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Abstract
In the summer of 1955, the Canadian government took the “bold step” of admitting displaced Palestinian refugees from the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. The government approved the resettlement of 100 skilled workers and their families. Canadian officials believed that alleviating the refugee problem in the Middle East would help in furthering regional stability. The resettlement scheme remained a politically sensitive issue as Arab governments protested against what they perceived as a Zionist plot to remove Palestinians from their ancestral land. For Canada, the admission of Palestinian refugees in 1956 served as an important “experiment” for the future selection and resettlement of non-European refugees.
À l’été 1955, le gouvernement canadien a fait preuve d’audace: il a admis des réfugiés palestiniens déplacés à cause de la guerre arabo-israélienne de 1948. Le gouvernement a approuvé la relocalisation de 100 travailleurs qualifiés et de leurs familles. Les autorités canadiennes croyaient que d’atténuer le problème des réfugiés au Moyen-Orient contribuerait favoriser la stabilité régionale. Le plan de relocalisation est demeuré une question politiquement délicate, car les gouvernements arabes ont protesté contre ce qu’ils percevaient comme un complot sioniste visant à chasser les Palestiniens de leur terre ancestrale. Pour le Canada, l’admission de réfugiés palestiniens en 1956 a constitué une importante « expérience » en ce qui a trait à la sélection future de réfugiés non européens et à leur relocalisation.
In 1955, responding to a recommendation by Chargé d’Affaires, Elizabeth MacCallum at the Canadian Legation in Beirut, Minister of External Affairs Pearson and the Cabinet of Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent agreed to an unofficial UNRWA request to resettle a small number of Palestinian refugees in Canada. An interdepartmental committee was charged with coordinating the movement, which was planned well but executed poorly. This paper examines its planning and operations, along with the perceptions and assumptions of the committee, MacCallum, her staff and the official who traveled to Lebanon and Jordan to interview the refugees. It also delves into the complex reaction of Arab states and Palestinians to the idea, and the delicate situation UNRWA found itself in. Finally, it explores the operational failures and external factors that led one official to label the operation “an ill-fated scheme”. Finally, it reflects on the surprising number of issues in the political context that remain relevant to today.
One organization particularly dedicated to the understanding and well-being of foreign students in Canada was Friendly Relations with Overseas Students (fros). Active during the 1950s and 1960s, fros became a symbol for Canada to assert its openness and distinctiveness in North America. As an organization focused on counselling, accommodating, and, to some extent, integrating foreign students, fros also built bridges between Canada and the rest of the world. The experience of fros members thus allows us to both deepen our understanding of foreign students’ agency and of the meaning and importance of their transnational experience for both themselves and Canada. In this article, I concentrate on the narrative about cultural exchange forged at fros by both its personnel and students. I propose that what I call the “fros narrative” was a discourse about the integration of foreign students on the University of Toronto’s campus and in the larger Canadian society. It promoted intercultural connections and a form of globalism. It also had a transformative and even redemptive dimension, as it aimed to change people’s worldviews and self-conceptions by abolishing ethnic prejudices.
In the early 1940s, Arab lobbying activities started to be noticeable in Canada. In 1944 the Canadian Arab Friendship League was founded in Montreal by Muhammad Said Massoud, a Druze emigrant from Lebanon. The League soon became the spearhead of Arab lobbying activity in Canada. Its declared goal was to improve Canada's relations with the Arab world, yet in the second half of the 1940s its main focus of interest was to struggle against the partitioning of Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state there.
"This paper traces types and numbers of refugees to Canada since World War II. As policy and practices have evolved considerably in that period a brief review of key developments precedes the discussion of Canada's response to the current refugee situation."