A list of favoured nationalities was created for the incoming immigrants. The British and American farmers were at the top, followed by the French, Belgian, Dutch, Scandinavian, Swiss, Finns, Russians, Austro-Hungarians, Germans, Ukrainians, and Poles. At the bottom of the list were Southern Europeans, those from the Middle East, Jews, Asians, Gypsies and Blacks. Although the federal Government wanted Europeans to farm in the West, after weeks of travelling, Montreal was the first large city they came to; and for many this was where they stayed.
In 1900, Montreal's population was well over 300 000. The neighbourhood around St. Antoine and St. Laurent had gone from "Little Dublin" in the 1840's to "Little Italy" and was becoming more than a little Eastern European. By the late 1930's, it was a culturally rich but very poor part of town. Most immigrants kknew little about the country, and had tough times settling in.
The Roman Catholic Church had problems with immigrants such as the German Lutherans, the Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians, and the Hungarian Socialists because they each had different customs, religions, and languages. The Church did not make them feel at home, and the immigrants had many troubles, such as confessing to the priest simply because they did not speak the same language. It was like this until 1928 when new parishes were set up for ethnic communities, when one could receive communion in Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, syrian, Hungarian and Chinese.
Education was also a hard factor at that time. At first, there was some accommodation and the largely French-speaking Catholic School Commission of Montreal (CECM) held classes in language, history and geography for Italians, Poles and Ukrainians. Soon, more than half of all immigrant children attended Catholic run schools. However, immigrants who were not Roman Catholic sent their children to the more welcoming but overwhemingly English Protestant school system. But in the 1960's, the pendulum beagn swinging the other way. Fault fell on the immigrant parents for not speaking Frenchand for anglicizing their children. Freedom of choice ended and today almost all immigrant children attend French-language schools.
Immigration increased rapidly after WWII, as the so-called "iron curtain" fell upon Europe and divided it into an East and West. Many left Western European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands and came to Canada because Europe was facing years of post-war economic hardship. Migration decreased in the 1960's as their economies recovered, however the Eastern European countries did not see the same recovery. Recent years have been difficult and more than 10 000 Europeans, mostly from Eastern Europe, have come to Montreal. In 1998, about 1 in 4 Montrealers had some European ancestry apart from British or French.
