In his most recent commentary in the August 9 edition of Tandem Weekly, our own Patrick Gossage (Chairman of Media Profile and member of our parent company’s Business Advisory Committee) explores the dualities faced by Canada’s immigrants, noting the shared experiences of our country’s  first British immigrants and today’s newcomers.

History repeating: Settlers’ divided loyalties

By Patrick Gossage

When Ontario was Upper Canada in the early 1800s, and agricultural land was being hacked out of the forest by brave settlers, the experience of the mostly British immigrants seeking new hope mirrors the experience of today’s newcomers.

They too had to toil day and night just to survive; and they too wondered who they were in this new land.

One of the most detailed chroniclers of the life of a backwoods settler was Susanna Moodie, an established British writer who brought her family to a clearing in the woods north of Cobourg in 1832. They cut down the huge forest by hand and planted their first crop between the tree stumps, built a log cabin (which a year later burnt down in the middle of winter) and gave up every conceivable amenity to start a new life.

Moodie never really adopted or rejected her new country and reflected the permanent immigrant condition when she wrote: “In most instances, immigration is a matter of necessity, not of choice, and this is more especially true for persons of respectable connections…”

These pioneers usually lived their first winter in drafty log shanties. Another settler who homesteaded near the Moodies wrote: “Here you judge a man’s success not by his money, his accent or his school, but by the rate at which he goes from shanty to log house to a bigger and better house…”

Moodie’s husband John wrote a compelling note of what Canada needed – people ready for hard labour: “Canada has often been called the country for the poor man. If it had been called the country for the laborious and industrious man, a more precise idea would have been conveyed: for the poor man here without industry, or who from habit or weakness is unable to endure hard labour is indeed in a deplorable condition, – and meets with no compassion. We want labour first to clear away the woods, and capital afterwards to enable the settlers to stock their farms, and to improve the roads and other means of conveyance for the productions of the country.”

This assessment will resonate with the post-war European immigrants who flooded Ontario to work in construction, and even build Toronto’s subway…

You can read the remainder of Patrick’s column on the Tandem website, by clicking here.