40th Anniversary Lecture: The Ugandan Asian Refugee Movement 1972
By Mike Molloy

The 1972 Uganda Asian Refugee movement was the first test of Canada’s “Universal” immigration policy as applied to refugees.
In commemoration of its 40th anniversary, this talk will examine the reasons behind General Idi Amin’s decision to expel Uganda’s small but dynamic Asian community and the Trudeau government’s reaction to the expulsion within a new immigration and refugee policy framework. It will describe how a small, hastily assembled team went to Kampala,Uganda in September 1972 and moved over 6000 refugees to Canada by the November 8 deadline imposed by the Ugandan government.  Finally it will examine the impact of the Ugandan experience on the refugee resettlement provisions of the 1976 Immigration Act and on the subsequent Indochinese refugee program of 1979-1980.

Date: Monday October 22, 2012
Time: 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission: Free

Mike Molloy, a retired Foreign Service Officer, is president of the Canadian Immigration Historical Society and a Senior Fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He was a member of the team sent to Uganda in 1972 in September 1972, where he managed the unit that interviewed the refugees. His subsequent career included implementing the refugee provisions of the 1976 Immigration Act, including the refugee sponsorship program, coordinating the 1979-80 Indochinese Refugee movement, and managing Canada’s relations with the UN High Commissioner for Refugee in Geneva. He has held various Director General level positions in the Immigration department, was Ambassador to Jordan, coordinated Canada’s Middle East Peace Process activities and since retirement has co-directed the Jerusalem Old City Initiative at the University of Windsor. In the course of his career he served in Japan, Lebanon, Minneapolis, Geneva, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.