Canada definitely had a "White Canada" policy for a while - directed primarily against immigrants from Asia in the first part of the 20th century. Prior to that, we were very happy to invite Asian workers to Canada to help build our national railroad and do other hard and dangerous work, although we were not always very keen on allowing these (mostly male) workers to bring their families here.
Our immigration policy now is supposedly neutral - there are "objective" categories where a potential immigrant accumulates points, and there are no country or continental quotas, such as the U.S. has. however, there are some biases built into those categories which do make it more difficult for people from some cultures to amass enough points to be able to apply.
And immigrants of colour face a lot of problems once they arrive that are definitely associated with both institutionalised racism and prejudice/discrimination, although there are attempts to recognise and change that.
A cultural myth/metaphor isn't always reflective of the reality, even if it is reflective of the ideal.
Hell, we can't even manage to establish a Truth and Reconciliation process for Aboriginal survivors of forced removal to residential schools, despite the fact that our government has mandated that such a process be set up. People appointed to the Commission keep getting into arguments with each other and resigning. Meanwhile, the survivors are ageing and every year there are fewer left to tell their stories.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-02-04 02:22 am (UTC)Our immigration policy now is supposedly neutral - there are "objective" categories where a potential immigrant accumulates points, and there are no country or continental quotas, such as the U.S. has. however, there are some biases built into those categories which do make it more difficult for people from some cultures to amass enough points to be able to apply.
And immigrants of colour face a lot of problems once they arrive that are definitely associated with both institutionalised racism and prejudice/discrimination, although there are attempts to recognise and change that.
A cultural myth/metaphor isn't always reflective of the reality, even if it is reflective of the ideal.
Hell, we can't even manage to establish a Truth and Reconciliation process for Aboriginal survivors of forced removal to residential schools, despite the fact that our government has mandated that such a process be set up. People appointed to the Commission keep getting into arguments with each other and resigning. Meanwhile, the survivors are ageing and every year there are fewer left to tell their stories.