New Country, New Life - Brought to you by the Canadian Pacific Railway

Since confederation and still to this day immigration has been vital to the prosperity of

Canada. In the beginning it was the hope of the Canadian government that with an open

immigration policy, like that created by the 1869 Immigration act, which focused primarily

on safety and exploitation protection, would come a large onslaught of immigration. From

their incorporation in 1881 the Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPR) was intimately

entangled and invested in these hopes, orchestrating inflows of migrants. Specifically in

the west, as for the CPR to be profitable there needed to be immigrants.

Their transcontinental railroad, which was a condition of British Columbia (B.C.) joining

confederation and the reason for the company’s creation, required workers which could

not be acquired from within B.C. as most men already had employment in resource

 Chinese railway workers on the Canadian Pacific Railway, 1884.

extraction. The CPR’s head contractor Andrew Onderdonk had promised to and originally hired only white labourers, often contracted from San Francisco, as a result of anti-Chinese sentiment in the province. However, these white workers found work on the railroad hazardous and often deserted camp. Consequently, Onderdonk reverted to what he had done previously for the North Pacific Railway in the United States, which was to use the labour of Chinese Immigrants. Coming both from China, and California, the CPR brought in tens of thousands of men recruited by firms like the Lian Chang Company, to do the dangerous work white men refused to for less pay.

As a part of the initial deal for the railway the CPR received ten million hectares of land in

the West. These lands, however, were without proper transportation infrastructure, and

very sparsely populated. Leaving the CPR with a direct financial incentive to attract

immigrants to purchase and cultivate the lands. With every plot of land bought from the

CPR by an immigrant there was initial revenue from the sale but also continued revenue

from the increasing value of neighbouring CPR land holdings. Transforming immigration

from a national objective into a business strategy which would maximize the CPR’s assets.

The Chinese workers however were not well accepted and the continued rise in anti-

Chinese sentiments was not helping any. So, the CPR had to look elsewhere for their cheap

labour as they looked to extend and maintain the lines, and set up their own natural

resource industries along the line using the land deals. To acquire this new labour the

company would turn even more heavily to recruitment systems like the padrone system.

 Italian railway maintenance crew, c. 1920

The padrone system is extremely similar to the system used to recruit Chinese workers. It was an exploitative recruitment strategy where third party labour recruiters would bring in immigrant workers for the CPR, and in turn these labourers owed the recruiter for their employment. These workers were most often Italian hence the name padrone, which is the Italian word for boss or manager. The men brought into Canada using this system worked long hours on the rail or in mines doing hard manual labour for low pay. They then had to pay a monthly expense to the padrone who had brought them in so that they could maintain their employment, as well as for necessities like food. Paying what could at times be as much as 60-120 times the actual cost. The CPR were not the only company to use the padrone system, but they were one of the worst. They had an exclusive contract with padrone Antonio Cordasco, who styled himself the "King of Italian Labourers". Cordasco maintained an intricate network which included recruiters in Italian villages and deals with steamships for those he recruited to travel on prepaid fares. Though in 1904 this system of recruiting for the CPR collapsed for Cordasco. A late thaw left the thousands of labourers recruited by him and other padroni unable to begin work, leaving them in need of public charity. The result was a public outcry leading to the announcement of a Royal

Commission into the system and specifically Cordasco. The backlash from this would force the CPR to fire Cordasco. However, the company would not phase out the use of exterior labour recruiters and firms until the 1920s, after they had used the system to bring in the Italian labourers who built the Kettle Valley Railway.

With the completion of the initial Canadian Pacific Railway and subsequent extensions

also came the CPR’s expansion into steamships. The company launched into the Pacific

Maiden Voyage of the S.S. Abyssinia, 1887

Ocean with the S.S. Abyssinia in 1887, and the Atlantic Ocean in 1903 with the acquisition of the Beaver Line. As they continued to launch more steamships not just on the oceans but also in lakes and rivers across the country, like the ships on Okanagan Lake, the CPR was now able to profit from most if not all of an immigrant’s journey. The company was interested in these immigrant’s business for more than simply travel. New immigrants in the west meant workers for the company’s natural resource industries, domestic work in their hotels and to set up other industries, like farming, along the rail lines. Especially when it is the right kind of immigrants, such as those from England, the U.S., and Northern Europe. As while the labourers from Italy and Eastern Europe brought in using recruitment brokers like padrones were better accepted than the Chinese workers who had previously worked the lines, they were still not viewed as the optimal permanent settler and

landowner. They tended to be seen more as temporary manual labourers, and while some tried to move from project to project, most new projects preferred newer and younger workers. Thus, the hope of the CPR was that the more 'proper' immigrants who settled Canada's West the more developed the communities and industries along the rail line would become thus attracting more immigration via the CPR.

Colonist Sleeping Car, c. 1885-1890.

To spur this on, the company introduced colonist cars. Colonist cars were wooden cars on the Canadian Pacific Railway which offered the most basic form of travel. Often sold as a package deal with the steamship fare, and even a plot of land, these cars provided a place for immigrants to sit on their journey west. Anything except for the seat which they sat on was an extra fee. Food, pillows, and blankets, were all available for purchase or rent. With colonist cars the CPR was able to transport large numbers of immigrants across the country after their arrival increasing the population along the rail line with the affordability of the travel.

This worked well for the CPR for many years. Few other corporations exerted this

much control over the immigration as the company was able to integrate nearly every

stage of immigration and settlement into their business model. However, after the first world war immigration levels dropped significantly, especially from preferred origins like England with many immigrants bypassing Canada for the U.S. This was coupled with growing anti-foreign post-war sentiments which led to restrictive immigration policies like the Immigration Act Amendment of 1919 barring those originating from the enemy

CPR Immigration Poster, c. 1920s

countries of World War One, increased residency requirements, and allowing the Governor-in-Council to prohibit unsuitable immigrants. This boiled down to an insufficient number of

immigrants to fill labour needs especially in the West where the CPR, and the Canadian National Railway (CNR) were rapidly expanding. The companies began lobbying the King government for a more lenient immigration policy, and the result was the Railway Agreement of 1925. This agreement turned the control of recruiting and settling Europeans, especially those from previously non-target states for farming in Western Canada, to the CNR, and CPR. This collaboration gave the CPR an even greater influence over the immigration process, and the opportunity to further strengthen the economic value of the land surrounding the railway, which could only increase their revenue. On the other hand, the government was hopeful that the agreement would increase agricultural settlement in the west.

The CPR immediately set out to begin executing the goals of the agreement. Ramping up

their recruitment measures in Europe alongside setting up new offices in the previously

“non-preferred” nations in Eastern and Central Europe, and beginning practices they had

been perfecting in countries like England such as, Ukraine, Germany, and Poland. The

company invested even more heavily into the advertisement of Canada abroad. From these

new offices CPR agents were able to directly seek out and target potential immigrants who

matched the criteria set out in the agreement. They distributed promotional pamphlets,

newspaper advertisements, and other marketing materials that portrayed Western Canada

as a land of abundant farmland and economic opportunity. The agents were also able to

seek out those in these nations who were experienced in farming or domestic work - experience which would allow for the immigrants to positively contribute to Canada’s

economy and demonstrate the agreement’s effectiveness all the quicker upon arrival.

CPR Immigration Poster, c. 1925

Once agents had found satisfactory immigration applicants, the CPR managed their journey to Canada passing them along from one segment of their transportation network to another. This did not just allow for the CPR to profit from each segment of an immigrant’s journey as the company had already been doing for years, it also ensured that the new settlers established themselves along routes which were served by the CPR creating what would become continued reliance on the CPR. This reliance was further encouraged as more immigrants arrived in the west. The more people living along their lines allowed for extra profit maximization by the company through both transportation and land development with greater demand for stations, goods, and services, as immigrants were reliant on the line to both bring them their necessary resources, and send out the fruits of their labour to domestic, and international markets.

The agreement, like many of the other tactics discussed previously, was less about

meeting the needs of the immigrants, and more about advancing the company’s own

bottom line. The advertising downplayed the potential challenges of prairie life, such as the

isolation, unfamiliar lands and soil, and harsh winters, which for those who were

unprepared created difficult farming conditions - challenges which rendered the

inexpensiveness of the farmland moot. Immigrants were often caught off guard,

unable to get their feet off the ground, even with prior experience in farming. It did not

fundamentally change the company's approach to immigration - it simply allowed the

company to pursue a strategy long central to their business model with greater authority,

and a broader geographical scope.

Through land sales, labour recruitment systems such as the padrone network, integrated

transportation services, colonist cars, and later the Railway Agreement of 1925, the CPR

positioned itself at nearly every stage of the immigration process. While these strategies

contributed significantly to the settlement and economic development of Western

Canada, they were ultimately designed to maximize the company's profits by increasing

the value of its land, expanding demand for its transportation network, and securing a

steady supply of labour. The experiences of many immigrants also reveal the human cost of

this approach as recruitment practices often prioritized corporate needs over the welfare

of the people being brought to Canada. Although the methods evolved over time, the CPR's

underlying objective remained consistent, to transform immigration into a business

strategy.