CONFIDENTIAL
SCR 10/2091/83
PAS(S)5
HUD 341/5
Emigration from Hong Kong Canada
I asked the Canadain Commissioner, Miss Doyle, to
call on 23 March. My request covered reports of the
conversation between the Canadian Finance Minister and
Hong Kong business people at the Davos conference, on
which there have been telegraph exchanges between ourselves, London and Ottawa. I also took the opportunity
to ask for more Canadian help with statistics.
2.
I thanked Miss Doyle for the statistics which the
Canadians are already supplying, stressed the importance
of Canada as a destination of emigrants from Hong Kong and
asked whether they could provide further information, with a breakdown of emigrants from Hong Kong to Canada by age,
education and occupation. I gave Miss Doyle some of our
own overall figures on emigration of university graduates
and student visas.
3.
I said that we remained concerned about the
demand pull effect from settlement countries. I knew that
the Commissioner herself appreciated the special problems
of Hong Kong and the need to take account of the value of
Hong Kong to Canada as an export market, etc. I mentioned
our High Commissioner's conversation with the Canadian
Finance Minister, noting that Mr Wilson had responded very positively. I hoped that everything possible would be done by the Canadians to avoid the impression that they were canvassing for immigrants from Hong Kong.
CONFIDENTIAL
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