The French Canadian press in the province of Quebec, with few exceptions, has renewed the campaign against immigration, attacking vigorously any scheme for mass immigration after the war, even of refugees from racial, religious and political persecution. One publication even criticizes the government for opening an office in Portugal” to facilitate the entry into Canada of a few hundred refugees.
Opposing all immigration plans, but distinguishing between a British citizen and a foreigner, “Le Soleil” says, “This is not the moment for taking on additional obligations, especially when the experience of the last few years has shown that there are 250,000 people in Canada, all of foreign origin, who have not yet been capable of being assimilated in the nation’s crucible,”
“Le Droit” says that it would not only be unwise but it would be “criminal to do anything whatsoever in the matter of immigration in so far as admitting refugees and other foreigners. It reveals a false sentimentality to think of foreigners to whom we owe nothing.”
Another newspaper, “Le Devoir,” which is known for its anti-Jewish bias, expresses the fear that whichever political party will come to power it will follow a policy of intensified immigration which will compromise “the noble ideal of national freedom,” meaning that the interests of French Canada will be placed in jeopardy.
Any policy of immigration is violently denounced by “Le Boussole,” which utters the threat “that when the veterans who have fought for the right to work, for possessing their own homes, find this liberty taken away by newcomers — they will be ready and all set to take for themselves in Canada what they have bestowed upon the other peoples of the world.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
