Moving the “Less Desirable”: Portuguese Mass Migration to Canada, 1953–74

Abstract

Abstract: The sovereignty of migration policy-makers is never absolute. This has been true for both receiving and sending states. One important check on the receiving nation's immigration policy implementation was the sending nation's own sovereignty over its expatriated citizens. These colliding sovereignties have sometimes created liminal spaces where migrants and their informal facilitators were able to subvert regulations by playing them against each other, while, at other times, they were pressed between formal gatekeepers bent on enforcing their policies. This bilateral dimension is often missing from Canadian immigration history, as is the role of homeland government officials, who brokered and supervised these migrant movements while conciliating the roles of gatekeepers and facilitators. This is especially significant when it involved authoritarian governments, such as Portugal's Estado Novo dictatorship (1926–74). How did Ottawa's relatively liberal immigration policies correspond with the Estado Novo's authoritarian stance on emigration? How did Portuguese officials influence the movement of its emigrants in Canada? How did the migrants react to the concerted top-down arrangements of two imposing governments? This article examines these and other questions in reference to the Portuguese “bulk order”, family sponsorship, and clandestine movements to Canada between 1953 and 1974.