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Under tight security, five bus loads of East Indians entered CFB Stadacona in Halifax on July 13, 1987, to spend their first night in Canada in a military gymnasium. The 173 men and one woman – who arrived at dawn July 12, 1987, on Nova Scotia's South Shore – got off the buses at the Canadian Forces base one or two at a time. The arrivals, who mysteriously appeared in Woods Harbour, told startled residents they had come from India. Early reports indicated that they came ashore in lifeboats under a cover of darkness and fog. Later it was determined that the refugees had been dropped off by the Amelie, a Chilean-registered freighter.

“Under tight security, five bus loads of East Indians entered CFB Stadacona in Halifax on July 13, 1987, to spend their first night in Canada in a military gymnasium. The 173 men and one woman – who arrived at dawn July 12, 1987, on Nova Scotia’s South Shore – got off the buses at the Canadian Forces base one or two at a time. The arrivals, who mysteriously appeared in Woods Harbour, told startled residents they had come from India. Early reports indicated that they came ashore in lifeboats under a cover of darkness and fog. Later it was determined that the refugees had been dropped off by the Amelie, a Chilean-registered freighter.”

Edward Regan/The Globe and Mail

Canada is the product of migration. Yet it has often had conflicting views on newcomers – a struggle The Globe began to chronicle (and comment on) even before the nation was born. These snapshots of that coverage show how both the country and its level of tolerance have grown.

Let them come

Pro and con

Feb. 25, 1885: Canada's first prime minister declares "the Chinaman quite as moral as his neighbours and a more serviceable citizen," declaring continued immigration "a most desirable thing."

Latins and Slavonians

Influx no more

May 7, 1908: "The full and frank interchange of views between the British and Canadian governments has resulted in the adoption of a mutual policy of co-operation in which Great Britain's well-known policy of protection of the native races of India harmonizes with Canada's policy of keeping his country a white man's country."

Then deputy minister of labour, William Lyon Mackenzie King wins accolades for thwarting immigration from India.

An about-face

June 19 and July 11, 1914: " A Case For Calm Consideration" and "Treat the Hindus Generously"

Globe editorials sympathetic to the migrants trapped aboard the Komogatu Maru in Vancouver harbour

But not a 'union man'

Cause for shame

Bankable refugees

Young and not Jewish

Better late …

A turning point

The boat people

March 8, 1976: Despite this Globe report from Montreal, the federal government waited two years to allow more than a few escaping the fall of Saigon to come.

Anomalies happen

Away to Nova Scotia

Why there are rules

Sobering thought