Increasingly, the long-standing goal of bringing into the country only the settler-laborer type of immigrant was displaced by a policy of importing an industrial proletariat. Immigration statistics reveal that the percentage of unskilled labourers entering Canada increased from 31 per cent in 1907 to 43 per cent in 1913-14, while the percentage of agriculturalists decreased from 38 per cent to 28 per cent. This change from settler to worker immigrants was accompanied by a change in the ethnic composition of migrants. In 1907, 20 per cent of the immigrants were from Central and Southern Europe; by 1913, when 400,000 men and women entered the country, this figure had advanced to 48 per cent.50

roam the country to take up whatever work was available--railroad construction in the Canadian Shield in the summer, harvesting in Saskatchewan in the fall, coal mining in Alberta in the winter, and lumbering in British Columbia in the spring.52

In the words of historians Brown and Cook,

"The new immigrant, unfamiliar with the country, often unable to speak English, desperate for work...became the exploited navy of the northern work camps. 53

Author Vera Lysenko describes the plight of the foreign immigrants:

They were systematically underpaid ... tortured by physical labour, torn by nostalgia for the old country, crushed by loneliness in a strange land, and by the fear of death which (they) often looked in the face.54

In spite of the acute social and cultural problems accompanying the influx of immigrants Southern and Central Europe, governments at both the federal and provincial levels took few steps to facilitate their integration into the life of the country.55 The interest of the" federal government, in particular, began and ended with their utility as a source of cheap labour. 56 During this period, governments disputed over which level, federal or provincial, was responsible for immigrant education, and in the meantime left the matter to private agencies like protestant churches, the YMCA and Frontier College. 57

Striking a Balance

For their part, the educators associated with immigrant education saw the task of providing training in literacy, the English language and "citizenship" (i.e. elementary training in Canadian history, civics, geography, etc.) as a vita one. On the surface, the views expressed by the immigrant educators indicated a wish to balance the needs of immigrants and the larger host society. For example, Fitzpatrick wrote in 1907: