Hector Cowan – Chernobyl
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.
See also
Officer recruitment in the 1950s
In 1957, the Government launched a recruitment program to bring university students into the Foreign Service as immigration officers. A CIHS member who was recruited through the program has provided us with a copy of the recruitment brochure which outlines recruitment standards, the career path and working/living conditions. The brochure was printed by the Queen’s…
Running on Empty – Book Publication
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…
A significant fiftieth anniversary
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….
Interview – Jack Mitchinson
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.
The Southeast Asian refugee ‘Notification of Arrival Telex’ and ‘Destination Matching Request’
‘Going under’ – that was what the Indo China refugee task group found themselves facing in Ottawa. There was a ‘collision’ between the resource demands of overseas processing and maintaining the air bridge to Canada and the operational needs of matching private settlement offers in Canada. Canadian private settlement organizations were vocal about the disconnect…
Southeast Asian Refugees (1975-1981)
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…