Reproduced with permission from Carlos Ferrand.

Still from “The Haitian Heart of Love” by Carlos Ferrand, Season 2, Episode 26 of A Scattering of Seeds - The Creation of Canada

Early Haitian immigrants to Canada were often part of the elite; many were physicians and academics who had fled their country with false documents, as President Duvalier had forbidden them to leave. For religious and linguistic reasons, 95 percent of the refugees settled in Catholic French-speaking Quebec. Between 1973 and 1976, Canada saw a large influx of Haitians, with more than 3,000 arriving every year. Today, the Haitian Diaspora in Canada counts about one million people.