Canada's Greek Moment: Transnational Politics, Activists, and Spies During the Long Sixties

This dissertation examines Greek immigrant homeland politics during the period of Greeces military dictatorship, 1967 to 1974, in Toronto and Montreal. It carefully considers the internal dynamics of anti-junta activism in Canadas Greek populations, but it also contemplates the meanings of external perceptions, particularly from the Canadian state and Canadian public discourse. The study acknowledges the dominant paradigm of Greek immigrants as unskilled workers, however, it demonstrates that this archetype is not monolithic. In many ways, it is challenged by a small number of Greeks who possessed skills to write letters to politicians, create petitions, organize public rallies, and politically mobilize others. At the same time, this dissertation carefully considers Canadas social and political environment and shows how uniquely Canadian politics ran parallel to and informed Greek homeland politics. Transnationalism is used as an analytical tool, which challenges the meaning of local/national borders and the perception that they are sealed containers. The main argument expressed here is that environments shape movements and migrant political culture does not develop in a vacuum. Each chapter deals with specific nuances of anti-junta activism in Toronto and Montreal. Chapter One examines the organized voices of the Greek communitys anti-dictatorship movement. The chapters latter section looks at how the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), led by Andreas Papandreou, consolidated itself as the main mouthpiece against Greeces authoritarian regime. Chapter Two demonstrates that social movements occurring in Canada meshed neatly with anti-junta sentiment, mobilizing many Canadians against the dictatorship. Chapter Three shows how a few skilled Greeks shaped transnational narratives of resistance in local Greek leftist press. Chapters Four and Five examine RCMP surveillance documents related to local politics in Toronto and Montreal. In doing so, the chapters reveal that regional circumstances, particularly Quebecs Quiet Revolution, shaped security concerns and definitions of Greek subversive activities. Overall, Canadas Greek moment was a complex tale of activism, surveillance, and transnational politics

Exploring Employment Equity: Diversity & Inclusion in Canada’s Legislation & Policy

Multiculturalism is considered very much a part of Canada’s national heritage and identity, becoming the first nation to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy in 1971. Over the last 40 years, the Canadian population has undergone significant changes bringing in immigrants with different cultures, ideologies, religions and ways of life. Despite the various changes in society, the multiculturalism policies have remained the same. This thesis examines Canada’s Employment Equity-a policy intended to eliminate systemic discrimination in the workplace-and its effectivity at creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. The main research question is, in the past five years, has Employment Equity assisted in providing an accurate representation of the marginalized subjects in the Canadian workforce

Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Canada: Individual and Collective Remembering

When the Second World War came to an end, some 150 thousand Ukrainian Ostarbeiters (civilian labourers who were forcibly recruited to work for the Nazi economy during the war) refused to return from Germany to the Soviet-dominated Ukraine. Together with other Ukrainian Displaced Persons, they composed the third wave of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. However, to this day, the history of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters in Canada as a separate subject has been overlooked by mainstream Ukrainian-Canadian historical research. There has been a tendency to generalize all DPs under the title “political refugees” without distinguishing Ostarbeiters as a separate category within this group. This thesis addresses the historiographical gap mentioned above. It establishes background that is essential for readers’ understanding of the Ukrainian Ostarbeiters’ war time experiences. Built on oral history interviews with former forced labourers, it reconstructs the process of Ostarbeiters’ immigration to Canada and their integration into Canadian society. Through survey of scholarly texts, newspaper articles, and memoirs, it also explores the nature of the collective memory about Ostarbeiters in the Canadian context. Finally, based on the transcripts of 32 available interviews, the study investigates how former forced labourers make sense of their past and how they present their life experiences. By describing the Ostarbeiters’ experience in Canada, revealing the nature of collective and individual remembering of the forced labour, and challenging certain existing conclusions about all Ukrainian DPs in the Ukrainian-Canadian historiography, this thesis sheds new light on the history of the “third wave” of Ukrainian immigration to Canada and the history of Ukrainian community in Canada. In addition, it contributes to the general history of Ukrainian Ostarbeiters by reconstructing the post-war experiences and analyzing collective and individual memories of those Ostarbeiters who did not return home after the war but decided to resettle to another country instead

"Family is Really All Over The Place:" Ethnic Identity Formation Within A Transnational Network

This dissertation explores the process of ethnic identity formation in immigrants from the Campania region of Italy who settled in Ontario (Canada) and Buenos Aires (Argentina) after the Second World War. It centres on the collection of twenty-five original testimonies from narrators from the Campania who travelled from Italy between 1949 and 1979. Testimonies are complemented by ethnic newspaper archives and a diverse collection of archival materials from Canada, Argentina, and Italy. Campani understood their ethnic identities not via national boundaries, nor by a hyphenated or binary relationship; they did so using a shared imagined space that formed part of a multi-directional and transnational network, a mental map that included nodal points across the globe. This project argues that the identity of Campani depended less on formalized ethnic associations and more on informal networks of family to develop a sense of identity. Focusing on this unorganized group offers an intriguing perspective on how immigrants develop ethnic identities in situations where regional ties or formalized institutions are not strong enough to adhere to as a viable source of ethnic identity. Women were a vital part of these transnational networks, and this dissertation explores how networks of transmission work within this category of analysis. Language, food, and music are some of the means of forging and affirming ethnic identity that operate within the transnational network. Hyphenated identities are unsatisfactory, since they rely on a linear connection between two places and obfuscate the existence of other nodal spaces. Instead, Campani turned to other identifiers for constancy. Discussions of identity centre on the family or use familial terms to describe that tension. Campani had multiple identifiers at their disposal, and they adopted them strategically to navigate the situation at hand. The dissertation complicates the presence of hybrid or hyphenated identities by considering the vast but understudied transnational network that provided Campani with a domain for ethnic identity formation. It explores immigration as a process of non-linear mobility that transcends borders by creating nodes of settlement and streaks of movement that together create a picture of how identity is defined

Britishers in Two Worlds: Maltese Immigrants in Detroit and Toronto, 1919-1960

This dissertation looks at the immigration of Maltese laborers and their families to North America, chiefly Detroit and Toronto, between 1919 and 1960. While the Maltese migration followed similar patterns to other Southern European Catholic or skilled laborers in general, it is different in both their timing and colonial association. Most migrants came to North America in the late 19th and early 20th century, but the Maltese migration occurs largely after World War I and extends through the 1960s---the exact time frame of immigration restrictions imposed by both the governments of the United States and Canada. How the Maltese immigrants were able to skirt these legal restrictions comes down to their imperial standing as part of the British Empire and the skilled trades that many migrants brought with them. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to be both a comparative study of immigration policy and foreign policy between the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, as well as a transnational study of a migrant group that spans not just the transatlantic world but also the North American border

Immigration Federalism: A comparative Analysis of Policy in Canada (Saskatchewan) and in Australia (Western Australia)

This study compares subnational immigration programmes for economic immigrants in Canada and Australia. Whereas for the first four or five decades in the post-WWII era Australian and Canadian national governments had total control over immigration policies and programs, during the most recent three to four decades the sub-national governments have become increasingly involved in the selection of some categories of immigrants destined for their respective territories. During the same time the national “Immigration Points System” has been converted into a policy instrument that helps subnational levels of government to select specific immigrants to live and work in their territories. The change has occurred because the national merit-based point system was not very useful in addressing the pressing needs for particular types of immigrants to Canadian and Australian territories. This has evolved into what is known as “immigration federalism,” which is a relatively new approach to formulating and implementing immigration policies through processes and agreements negotiated between the national and sub-national governments in these two countries. Using Hall’s “Paradigm Model”, this study investigates how in the past twenty-five years immigration federalism has altered immigration policy in Saskatchewan (SK) and Western Australia (WA). First, this research explores how policy instruments, policy goals and the political discourse of immigration federalism have changed in the last quarter century in Canada and Australia. Secondly, this research compares differences in the ways in which Canada and Australia have selected highly skilled individuals to immigrate to their countries, highlighting the differing roles of subnational governments in each. The study confirmed that in both Canada and Australia, the immigration programmes for economic immigrants are considerably different due to structural factors such as dependence and vulnerability, and institutional factors like constitutional mandate, nature of immigration agreements and integration. Finally, Hoppe’s three drivers—puzzling, powering and participation—are used to demonstrate that policy paradigms have changed immigration policy in the same way in both countries. This case constitutes a third order of change as the immigration point-system, multiculturalism policy, nature of agreements and the nature of residency all have evolved. Moreover, a second order of change occurred in response, with new roles for applicants, firms and credential agencies. This study is the first to compare policy paradigms across Canadian and Australian subnational jurisdictions, revealing how cities have become new immigration-policy innovators

Nature and Determinants of Changes in Immigration Flows to Canada, 1992-2012

The purpose of this thesis is to ascertain the nature and determinants of changes of immigration flows to Canada during the past two decades. It tries to determine the volume, source, and classes of immigration flows as well as the factors that have influenced changes in these flows. In examining the factors that have influenced the immigration flows, the principal focus is on how they have been influenced by the roles and the interests of the Canadian federal and provincial governments, and to some extent also by some factors within the international political and economic systems. The analysis of domestic determinants of the flows is approached primarily from the state-centric perspective, which postulates that one of the major determinants of the nature and causes of immigration flows to Canada are the interests, imperatives and preferences of the federal and provincial governments. The major findings of the thesis are that although the federal government performs a key role in determining annual immigration flows, over time the provinces have also been performing an increasingly significant role largely through their respective immigration programs. The most influential province has been Québec. Other provinces have followed Québec’s lead, albeit to a less significant extent. The thesis further reveals that the sizes of immigration flows have been growing significantly during the past few decades. The source countries of immigrants and the number of immigrants arriving through the economic class, rather than the family and refugee classes, have changed substantially. These changes are the result of the political and economic trends that have affected the “push” and “pull” dynamics of immigration flows, and the policy preferences of the federal and provincial governments

Flying Fish in the Great White North: The Culture of Black Barbadian Migration to 1967

Notwithstanding First Nations peoples, Canada is a nation of immigrants. As a settler colony, the French and English charter immigrant “solitudes” created a paradigm of “White Canada” nation-building defined by exclusionary and hypocritical immigration policies. Canada was a “White man’s country” built by non-Whites on the stolen lands of colonized Aboriginal peoples, where discriminatory anti-Black immigration policy, particularly during the early twentieth century up to the immigration policy reforms of the 1960s, was designed to restrict and prohibit the entry of Black Barbadians and Black West Indians. The Canadian state capitalized on the public’s fear of the “Black unknown” and the negative codification of Black identity and used illogical fallacies such as climate “unsuitability” to justify the exclusion of Black Barbadians and West Indians. This dissertation challenges the perception that Blacks were simply victims of a racist and discriminatory Canadian and international migration paradigm as it emphasizes the agency and educational capital of Black Barbadian emigrants during the mid-twentieth century. Utilizing extensive archival research at the Barbados National Archives (BNA), this dissertation argues that overpopulation, upward social mobility, and a highly educated population facilitated emigration off the Island between the late nineteenth century and 1967. This argument challenges Dawn I. Marshall, Alan B. Simmons and Jean Pierre Guengant’s theory of a Caribbean “culture-of-migration,” where West Indians migrated due to inherited and unconscious cultural attributes to fulfill the innate need and desire for exodus in the structured, racialized, and oppressive international migration system. By creating the concept of the “Autonomous Bajan” and the “Emigrant Ambassador,” this dissertation argues that Blacks and most notably Black women, with the assistance of their Barbadian Government through educational reforms in the early twentieth century and sponsored emigration schemes since the late nineteenth century, found autonomous agency and challenged Canadian immigration policies designed to exclude Black West Indians. This dissertation utilizes the intersectionality of race, gender, and class, and how it both restricted and facilitated the emigration of Black Barbadians and West Indians during this period

Promoters, Planters, and Pioneers

In this comprehensive study of Belgian settlement in western Canada, Cornelius Jaenen shows that Belgian immigration was unique in its character and brought with it significant benefits out of proportion to its comparatively small numbers. Canadas first Immigration Act (1869) included Belgium among the "preferred countries" from which immigrants should be sought, but unlike many other European countries, Belgium did not encourage its nationals to emigrate to relieve economic, demographic, and social crises, and Belgian officials took a strong interest in their emigrants, monitoring the conditions of settlement and, where fraud was discovered, intervening diplomatically and paying for repatriation. The result was a resourceful body of settlers adaptable to both anglophone and francophone communities and adept at promotion and raising of capital. The first wave of immigration, beginning in the 1880s, consisted mainly of farmers to southern Manitoba and miners to Vancouver Island. A second wave after 1896, facilitated by a direct steamship link to Antwerp, brought more miners, as well as orchard planters to the Okanagan, sugar beet farmers to Alberta, and dairymen to Manitoba. World War I was followed by a further wave of agriculturally oriented settlement, and World War II by a mainly urban and skill-oriented cohort. In all cases, Belgians differed from the larger immigrant groups in that they were not recruited by important immigration societies and did not settle in ethnic blocs. There is probably no one better equipped than Cornelius Jaenen to write the history of the Belgians in western Canada. An eminent historian and the son of Flemish and Walloon Belgian immigrants himself, Professor Jaenen has gleaned, from Belgian and Canadian archival sources and from local, community, and family histories, a story rich in detail and context that will be invaluable to Canadians of Belgian origin as well as scholars and students of western Canadian ethnic and immigration studies