Membership

The Society welcomes applications from anyone sharing our interests, activities, and objectives. Many of the current members are serving or retired personnel of Canadian departments and agencies responsible for delivering Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Programs but there are also academics and other members who share our focus on preserving the history of Canadian immigration.

Membership Fees

Annual memberships will now run from January 1 to December 31. Annual fees or donations can be paid by bank-to-bank INTERAC e-transfer using the email address info@cihs-shic.ca and indicate CIHS as the payee. In the email, please include your name and indicate whether it is a donation or annual or life membership payment so that you can be properly receipted. Of course, we will still accept cheques mailed to our corporate address.

Annual: $25 (Cdn $$)
Lifetime: $250 (Cdn $$)
Corporate: $2500 (Cdn $$)

Application

Please mail a completed membership form with your cheque for the preferred membership fee. Include your name, mailing address and e-mail address and indication whether we can send you the Bulletin electronically (our preference). The completed form must be mailed to:

Canadian Immigration Historical Society,
P.O. Box 4401, Station E,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B4

Services

At present, Members automatically receive a copy of the most recent published Bulletin. They are canvassed for assistance in relation to research projects; and they are invited to the annual dinner and General Meeting.

We are open to suggestions for establishing branches of the Society wherever interest in Canadian immigration and refugee history and our objectives warrant.

Bulletin 111 December 2024

We end 2024 with Bulletin 111 which reports on CIHS activities this year:

The October 2024 CIHS Annual General Meeting, which highlighted Canada’s Operation Parasol, the evacuation of Kosovars to Canada;
CIHS participation in “Memory, Politics and Precedent”, a November 2024 conference in Toronto that commemorated the Kosovar evacuation;
A brief mention of a November book launch event held in Ottawa and attended by CIHS members;
It announces this year’s recipient of the CIHS Molloy Bursary; and
The 2024 CIHS website usage report.

We also share two accounts of Canada’s immigration history:

Two articles from the 1929 Windsor Star newspaper about staffing at the new Ambassador Bridge; and
A report on a junior visa officer’s area trip from Beirut in 1972 to conduct interviews in many countries in and adjacent to Africa.

Finally, we take note of the recent passing of former immigration foreign service program manager Jean-François Hubert-Rouleau.

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