Interview with Brian Bell, Chief of Policy, Settlement Services, EIC (1979-1981) “[I]t was the people from top to bottom, and it was the times. The department had gone from … between the 60s to the 90s … from Manpower and Immigration with a very strong employment orientation, to the 80s where there was a real…
Photo album page has been updated! We have updated the page containing photo albums from the southeast Asian refugee resettlement program of the late 1970s and early 1980s to make them easier to view. Anyone who has photos that they feel will be of interest to CIHS members, from any period of Canada’s immigration history, is encouraged…
L’ancien agent du service exterieur d’immigration, René Bersma, propose ses souvenirs détaillés du début de sa carrière, en mettant particulièrement l’accent sur ses expériences en Asie du Sud-Est (1978-1982).
Former immigration foreign service officer René Bersma offers his comprehensive recollections of the early part of his career, with particular emphasis on his experiences in south-east Asia (1978-1982).
CIHS offers its heartiest congratulations to the Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian communities in Canada on this important anniversary of the 1975 fall of Saigon. Since they first started to come to Canada and especially through Canada’s southeast Asian refugee program, they and their Canadian offspring have contributed to the fabric and success of this country….
Jack Mitchinson, featured in Bulletin 107, was interviewed at his 1990 retirement party about his two years (1986-1988) of auditing overseas visa offices. Jack had earlier worked in several immigration offices across Ontario from 1952.
Canadian diplomats carry out many different duties when serving abroad. CIHS member, Hector Cowan, was tasked with helping a group of Canadian students leave the disaster zone of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear plant explosion.
Elvire Westley donated these photographs in November 2017 that she had gathered during her career with the Canadian immigration office in Paris. Mme Westley contributed an article about her career to the latest Bulletin.
The Society proudly announces the publication of its book, ‘Running on Empty’, on the Indochinese ‘boat people’ movement under the banner of McGill Queen’s University Press.The book focuses on the work of Canadian public servants in Southeast Asia and Canada to meet an unprecedented commitment to resettle 70,000 of the refugees before the end of 1980. The…
Our late colleague, John Sheardown, and his wife, Zena, are featured in a column from the ‘Ottawa Citizen’ of January 19. Their role in sheltering US diplomats in Tehran is recounted in a story about the transfer of archival holdings to the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa.