This documentary explores the history of Canada’s first major migration of non-European and non-white refugees who arr | dG1fekUtRUhjSkFIbGs
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🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07 Would you like to get all Asians out, really, sir?
00:10 Yes, they must go.
00:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:19 You get 8 billion Ugandans and maybe 80,000 Asians,
00:22 and those 80,000 own most of everything.
00:25 It's a recipe for disaster.
00:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:35 Suddenly, over the airwaves came this announcement
00:39 that President Idi Amin is issuing an edict
00:43 to expel all people of South Asian origin from Uganda,
00:48 and he was giving us all three months to leave.
00:51 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:57 In the 1970s, Britain was really wrestling
01:01 with its legacies of empire.
01:03 The empire was coming home, and the British government
01:06 was not prepared to deal with that.
01:08 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:13 We get the famous statement from Trudeau
01:15 about an honorable place for these people
01:18 if they come to Canada.
01:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:25 We had never had a chance to say goodbye to each other,
01:28 because people just left.
01:30 People left overnight.
01:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:39 Canada was not meant to be the society that we see today,
01:42 the very multicultural society, but really, the aspiration
01:45 was to be a white settler society.
01:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:54 In most instances, refugees make innumerable contributions
01:58 to the places they arrive in, because they're granted
02:01 a second chance at life.
02:03 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:07 Many folks tell the story of when
02:10 someone visits the house of a Ugandan Asian refugee
02:13 in Canada, they see a giant painting of Idi Amin.
02:16 And they were asked, why would you put a picture of Idi Amin
02:20 on the wall?
02:21 He says, every day when I come downstairs
02:23 and I look at this photo, I thank him
02:25 for sending me to Canada.
02:26 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:36 (upbeat music)