Immigration Reform in Canada and the United States
1 IMMIGRATION REFORM IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Mai Nguyen (York University) Garth Stevenson (Brock University) Paper prepared for presentation to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Vancouver, British Columbia, June 4, 2008. 2 It is not surprising that most public policies in Canada and the United States are fairly similar, nor is it surprising that innovations in public policy have often occurred at about the same time in the two countries. Similar economic, social and cultural conditions in the two countries might be expected to produce such a result. It is also a fact, although not always acknowledged by Canadians, that American innovations in policy have often been copied in Canada within a few years. John A. Macdonald’s National Policy was based on policies implemented by the United States in the 1860s. More recent examples would include anti- combines legislation in the early 20th century, the largely abortive Bennett New Deal of the 1930s, P.C. 1003 of 1944 (modelled on the Wagner Act), the formation of Via Rail (modelled on Amtrak), the deregulation of the transportation industries in the 1980s, and even the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Immigration is one area of public policy in which the two countries have followed somewhat similar, although not identical, paths. Both accepted large numbers of immigrants from European sources during the century that followed the war of 1812. Both sought to limit Asian immigration by overtly discriminatory means beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. Both, by more subtle means, limited immigration from southern and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century.
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