Brief history of Canada’s responses to refugees

On 4 June 1969, Canada belatedly signed the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 18 years after it was adopted by the United Nations, and 15 years after it entered into force.

In the 40 years since Canada became a party to the Refugee Convention, it has gained the enviable reputation of being a world leader in protecting refugees.

In fact, there has been good and bad in Canadian responses to refugees, both before and after signing the Refugee Convention.

1952-1970

1954	The UN adopted the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons. Canada has still not signed this Convention.
1956-1957	The crushing of the Hungarian uprising led to over 200,000 Hungarians fleeing to Austria. In response to public pressure, the Canadian government implemented a special program, offering the Hungarian refugees free transport, instead of loans. Thousands of Hungarians arrived in the early months of 1957 on over 200 chartered flights. More than 37,000 Hungarians were admitted in less than a year.
1959	World Refugee Year. Canada admitted 325 tubercular refugees and their families (the first time that Canada had waived its health requirements for refugees). External Affairs raised again the question of Canada signing the Convention, but the Department of Citizenship and Immigration opposed it.
1960	Prime Minister John Diefenbaker introduced the Bill of Rights.
1967	Interest began to be charged on loans under the Assisted Passage Loan Scheme.
1968	Canada changed its rules to allow deserters from foreign armies to received landed immigrant status. This opened the door to status for US citizens opposed to participating in the Vietnam War. Over the following years, tens of thousands of war resisters are estimated to have fled to Canada (no exact figures are available as they were not accepted under any specific program).
1968	Warsaw Pact troops enter Czechoslovakia. 10,975 Czechs entered Canada between August 20, 1968 and March 1, 1969. According to the departmental annual report, “[m]any Canadian organizations, universities and provincial and municipal agencies assisted in the settlement of the refugees. Without this surge of public and private cooperation, the task would have been immeasurably more difficult”.
4 June 1969	Canada acceded to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. The occasion was barely noticed and went unreported in the media.
1970	Canada welcomed a group of Tibetan refugees, among the first non-European refugees resettled to Canada.
1970	The government issued a “Guideline for Determination of Eligibility for Refugee Status” for use by immigration officers selecting refugees overseas.

“By the 1970’s it was widely held that Canada was then and always had been a haven for the oppressed. In retrospect the public imagination turned a select series of economically beneficial refugee resettlement programs into a massive and longstanding Canadian humanitarian resolve on behalf of refugees.” Harold Troper

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