The second reports Canada, East and West having a population "estimated to be exactly" (sic) 3 million.
The final item is about the 45,000 refugees (fugitive slaves) from the US in Canada.
That's 1.5% of the population.
At the same rate will Canada, with a population of 36 million in 2017, have the opportunity and willingness to welcome 540,000 refugees from the US?
I came across these statistics a few years ago. In 1844, 2,000 refugees crossed the Atlantic in filthy, overcrowded, unseaworthy ships, to arrive, penniless, sick and starving, in the City of Saint John, NB. At that time the city had a total population of about 20,000 people. These 2,000 were followed by anothrr 5,800 during 1845, plus another 9,000 in the year after that (1846), for a total of 17,000 refugees in just three years. During the summer of 1847 a further 15,000 arrived, almost as many as had arrived over the whole of the preceding three years. Altogether the 20,000 citizens of the City of Saint John took in, cared for, and assisted to resettle, some 32,000 refugees from the Great Hunger over a period of just four years. It wasn't an easy job, but it wasn't impossible either.
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