that the intellectuals of Cantonville "decry the banality of the American newspaper and magazine, as of most things American ." [27] Says Edgar McInnis, "To the French, clinging to their distinctive culture, American influences have seemed not only alien but dangerous in a way that has little real parallel for English-speaking Canada." [28]

It has not been easy for the Government to find a consistent immigration policy that would meet these varied viewpoints and their changes from year to year. The matter has been much discussed outside as well as inside official circles. Dr. Timlin's book Does Canada Need More People ? is a useful attempt to indicate needs and the policies that might meet them. The Annals of the American Society of Political and Economic Science has had two volumes on Canada ; the earlier, dated May 1923, contained a chapter entitled "Canada's Immigration Policy," while in the latter the corresponding chapter was "Need for an Immigration Policy." The more critical spirit of the present generation of scholars is exemplified in a book by William Petersen on the immigration into Canada from Holland, in which he says in effect that there never has been a Canadian immigration policy.^[29] The difficulty is that in a democracy government must be sensitive to opinion and to changes of opinion.

But there are some constants in Canadian thinking on immigration. Thus most Canadians want to see a larger population for this would increase the labour force and the market. [30] Most want to see the immigrants who are admitted come at such times and be selected in such a way that they match the country's absorptive capacity. Professor Angus mentions two points which come increasingly to the fore as Canada orients itself to the outside world. One is security ; the other is national prestige-"A larger population might give greater influence in world affairs." [31] This writer agrees whole-heartedly even though he has no clear idea of how population fits into measures designed for national security in an atomic age.

1955

[1] Samuel de Champlain, Oeuvres, Edition Laverdière, Tome III, pp. 41, 42, 78.

[2] Paul Veyret, Population du Canada (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 1953).

[3] Public Archives of Canada, Series G 1, vols. 460-1, Archives des Colonies, Series B, vol. 1, pp. 136-7, vol. IV, Census 1871, pp. 2-4.

[4] Census of Population and Agriculture, 1698.

[5] "Immigration" in Encyclopedia ot Canada, vol. III, p. 241.

[6] Colony to Nation (Toronto : Longmans, Green, 1946), p. 44.

[7] E. Rameau, La France aux colonies (Paris, 1859), deuxième partie, p. 127.

[8] Lower, Colony to Nation, p. 118. Veyret, Population du Canada, p. 14.

[9] Maurice A. Lamontagne, Le Fédéralisme canadien : évolution et problèmes (Québec : Presses Universitaires Laval, 1954).

[10] R.H. Coats, "Canada" in Imre Ferenczi, ed., International Migrations (2 vols., New York : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1929). W.B. Hurd and M.C. MacLean, "Projection of Canada's Population on the Basis of Current Birth and Death Rates, 1931-1971" in Canadian Institute of International Affairs, Canadian Papers, vol. IV (1936). For Herbert Marshall, see Proceedings of the standing Committee of the Senate on Immigration and Labour, July 30, 1946, and May 14, 1947. N. Keyfitz, "The Growth of Canadian Population," Population Studies, vol. IV, no. 1 (June 1950).

[11] "The Growth of Canadian Population."

[12] Quoted by Veyret, Population du Canada, p. 50.

[13] "The French Canadians outside of Quebec," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Economic Science, vol. CVII, no. 196 (May 1923), p. 13.

[14] S. Jamieson, "French and English in the Institutional Structure in the Province of Quebec," M.A. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 1935. W. J. Roy, "French and English Division of Labour in the Province of Quebec," M.A. thesis, McGill University, Montreal, 1935. E.C. Hughes, French Canada in Transition (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1943). [Livre disponible, en version française, dans Les Classiques des sciences sociales, sous le titre : “Rencontre de deux mondes. La crise de l'industrialisation du Canada français”. JMT.]

[15] N. Keyfitz, "The Demographic Development of Quebec" in J.C. Falardeau, éd., Essais sur le Québec contemporain (Québec : Presses Universitaires Laval, 1953). [Texte disponible, en version française, dans Les Classiques des sciences sociales, sous le titre : “Développements démographiques au Québec”. JMT.]

[16] Monique Lortie, "Les Relations biculturelles au Canada," Contributions à l’étude des sciences de l’homme (1952), pp. 32-34.

[17] B.K. Sandwell, "Tbe French Canadians," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Sept. 1947), pp. 171, 172.

[18] Keyfitz, "Tbe Demographic Development of Quebec."

[19] Montreal Gazette, Nov. 26, 1954, reporting on brief presented to the Canadian Government.

[20] 0ttawa Citizen, April 28, 1954.

[21] "The Need for an Immigration Policy," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Sept. 1947), p. 17.

[22] Arthur Blakely in Montreal Gazette, April 16, 1955.

[23] Does Canada Need More People ? (Toronto : Oxford University Press, 1951).

[24] Contributions à l’étude des sciences de l’Homme (1952).

[25] Sept. 28, 1954.

[26] Nov. 17, 1954.

[27] French Canada in Transition, p. 92.

[28] "The People" in G. W. Brown, ed., Canada (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1950), p. 24.

[29] Some Factors Influencing Postwar Emigration from the Netherlands (The Hague : Nijhoff, 1952).

[30] Gallup polls, Feb. 1945, Oct. 1946, Jan. 1948.

[31] "The Need for an Immigration Policy," p. 20.