Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794974814

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-182133

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Origin, birthplace, nationality and language of the Canadian people

Place of publication:: Ottawa

Publisher:: Acland

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: 224 S.; Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter VII. The naturalization of immigrant peoples

Collection:: Economics Books

152 THE NATURALIZATION OF IMMIGRANT PEOPLES 1t is of interest to relate the figures on naturalization for the provinces to the figures showing the percentages of foreign born in the population of each provineial jurisdiction. This is presented in Table 91, as is also the percentage in each province that the naturalized foreign born citizens constitute of the total population. For the statesman and political scientist this table is fraught with great significance. In the three Prairie Provinces, not only is the naturalized percentage of foreign born about half again as large as in a province like Ontario, but the proportion which the foreign born constitute of the total population s from three to five times as great. The result is that the naturalized foreign born form slmost four times the percentage of the population in Mamtoba that they do in Ontario, and in Saskatchewan and Alberta over six times. These differences would be even more marked were the naturalized foreign born expressed as percentages of the native and British born for each province. Further, were allowances made for the preponderance of adults among the foreign born, ising the data in Chapter III, it would be found that the percentages that the foreign born votes constitute of the total vote would be considerably higher than the figures shown: n Column 3 of Table 91. Yet even taking that factor into consideration, in the East the voting power of the foreign born is a very small fraction of the total vote. In the West, on the other hand, it represents well over one-fifth of the total votes in one province and very considerable proportions in the others. Attention has already been called to the vital national significance of such a radical difference as exists between East and West in the “origin” structure of the population of ;he provinces, and it was pointed out that while the proportion of non-British and non-French stocks in Canada as a whole is as yet comparatively small, its distribution is such as to make for a marked diffsrence in the composition of the population in various provinces, which cannot but reflect itself in differences of culture and of educational and political outlook. Further, emphasis was laid on the fact that those differences are becoming more marked. Attention is now directed to the distribution of that proportion of the foreign stocks born abroad. When certain sections of the Dominion have so marked a concentration of foreign-born citizens accustomed to different systems of government and finding it diffi- »ult to understand the genius of British political institutions, the situation is undoubtedly ane which demands attention not only in the present, but as to what lies ahead—the more so as, with the United States enforcing a rigorous policy of exclusion, the pressure of immi- gration during the coming years bids fair to be heavy. If the progressively uneven distri- bution of incoming foreign people continues, and the uneven rate of naturalization also persists, a problem of serious import will almost certainly emerge. Passing now to a more detailed examination of Table 90, if we discard those figures which represent less than 500 immigrants of a given nativity resident in a province as being unimportant, in’ Nova Scotia there is only one case of an exceptionally large percentage naturalized, viz, the United States born. They show a percentage naturalized above the average for Canada. That is easily understood, however, for what has been said of the “Tnited States born in New Brunswick applies also to Nova Scotia, though perhaps not to so marked an extent. In New Brunswick also, the United States born constitute the only significant exception to the general rule for the province. In Quebec there are two, the Chinese and the United States born. In respect to the latter the same explanation applies as in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. That the Chinese should show a slightly larger per- sentage naturalized in that province than the average for Canada may be due to longer residence and a relatively high percentage of females. There are four significant exceptions to the general rule for Ontario. First, a higher percentage naturalized for the Chinese is due, in part at least, to length of residence (as in Quebec) and also to a relatively large propor- tion of females. The percentage of females in the Chinese population in Ontario is second only to that in British Columbia. The second case is the Swiss, among whom the percentage of females in Ontario is higher than in any province west of Quebec; this alone would be adequate to account for the slight positive deviation. Probably length of residence is the principal explanation of the Greeks showing a higher percentage naturalized in Ontario

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