ABSTRACT

Despite the central importance of immigration to the development of the Canadian economy, detailed work on the impact of large flows of foreign labor on the domestic economy has received very little attention by Canadian historians. Canada is a unique country with regard to the flow of international migrants across its borders. For the last three decades of the nineteenth century the country experienced net emigration. Beginning at the turn of the century this condition was reversed, and from 1900 to 1930 Canada witnessed thirty years of net immigration. Canada has been referred to as an “intermediate country,” that is neither a net sender of people such as Britain nor a net receiver like the United States, but an advanced country with a large two-way flow of migrants (Thomas 1972:201-5).