Labor history of immigration in Canada

Sociology
Labor history of immigration in Canada
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Sociology
Introduction
According to the census report of 2016, the Pakistani immigrants were among one of the largest
foreign groups in Canada with a population of about 202,225 people (Zia, 2014). Well, various
reasons have been the course of the ever-increasing Pakistani immigrants into Canada. In
addition to that various issues of the Pakistani community will be looked at as they immigrated
into Canada. Some of the aspects that will be considered here includes; the culture of the
Pakistani community, where they are originally from, some of the hurdles they had to overcome
as they settled in Canada, sorts of discrimination that they went through, some of the areas that
they settled at in Canada and finally the kind of work they were engaged in as they settled into
Canada.
Thesis statement
The paper is going to look at the immigration of the Pakistani community from the year 1960-
2010. Within these 50 years, there has been various patterns and trends in the migration of the
Pakistani community and that is what this write-up is going to look at.
Body
About 50 years ago, in the year 1967, Canada made got into books of history by becoming the
first country in the world to adopt the commonly known as the ‘points' system of immigration.
This ‘points’ system of immigration was very crucial during that time in history. There existed
previous immigration policies but these favored only immigrants from the United Kingdom and
other European countries. With the new immigration policy in play, however, that was brought
about under the Pearson government; immigration into Canada was no longer based on race. The

Sociology
‘points’ policy was designed in such a way that it assigned people points based on aspects such
as language fluency job skills and education.
It is this new immigration policy that completely changed the face of Canada. Thousands of
immigrants from all over the world migrated into Canada. One of the groups that migrated into
Canada from these early years was the Pakistani (Agawam, 2013).
In the early 1970s, statistics indicated that 9% of immigrants to Canada were members of
minority communities, the Pakistani community included (Allan, 2013).
From the period between 1970-1979, a remarkable shift was witnessed. It was during this period
alone that 27% of the new arrivals were from Asian countries with the Pakistani community
comprising of 11% of this (Jibeen & Hynie, 2012).
The figure below represents the number of minority immigrants that migrated into Canada from
1960 to 2006.
Figure 1.0: Minority immigrants that migrated into Canada from 1960-2006 (Beach,
Worswick, Green, 2011).