Is this true about Canada?

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shweebe

Canadians have been treated like Mushrooms for a very long time. They have so many misconceptions of the world and their outlook so managed that when they come to the US and start hearing things they can't believe it. I have a couple of friends and once they start hearing things they are amazed. They think Canadians invented everything from sliced bread to the internet.

They have just recently allowed Fox News broadcasts in Canada, since they voted out the liberal criminals running the country.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Canadians because of their open easy attitudes, but in past years in cities many of them have become downright hostile to people in the US. That's ok, most people in metro areas are idiot sheep anyway. TV says US people are bad, so it must be true ... idiots ... and that is why many Canadians don't know about their history, just the pre-washed stuff.

edit: Actually Ajidamoon, I've been all over the world and experienced much, and what I said (looking back) may not have been that diplomatic, but it is quite accurate. I've been to the Far East, Middle East, Africa, Europe and a few other places and lived there, not just visited.

When I spoke of idiot metro sheep, I was speaking of people through out the world, not just in Canada. It's a common thread. I refer to this as metropolitis, and it's quite real.

I actually like Canadians better on average than Americans, but they have been pretty much kept in the dark. Let me guess at your reason for great offense ... you wouldn't be a fan of those criminals on the liberal end who've been running your country and keeping out info you don't like, and I'd lay money you're one of those metro types I was talking about, right? Where I live I don't have a fine for leaving my car door open or anything of value in plain sight because of all the smash and grabbers. Check the crime stats where you are. But again, I've spoken the truth. Nothing makes some people as mad as that does it? lol.

Ef Ervescence

To begin, let us look at the answers you received already. One gives a clear answer that almost reflects your query, and cites Wikipedia.

The Wikipedia reference, however, does not give the answers shown and it gives dates that are well removed from the necessary area of discussion..

Another reply gives a reference to the 1600's when France authorized slavery. The authorization obtained to those colonialized areas that were under French control, but not to others, where the British were in command. France later lost everything to Britain, and all of their permission to continue slavery died.

French law, known as the Civil Code" was permitted by Britain to be practiced in Lower Canada, later to be known as the the Province of Quebec, where it continues to be practiced today, but the British did not permit slavery in Canada and any permissions within the French terms were worthless.

Let us move forward and note that Canada did not officially exist until it officially became a country in 1876.

That said, a phenomenon which began in the late 1700's grew to become known as "the underground railroad", a network of people, many black but mostly white, who endangered their own lives as they were very much against slavery.

They knew Canada to be what later was put into verse. and then became its national anthem: "the true north strong and free".

The underground railroad saw over 30,000 negroes smuggled out of the USA and into Canada where they became "free" men and women upon arrival.

The great bulk of the negroes moving to Canada occurred between 1810 and 1850, still before Canada officially came into existence, but nonetheless into what became that political entity a few years later.

As you may see from this, and other references, slavery was legally practiced in the USA until it was officially abolished in 1865 while Canada was very literally seen as a safe haven where the same people, if they could escape from USA, could be free from slavery and the movement of these people, planned, coordinated and enacted by Americans, and well-supported by Canadians, began about a hundred years before USA finally took action to end a despicable practice.

Canada did screen people wishing to enter Canada, but the screening was not limited to Africans, but extended even to those from the original countries that peopled the fledgling Country, France and Britain, as it was seen by some that the demand for emigration was greater than the ability of the country to accommodate them.

On the wast coast Chinese were the first nationality to be limited, because many wanted to escape China for political reasons,and a swelling of their numbers came as a result of what became known as the Boxer Rebellion.

In fact, Chinese were often treated as slaves, but ot legally. People doing construction, especially for the national railroads, saw that they were desperate people, willing to do anything to be accepted and the construction magnates cruelly thought of them as disposable, so they used them in planting explosives, which often detonated ahead of plans, and killed the workers.

Segregation in the form in which is is commonly known was never officially recognized or permitted in Canada. There was ostracization of various peoples at various times, especially after the Great Wars, at which times there were large numbers of people who had been displaced from their home countries. Many were known by their country names, so Poles became "polocks" Italians became I-ties, Ukrainians "Ukes", etc.

During the late 1940s and 1950's the main reference term used was "DPs"...for displaced people.

This occurred after both Great Wars. Regardless of their colour or ethnicity, they were not slaves and they were not treated as slaves, but they did have to work hard to earn their places in Canadian society, which was not seen as unfair as it had been the lot of virtually all of the people who came to Canada and created it as a country, only a few years earlier.

Karen L

Canada did have slavery, as did many nations at the time, but we didn't have much of it, and certainly nowhere near as much as the US. We didn't have the kind of economy that called for it, or we probably would have had just as many. Or perhaps it's the other way around; we didn't have many slaves so didn't develop the economy that needed them. We do not have a large group of people who are descended from slaves. I'm sure their must be some, somewhere, but I've never met one to my knowledge. If there has ever been segregation as a regular policy, I haven't heard of it, and I'm in my 50s. Discrimination, certainly, but not segregation in the sense that blacks and whites went to different schools and blacks rode at the back of the bus, except that you might say that some First Nations people were segregated. During WW2 there were Japanese-descended citizens who were segregated temporarily and had property confiscated, to our shame. I'm not sure if there were any laws forbidding non-white immigrants, though there were certainly some groups who had to pay to enter Canada such as the Chinese in the early 1900s, and there were restrictions. Many of those were brought in as cheap labour and stayed on. There must have been a fair amount of non-white immigration one way or another, because when I was in high school in the 60s I had classmates born in China, Japan, and India, and some of such descent who were born in Canada. There were black people from the West Indies starting in the early 60s too, and earlier for all I know. My parents had a Trinidadian friend who must have arrived in the 50s as I remember him being around when I was a small child, and he had a fairly high-up government job.
There have been people from China, India and Japan in Canada since the early 1900s and there are some long-established though loosely-knit communities of them.

As for Canada being more tolerant, I think so. I have heard some Americans, who really ought to know better, make some truly dreadful remarks about blacks and Hispanics in the US. I have never heard anyone in Canada say such things about any other race or cultural group. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide when they spoke as they did. If they'd been Canadian, I would have walked out and stopped associating with them but felt I had to make allowances for their cultural biases.

Mathew H

Yes, you are correct about Canadian slavery.

It just wasn't as prominent up here becuase our economy back in the day wasn't dependent on plantation agriculture like it was in the Southern States.

I'm sure if you searched enough even online you could settle this argument very easily.

But your friend is also correct... they don't teach us any of that stuff in school (or rarely do). So I can understand your friend's ignornance of the issue.

Jeff H

It is correct as mentioned in several of the above answers that Canada did have both slaves and quotas on immigration for various peoples based not only on race but on religious grounds over the years. Many of the limits were placed upon preconceived ideas about different peoples, much as we still do today in the modern world. This is, of course, common over the world and I doubt that there is any race or religion that does not have these ideas as a part of it's history.

Slavery was practised by the First Nations people before the white settlers came and the whites also practised it. That being said, slavery as an institution never reached the level that it did in the US and slavery was abolished in Canada before it happened in the US. As mentioned in a previous answer the Underground Railway assisted many slaves to escape the US and find their way into Canada. The contribution of non-white races to Canada have been many and we often tend not to give them the gratitude and recognition that they deserve.

A couple of examples are the introduction of cattle to parts of Alberta was accomplished by blacks. The first regiment to guard Victoria, now the capital city of BC was black, and Sir James Douglas, the first Premier of BC was part black and his wife was First Nations. The Chinese have been in Canada for over a hundred years and the one constant among towns in the Prairie provinces was often a Chinese Restaurant.

There have been numerous problems over the years including a riot against both Chinese and Japanese in Vancouver although by the time the rioters reached the Japanese section of town they were ready for them and, as a result, the rioters were driven back. Canada has a whole has been a bit more tolerant than the US but we are far from perfect.

A Messi No More

I thought your question was very intriguing as an American I have only really studied the U.S history of slavery, so thank you for getting my intrigue up. I did find this.

"Canadians did not refer to the term "slave", as it was potentially controversial with the United States, and therefore referred to the term "servant." A popular impression that the first slaves in Canada were introduced into the Maritimes Provinces by the Loyalists, in 1783, is false. Historical records indicated that slavery was established in Quebec, by the French, through a royal mandate issued by Louis XIV in 1689." {Copied from the article linked}

The article list all the Canadian provinces and their parts in keeping {Cough} "Servants"

I wonder if the Canadians have left the part in their role in the slave trade being it Native Indians or Blacks out of their books by your friends answer to your question..makes one wonder.

harry k

Yes it's true.
"Immigration since the 1970s has overwhelmingly been of visible minorities from the developing world, since restrictions on non-white immigration were altogether removed, starting when Lester B. Pearson was prime minister with the revised Immigration Act, 1967, and this continued to be official government policy under his successor, Pierre Trudeau"

Canada did have slavery and it was abolished only 30 years before the US. Canada only abolished the restrictions on non-white immigration in 1967.

The US has nothing to do with Canada's racist past and present.

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*ajidamoon* the Eh team

All of what you have posted is true, and is learned in basic grade six history. Perhaps she just does not remember that far back in her education.
*Shweebe makes some of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard via the internet. He/she is the exact reason americans are looked on poorly from the rest of the world. What he/she posts is quite humourous, as this is what all other nations have to say about americans, and its sad, as a Canadian I know its the minority who are as ignorant, uneducated and uninformed as shweebe. You asked a legitimate question, and you get drivel like that. Shweebe you are the epitome of every american stereotype rolled into one. You are obviously the one who knows nothing of the world past your borders.

MasterPython

It's all true. You really don't learn much Canadian history in Canadian schools, it would mess up the Liberal social engineering.

Until the Seventies the government took native children from their families and sent them to religious residential schools. They were often staffed by priests that had a history of molesting children.

It is definately not a more diverse country now. About eighty four percent white people compared to seventy five percent in the states.

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