About Us

The Canadian Immigration Historical Society (CIHS) was formed in 1986, when seventeen people met and agreed upon the need for a non-partisan organization gathering historians, political scientists, sociologists, academics, government officials and private individuals to develop and promote interest in Canadian immigration and refugee matters and history.

The Society is a non-profit corporation registered as a charitable organization under the Income Tax Act of Canada.

Objectives

Our Society (CIHS) seeks to bring together individuals with an interest in immigration and refugee matters. We foster camaraderie, friendship and collegiality in pursuing the following objectives:

To support, encourage and promote research into the history of Canadian immigration and refugee questions;
To foster the collection and dissemination of that history;
To stimulate interest in and further the appreciation and understanding of the influence of immigration on Canada’s development and position in the world; and
To encourage people with immigration (and refugee) expertise to record their experiences for posterity.

The CIHS welcomes members of both Official Language communities in Canada and is committed over time, to use its limited resources to translate the main pages of its site. Contributions in either Official Language are more than welcome and, as appropriate, will be posted in the language the contributor has used.

By-laws and Financial Report

Bulletin 105 - June 2023

CIHS Bulletin 105 explores various aspects of Canada’s immigration settlement story. It opens with an overview of the Canadian government’s settlement program arrangements from the post-war program into the 1970s. (We have included one ministerial press release from 1948.) This issue also looks at how one CIHS member, then a manpower officer, perceived and delivered that program in Cambridge Ontario in the late 1970s. CIHS members have contributed two book reviews. Both books explore the authors’ reflections on their settlement pathways in Canada: one from Sri Lanka; the other from northern India. This issue also includes an overview and update about the Hearts of Freedom project and a report of CIHS donations to the Canadian Museum of Immigration History. Finally, there are sadly three new names in our in memoriam segment: Jean-Paul Delisle, Victor Majid and Dr. Robert J. Shalka.

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