Many people have many different opinions about who should be accepted as immigrants in our country. We often forget that all our ancestors came from somewhere else in the world. First Nations people were the first to inhabit North America. The existence of entire civilizations that were very advanced in technology that we never learned about in school have been discovered in recent years. Evidence of some of these cultures has been discovered under water in seas or oceans and some have been buried in sands.
When I was in school in the 50s and 60s, we thought that our earliest settlers came from Spain, Norway, China, France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and that when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, he was looking for India and that’s why he called the Indigenous peoplees “Indians”! Back then, a lot of people thought that the world was flat and that Columbus would sail off the edge of the earth and never return!
Some came from countries that had extended droughts and they wanted a new chance at life where food could be grown without the land owners taking the most of it. Some came to avoid disease but just spread the diseases to First Nations people. Many came because of religious disputes. Some came to get away from a culture where one class controlled everyone else. Some were brought here as slaves so an upper class could become rich buying, selling, and using slaves to do manual work that they didn’t want to do.
Today, many seasonal migrant workers come to do work that people who lived here for generations just will not do. Some migrant workers “man” the abattoirs, pick fruit and vegetables, and milk the majority of the milk produced in North America. Some immigrants came for the “free land” which did not exist where they came from. Yes, those early immigrants worked for generations turning wilderness into productive farmland. Most early immigrants came by boat or ship and most had to pay for their passage to Canada or some other part of America. Some of our “deep thinkers” say that early inhabitants walked across a land bridge from Russia to Alaska.
During my lifetime, many have come seeking political asylum from war-torn countries. When I was only two years old, a very hard working nice Ukrainian man came from a German war camp after World War II was over to work at our farm for a year, as that was his debt to get free passage to Canada. In the late 50s, Pontiac county farmers sponsored a Hungarian family when they fled Russian oppression. The father had been a Hungarian officer, and the entire family were marked as criminals. They crawled out of Hungary on their bellies. The older children carried the little one on their backs to safety. The father worked on local farms and shot geese and groundhogs to help feed the family. That family later bought a farm and one son became a contractor and everyone became hardworking citizens.
Not everyone is allowed to stay in Canada. A very smart, hard working, young man tried to become a Canadian citizen twice but was refused. He first came to Canada as a support to his uncle. That young person (15) became a good friend of my son and helped at carpentry, mechanical, farm machinery work, welding, lathe work and milking. He also helped several other beef, dairy, and crop farmers; sometimes two jobs every day. Because he was homeschooled with his other nine family members, and trained by his father as a machinist, mechanic, and carpenter, but with no certificate to hang on the wall and no French, he was refused by Quebec! Later he was married to a special education teacher, had two kids, started his own contracting company, and built and repaired barns and houses, and did contract work doing specialized farm work with his tractors and machinery. He and his family again tried to come to Canada with his wife guaranteed a teaching position and himself a fulltime job on a large farm and shop, and were again refused by Quebec!
I recently met another citizen of Canada who came with his mom and two other very young brothers during the war between Laos and North Vietnam. The father had been killed by the Viet Cong and the family fled for their lives in an old canoe. They came to the U.S. through the U.S. army who were trying to save Laos. After a brief stay in the U.S., they came to Canada even though they thought that Canada was all snow and polar bears. They could see no future in the U.S.! This young man built up two companies in Quebec. One makes spring rolls for large chain stores like Farm Boy and another company, a distillery which makes maple whisky. He never knew his birthday (in Laos, birthdays are not celebrated). He is now happily married to a Quebec girl and his brother has his own company in Toronto. By the way – that family was given three years after coming to Canada to repay all the transportation costs of getting to Canada. Their companies now employ more than 30 employees, and they can speak several languages.
So, who should we allow into Canada? Maybe we should give First Nations citizens more say on immigration. They have lived on the continent longer than any other group of citizens.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
