Strand B3.5: Describe the responses of the Canadian government to human rights violations during the Holocaust and the impact that global changes in understanding and legislation around human rights since World War II have had on the development of Canada’s responses to acts of hate and human rights violations.
 
By: Elena Kingsbury, FSWC Senior Educator
 
Yom HaShoah is an occasion for people around the world to reflect on one of the darkest chapters in human history. As Canadians, we should take this opportunity to look back on our country’s response to the Holocaust and the international Jewish refugee crisis of the late 1930s. During the 12-year period of Nazi rule in Germany, Canada admitted fewer than 5,000 Jewish refugees, one of the worst records of democratic countries. Our nation, generously characterized as a detached bystander, made its stance clear during the Évian Conference of 1938, a moment that stands out for the international community’s failure to respond to the looming danger of Nazism toward Europe’s Jewish communities.
 
Organized by US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Évian Conference took place in July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France. The purpose of the conference was to address the plight of German and Austrian Jewish refugees seeking to flee persecution by Nazi Germany. Representatives from 32 countries attended the conference along with 24 voluntary organizations as observers. Historians consider the conference a doomed failure; aside from the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica, delegations from the participating nations failed to come to any agreement about accepting the Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime. Hitler and other Nazi leaders viewed the lack of resolve at Évian as a sign of global indifference to antisemitism which ultimately proved to be a useful tool for Nazi propaganda. Hitler responded to the news of the conference by saying that if other nations agreed to take the Jews, he would help them leave. If 1938 was the year that “Hitler tested the world,” the Évian Conference proved to be a key failure.
 
Canadian delegates attended the Évian Conference, but not to offer their country's support in helping Jews desperately seeking a safe haven from the Nazis. Unaffected by the open persecution of Jews, and the lobbying efforts of Canada's own Jews, the delegates were at the conference to ensure that other delegates did not suggest Canada as a possibility for a Jewish refugee resettlement plan.

Canada’s policy toward Jews during the Nazi era was first explored by historians Irving Abella and Harold Troper in their book None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933–1948. Published in 1982, the book caused a sensation in Canada because it challenged the romantic idea that Canada had always welcomed immigrants and refugees. This book, and the awareness it raised among Canada’s top immigration officials, played a crucial role in changing the Canadian government’s policies toward Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees in the 70s, then referred to as the “Boat People.” In stark contrast to Canada’s earlier record, the country ultimately welcomed about 200,000 refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the highest rate per capita among all the nations accepting refugees from Southeast Asia. It represented a turning point in the history of immigration in Canada and was the first time the Canadian government applied its new program for private sponsorship of refugees — the only one of its kind in the world.
 
Further Reading:
·       Brief History of Canada’s Responses to Refugees: https://ccrweb.ca/sites/ccrweb.ca/files/static-files/canadarefugeeshistory2.htm
·       The Evian Conference: Canada: https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205905.pdf
·       None is Too Many: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/none-is-too-many