Canada’s immigration approach is becoming more exclusionary. It’s not the direction we should be heading
In 2023, Canada marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, a law that explicitly banned nearly all Chinese immigrants for nearly a quarter century. Many see it as a black mark in Canadian history because it deliberately targeted and expelled the very Chinese labourers who had done the dangerous, back-breaking work of building the Canadian Pacific Railway, only to be cast aside once their labour was no longer needed.
The centenary was a moment of reflection. But since then, Canada has become more restrictive, not less. Rising immigration refusal rates, while not racially explicit, are carrying the pattern of exclusion forward.
About the “author” – Yvonne Su is an associate professor in the Department of Equity Studies at York University and a visiting scientist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
