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Maisonneuve arrived in 1641, bringing with him between 200 and 300 colonists, and settled the island of Montreal.
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in 1663 the French population numbered not more than 2,500. In that year the charter of the One Hundred Associates was cancelled, and two years later Talon, the most outstanding figure in active colonization, arrived. It was decided to bring 300 settlers to the colony each year. Unfortunately, the difficulties of the voyage took its toll, and it is estimated that nearly one-quarter died before reaching New France
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People left France because there wasn't enough land for everyone. Men were also sent as military to defend the colony. Women were sent as "girls to be married" by the King of France.
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3,000 Black Loyalists, among them freemen and slaves, fled the oppression of the American Revolution and came to Canada.
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Butler’s Rangers, a military unit loyal to the Crown and based at Fort Niagara, settled some of the first Loyalist refugees from the United States in the Niagara peninsula, along the northern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
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Upper Canada became the first province in the British Empire to abolish slavery. In turn, over the course of the 19th century, thousands of black slaves escaped from the United States and came to Canada with the aid of the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network.
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Polish refugees fled to Canada to escape Russian oppression. The year 1858 marked the first significant mass migration of Poles escaping Prussian occupation in northern Poland.
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The British government encouraged immigration to Canada by giving free shipping travel, land grants, and tools for working land.
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English, Welsh, Irish, and Scottish immigrants fled poverty and famine. Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants left their country because of the Great Potato Famine.
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There was so much unemployment in Europe; Black people left the United States to escape from slavery; and the British government sent their "Home Children" to Canada.
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The underground railway helped 30,000 slaves escape to canada; the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway made travel easier; the gold rush enticed adventures.
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Many Chinese and Irish labourers worked to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. After the railway was completed, the "Head Tax" was introduced to discourage Chinese immigration.
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The Minister if the Interior, Clifford Sifton, encouraged American and European Immigrants by advertising and offering free land in the Canadian West.
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People left Europe to escape high rents and taxes. People in Russia fled from religious persecution and those from Ukraine, Norway, and Finland left because of poor farming conditions.
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Almost half on immigrants settled in the West. Canada became more selective in its immigration policy. It raised the Head Tax to $500 and passed the "No Stoppage Rule" to keep out people from South Asia.
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People had their farms and homes destroyed because of World War 1
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The second wave of Ukrainians fled from Communism, civil war and Soviet occupation.
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The government was still advertising for farmers to settle in the West. Before the Depression, some industries were still searching for workers
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250,000 displaced persons (DPs) from Central and Eastern Europe came to Canada, victims of both National Socialism (Nazism) and Communism, and Soviet occupation.
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Canada admitted Palestinian Arabs, driven from their homeland by the Israeli-Arab war of 1948.
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A significant influx of Middle Eastern and North African Jews fled to Canada.
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Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, whose grandfather was a German refugee of the Napoleonic Wars, introduced Canada’s first Bill of Rights.
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Deprived of political and religious freedom, 20,000 Soviet Jews settled in Canada.
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7,000 Chilean and other Latin American refugees were allowed to stay in Canada after the violent overthrow of Salvador Allende’s government in 1973.
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The Constitution of Canada was amended to entrench the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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The United Nations awarded Canada the Nansen Medal for its outstanding humanitarian tradition of settling refugees.
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Canada airlifted more than 5,000 Kosovars, most of whom were Muslim, to safety.
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The Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States is established for responsibility sharing in processing refugee claims from nationals of third countries
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Canada began the process of resettling more than 5,000 Bhutanese refugees over five years.
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Canada resettled more than 1,300 survivors of Daesh in 2017 and 2018.
