Canadian Refugee Procedure/History of refugee procedure in Canada: Difference between revisions
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For example, warfare between First Nations created persons who could be called refugees as they fled aggression and moved to new regions, as with those displaced by the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) who are said to have pursued an ancient ideal that they “extend the rafters of the longhouse” by absorbing their neighbours into one nation, thereby producing a universal peace.<ref>Heidenreich, C.E.. "Huron-Wendat". The Canadian Encyclopedia, 10 October 2018, Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/huron. Accessed 01 January 2021.</ref> With the coming of the fur trade in the 16th century, the Haudenosaunee embarked on campaigns to subjugate or disperse neighbouring groups. The French-allied Huron-Wendat, for example, were dispersed from their homeland after several villages were destroyed in 1649. Such dispersal campaigns also impacted the Petun, Neutral and Erie in the 1650s, with those nations dissolving and their members either joining together to form new communities or joining pre-existing Iroquoian nations as a result of the conflict.<ref name=":21">Peter G. Ramsden and Zach Parrott, "Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)" ''in The Canadian Encyclopedia'', August 28, 2015 <https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/iroquois> (Accessed December 30, 2020). </ref>
Forced displacement of indigenous persons also resulted from the actions of the colonial regimes that emerged in Canada, for example, with the physical displacement inherent in the reserve system, which abrogated many relationships with traditional territories, as well as related social, cultural, and political displacements.<ref>Melissa May Ling Chung, ''The Relationships Between Racialized Immigrants And Indigenous Peoples In Canada: A Literature Review'', MA Thesis, 2012 <https://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A1429> (Accessed December 30, 2020).</ref> In the words of the section of the final report of the ''Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples'' on displacement and assimilation: <blockquote>[The impact of colonialism on indigenous populations was profound.] Perhaps the most appropriate term to describe that impact is 'displacement'. Aboriginal peoples were displaced physically — they were denied access to their traditional territories and in many cases actually forced to move to new locations selected for them by colonial authorities. They were also displaced socially and culturally, subject to intensive missionary activity and the establishment of schools — which undermined their ability to pass on traditional values to their children, imposed male-oriented Victorian values, and attacked traditional activities such as significant dances and other ceremonies. In North America they were also displaced politically, forced by colonial laws to abandon or at least disguise traditional governing structures and processes in favour of colonial-style municipal institutions.<ref>Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ottawa: The Commission, 1996. Print, at page 132 <http://data2.archives.ca/e/e448/e011188230-01.pdf> (Accessed January 1, 2021).</ref></blockquote>European powers established their North American colonies on lands that they seized from the pre-existing Indigenous nations. In the words of Lawrence and Dua, borders in the Americas are European fictions, primarily restricting Native people's passage and that of people of colour.<ref>Bonita Lawrence & Enakshi Dua, “Decolonizing Antiracism” (2005) 32 Social Justice 4 at 136.</ref> British North America and the United States of America required the First Nations to subject themselves to these emergent colonies, even where pre-existing living arrangements did not neatly fit on one side of the border or the other. For example, Crees and Chippewas from Canada became considered "foreign Indians" in the United States and deportable "illegal immigrants" despite ties to lands in the present-day United States that pre-date that country's founding.<ref>Harsha Walia, ''Border & Rule'', Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, ISBN: 9781773634524, page 25.</ref> The subversive chant "we didn't cross the border, the
In the 1700s, the British enacted deliberate policies to reinforce the British character of their North American possessions. This included the forced deportation of Acadians from present-day Nova Scotia. In 1755, Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence and his council decided that the Acadians should be dispersed among the several colonies on the continent through forced transhipment. More than 3000 Acadians were transported to southern British colonies in the present-day United States that year. As many as a third of the passengers died on the ships. Many Acadians sought refuge on Prince Edward Island and in Cape Breton; they gained only temporary respite. In 1758, another British expedition against Louisbourg forced its surrender, and 6000 more Acadians were forcibly removed from their homes.<ref>Kelley, Ninette, and Michael J. Trebilcock. ''The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy''. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010 (Second Edition). Print. Pages 34-35.</ref>
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