Year: 1969
Type: article
Abstract: Throughout its history, Canada has often become a place of refuge for people who suffered oppression in their countries of origin.In the 1970s, one such group consisted of Chileans who fled their homeland after the coup d'état that toppled the government of President Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973.With the overthrow of Chile's experiment in democratic socialism and the state repression that followed, hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life left the country, resulting in la diáspora chilena, the Chilean diaspora.1 Often they left under duress or out of fear for their lives and those of their families.In many cases, the persecuted had no plan to escape to a particular country of refuge; they took shelter wherever they could.In this context, by October 1973 Canada became a place of refuge for Chileans forced from their homes.While Canada did not shelter as many as some other nations, it nonetheless has played a significant role in the Chilean diaspora.2 As this study will argue, the presence of Chilean exiles in Canada is the result of the concerted pressure on the federal government by leftist or left-leaning parties and organisations, in the face of denial in Ottawa of the severity of the humanitarian crisis in Chile.The coalition working in solidarity with persecuted Chileans included the New Democratic Party (NDP), the Parti Québécois (PQ), and smaller parties, such as the Communist Party of Canada; organised labour, through the Canadian Labour Congress and the Confédération des syndicats nationaux; non-governmental organisations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam; concerned academics, under the banner of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the World University Service (WUS); citizens' groups, such as the Toronto Welcome Committee for Chilean Refugees and the Comité d'accueil pour les Réfugiés Chiliens in Quebec; and, perhaps most importantly for the Chilean question, progressive elements within various Christian denominations, many under the umbrella of the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC).3 This agglomeration of disparate but like-minded bodies lobbied the federal government to allow Chileans in under relaxed immigration criteria and assist in their passage, citing the precedent of special admissions programmes for Hungarians (1956-7), Czechoslovakians (1968), Tibetans (1971), and Ugandans of Asian descent (1972).In the fall of 1973, the attitude and actions of representatives of the Canadian government came under heavy criticism for a perceived unwillingness to cooperate fully in resettling Chileans whose lives were in danger.During the 49 © Left History 17.2 (Fall/ Winter 2013) LH 17_2 Quark Final ed_Left History.qxd14-02-24 11:53 AM Page 49Cold War, admitting people associated with the political left was problematic for reasons connected to internal security and reflected an ideological bias against supposed members of the enemy camp.Officials working for the ministries of Manpower and Immigration (the forerunner of today's Department of Citizenship and Immigration) and External Affairs initially reacted to the coup d'état and subsequent humanitarian crisis with a mixture of distaste for the victims and ignorance of their plight.I will discuss the obstacles to accepting Chileans and how these barriers were overcome through the solidarity activities of progressives within Canada.I will also show how the success of the Chilean refugee lobby at influencing changes in policy and practice had longer-term outcomes for human rights issues and solidarity movements throughout the 1970s and into the following decade.My research on this topic draws largely on internal government documents, including diplomatic telegrams between Ottawa, Santiago and other consulates in Latin America in the fall of 1973 that illustrate anti-leftist bias and the reluctance of the federal government to act decisively to assist the persecuted in Chile.Criticism of government (in)action formed an integral part of the solidarity network's public campaign for the acceptance of refugees from Chile, and is a continuing motif in the newsletters, reports and press releases from the time.These primary sources constitute the backbone of this study, along with Hansard records from the House of Commons that show the debates over the Chilean issue at the highest level of government.Recent scholarship on the Chilean experience in Canada, such as José Del Pozo's Les Chiliens au Québec: Immigrants et réfugiés, de 1955 à nos jours or Julie Shayne's They Used to Call Us Witches: Chilean Exiles, Culture, and Feminism largely focus on the points of view, lived experiences, and community activities of exiles and immigrants.Studies such as these provide invaluable insight into the memories and opinions of the people who resettled in Canada, and the challenges they faced.4 In my own doctoral research on this topic, I also devoted attention primarily to the testimony of twenty-one Chilean exiles about how and why they came to Canada, and what kind of lives they had in a new country that was in many ways for them a kind of "golden cage." 5 Immigration historians in recent years have increasingly concentrated on the people involved rather than the processes and institutions, in part as a reaction to the tendency identified by Harold Troper in 1988 of Canadian historical writing to be "largely preoccupied with the interests of the gatekeepers, ignoring those who pass through the gates."6 However, this particular examination features a strong "top-down"element insofar as it looks at government policy and the decisions and thought processes of elite actors, such as ambassadors and government ministers.This focus is essential when we consider the Cold War context in which the Chilean crisis played out.As Franca Iacovetta illustrated in Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives
Author: Francis Peddie
Institution: Nagoya University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2620045473