Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Immigration: Spreading the Net in Asia Pacific
A lengthy evolution of immigration policy reflected the nation's staged
departure from its discriminatory history. The dissolution of the Chinese
Immigration Act in 1947 did not mean an immediate ending to controls
against non-Europeans. Significant barriers remained and only reunifica-
tion of immediate family members of Asian-origin citizens was permitted
(Hawkins 1988; Li 1998; Green and Green 2004), so that for another
twenty years European flows continued to dominate arrivals. Some limited
family reunification from Hong Kong occurred, while illegal entry provided
a means around the controls for others. But in 1961 there were less than
60,000 ethnic Chinese in Canada, an increase of only 14,000 over the 1881
enumeration.
However, significant revisions to immigration regulations in 1962 and
1967 substantially ended the long history of systematic discrimination in
selection by ethnicity or country of origin. The circle of permitted family
reunification was widened, while skilled immigrants (the independent or
economic category) were admitted based on their human capital, not
their ethnicity or country of origin. The third leg of entry for humanitar-
ian reasons opened the doors to refugees. While this plurality of immi-
grant categories is noteworthy, revealing the diversity of underlying liberal
values, such balancing of varied objectives has undergone revision under
neo-liberal policy, with subsequent prioritizing of economic migrants
(Arat-Koc 1999). The economic category comprised 39 percent of land-
ings in the 1980s, rose to 49 percent in the 1990s and 58 percent in
2000-08; in contrast the family class has fallen from 38 percent to 35
percent and most recently to 27 percent, while the refugee category has
diminished from 18 percent to 15 percent and finally to 12 percent (CIC
2009).
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The trend clearly shows the commitment to economic ends
steadily surpassing the social goals of family reunification and the human-
itarian response to refugee crises.
Of particular interest for our purposes are subsequent provisions within
the independent or economic class for an entry category of business immi-
grants, where rather than human capital, financial capital and entrepre-
neurial experience were credited in the selection process. The business
option became popular with wealthy migrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan,
and to a lesser degree, South Korea. These three sources accounted for 53
percent of business immigrants entering Canada from 1980-2001, with
over 30 percent of them originating in Hong Kong alone. There are three
streams to the business programme and selection characteristics have fre-
quently been revised to plug existing loopholes and add new incentives. As
of 2001 the programmes were outlined as follows: (CIC 2001).
