“Hochelaga stands in the bright light of history for only one day.”

– Bruce Trigger, McGill anthropologist, in Cartier’s Hochelaga and the Dawson Site

“The mystery of what happened to these people has puzzled historians, archaeologists, linguists, and anthropologists for generations.”

– Darren Bonaparte, Mohawk historian, in Kaniatarowanenneh River of the Iroquois: The Aboriginal History of the St. Lawrence River

Long before the founding of McGill or the confederation of Canada, Indigenous peoples resided in the territories on which the university has been constructed. The most famous documentation of Indigenous life on these lands was written in 1535 by French explorer Jacques Cartier, who initiated the colonial project of New France at the behest of King Francis I. On his first voyage in 1534, Cartier kidnapped Dom Agaya and Taignoagny, sons of the chief of Stadacona, a St. Lawrence Iroquoian village located near present day Quebec City. After being ‘exhibited’ in France, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny told Cartier of a river that would lead him to the continent’s interior and the Iroquois settlement of Hochelaga. During his second voyage, Cartier took their guidance and became the first European to explore the St Lawrence River, a “discovery” regarded as his most significant.

After crossing the Atlantic for the second time, Cartier returned to Stadacona with Dom Agaya and Taignoagny. In his logbook, Cartier writes of their attempt to foil his journey to Hochelaga: “They dressed up three men as devils, arraying them in black and white dog-skins, with horns as long as one’s arm and their faces coloured black as coal, and unknown to us put them into a canoe.” According to Cartier’s account, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny warned that their god Cudouagny, as well as three apparent Christian deities had announced at Hochelaga that “there would be so much ice and snow that all would perish.” It seems likely that after a year in France, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny had started to recognize the nation’s imperialist agenda. It is possible that their warning was a ruse meant to deter Cartier from further exploration. Regardless, their predictions did indeed prove accurate that coming winter.

Before facing the harshness of winter however, Cartier explored the St. Lawrence river and arrived in Hochelaga on October 2, 1535. While the exact location of Hochelaga is unclear, Cartier writes of a village surrounded by expansive cornfields at the base of a large mountain (Mount Royal). As such, many suspect that Hochelaga was situated near where McGill currently stands. The fortified village was surrounded by three rows of palisades and contained at least fifty bark-covered longhouses – historians estimate that its population was around 1500 to 3000 residents. In other words, Hochelaga was not a small settlement but a major center and capital of sorts.

Cartier and his men were met by Hochelaga’s residents at a fire near the wood’s edge where they exchanged gifts, before proceeding to a welcome ceremony inside the village itself. This custom of twice meeting a distinguished guest resembles an Iroquois ceremony that is still celebrated today on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. During the welcome ceremony, Cartier was introduced to the chief of Hochelaga. Cartier gave Hochelaga’s inhabitants axes, knives, rings, and rosaries, while the Hochelagan Iroquois offered the Europeans fish, soup, beans, corn bread, and, during the ceremony, tobacco. Cartier’s logbook, likely written by a companion rather than Cartier himself, describes this encounter with Hochelaga’s inhabitants as such:

“During this interval, we came across on the way many of the people of the country, who brought us fish and other provisions, at the same time dancing and showing great joy at our coming. And in order to win and keep their friendship, the Captain [Cartier] made them a present of some knives, beads, and other small trifles, whereat they were greatly pleased. And on reaching Hochelaga, there came to meet us more than a thousand persons, men, women, and children, who gave us as good a welcome as ever father gave to his son, making great signs of joy…”

The following day, Cartier ascended the mountain, which he named Mount Royal in honour of his patron. Cartier realized the top of the mountain to be an ideal location for settlement, as its panoramic view provided a strategic advantage. The view from the top of Mount Royal also alerted Cartier to the Lachine Rapids and the impossibility of proceeding down the St. Lawrence. The following day, on October 4th, Cartier and his men began the journey back to Stadacona.

In line with Dom Agaya and Taignoagny’s warning, ice obstructed their access to the Atlantic forcing these Frenchmen to spend their first winter on Turtle Island. Donnacona, Chief of the Stadacona, helped Cartier and his crew overcome the threat of scurvy and starvation that winter. However, he was kidnapped by Cartier and died in France the following year.

Hochelaga was likely destroyed soon after Cartier’s visit. It is not mentioned in any account of Cartier’s return to the region in 1541 nor does Samuel de Champlain find the village when he attempts to seek it out in 1603. No other known account of Hochelaga exists and no material remains have been discovered.

Cartier’s visit to Hochelaga is critical to the establishment of settler colonialism in what is now called Canada. It is important to recognize that the widespread acknowledgement of Hochelaga’s existence is based on Cartier’s notes. Because his logbooks adhere to settler society’s methods of recording history and because he is a celebrated figure in Western history, Cartier’s account of Hochelaga is generally accepted to be reliable. Meanwhile, Indigenous histories not recorded by settlers are often dismissed as unverifiable. Furthermore, many early accounts of Hochelaga are adulterated by colonial fantasies.

For many centuries, many historians have sought look beyond nationalist mythology to uncover Hochelaga’s history and mysterious disappearance. Some of the main theories are that Hochelaga’s population was killed by diseases transmitted by Europeans, that they relocated to rebuild a new village surrounded by more fertile soil, or they were driven out by other Indigenous nations. With regard to the latter, the general consensus among historians is that European colonization up the St. Lawrence River through the 17th century gave rise to greater conflict between and among various Indigenous nations and rivalling European colonies for control of the lucrative fur trade. Evidence from the oral tradition suggests that Hochelaga was inhabited by St. Lawrence Iroquoians before the Haudenosaunee confederacy– formed in response to colonialism– became the primary occupant of the territory.

[content warning for racist language]

“The most important act of his life, James McGill wrote his will.”

-Hugh MacLennan

James McGill (1744-1813) was a prominent Scottish merchant who made a fortune trading furs and other goods in the colonial New World. McGill’s will bequeathed £10 000 and his 46-acre Burnside estate to the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning (RIAL), on the condition that they establish a college in his name within ten years of his death. In 1821, a royal charter from King George IV established McGill College as an institution with the authority to confer degrees. Mainstream historical narratives represent James McGill as working hard to accumulate the capital that would eventually be used to create the University. These narratives overlook the exploitation attendant to McGill’s accumulation of wealth.

McGill spent his first decade on the continent earning a fortune in the fur trade. He and other fur traders were active mostly during the winter (as winter pelts were more valuable), trading with multiple Indigenous communities who awaited their annual arrival. As McGill became a more established businessman, he petitioned for “free trade in Indian lands.” He eventually founded the Beaver Club – a dining club for “men highly respectable in society who had passed their best days in a savage country and had encountered the difficulties and dangers incident to a pursuit of the fur trade of Canada.” This racist romanticism is characteristic of McGill’s demographic—the Anglo-European elite who were empowered to shape early British North American society. This group of men saw relations with Indigenous people as a conflict between civilization and savagery, to which they sacrificed themselves and emerged victorious.

McGill has been characterized as “ a businessman who was ready to undertake pretty well ‘any commission for a commission.’ Wine, tobacco, guns and ammunition, ropes and ships’ riggings, linen breeches and men’s shirts, ladies’ dresses and shoes, were fairly regular additions to the usual run of trade goods.” One might also add ‘humans’ to this list since on at least two separate occasions, McGill participated in the slave trade. In the strategically positioned trading center of Michilimackinac, McGill’s friend John Askin owned a store which sold enslaved Black and Indigenous people. In 1784, McGill sold Caesar and Flora, two enslaved Black people, to merchant Levy Solomon on behalf of distiller Thomas Corry. In 1787, he sold four enslaved Indigenous people to Jacques Lefrenier on behalf of the Department of Indian Affairs which had promised to replace any enslaved soldiers who were killed while fighting for the British. James McGill had signed a report advocating for the abolition of slavery in this same year. However, when the House of Assembly of Lower Canada introduced an abolition bill in 1793, McGill – a member of the House – voted in favour of maintaining slavery.

James McGill was also a slave owner himself. In the same year he signed the abolitionist document, he owned at least one enslaved woman named Louise. The following year, he purchased a Black woman, Sarah, from merchant Jean Louis Cavilhe for £56. Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to recover enslaved peoples’ stories from official historical records. For instance, historian Frank Mackey has surmised that Sarah is listed as Marie-Charles McGill in the Dictionnaire des esclaves et de leurs propriétaires au Canada français; as ‘Charle Marie… de chez madame mcgille’ in a 1798 hospital record; as Charlotte Cavilhe when in 1802 she married Jamaican widower Joseph Frank as a free woman; as Marie Charles Caville at her son’s baptism in 1803; as Marie Charles MacGill when the same son died two years later; as Charlotte M’ghil when her second son was born in 1805; and simply as Charlotte when she died in hospital on April 23 or 24, 1809. Additionally, historians studying James McGill have made limited efforts to find the stories of those he enslaved. For instance, in Stanley Frost’s 186-page biography on him, only two passing comments are made about slavery. Both are designed to morally redeem him. Frost writes:

“With regard to the institution of slavery, McGill must have been very familiar with it during his Indian trading years, and if he spent some years in the Carolinas, he lived in a society where slavery was very much part of the social fabric. So when we hear that in 1788 he purchased from Jean Cavilhe at a cost of fifty pounds a negress named Sarah, aged about twenty-five, to be a servant in his household, it must be remembered that McGill was conforming to the mores of his time… No doubt Sarah was well treated in the McGill household, but the fact remains that she was purchased and owned as a slave. James McGill was a man of the eighteenth century, not the twentieth.”

Ignoring for a moment Frost’s alarming use of the archaic term ‘negress’ in 1995, we must intervene in the narrative that he is fashioning here. Of course, it is important to historicize McGill and recognize that slavery in the eighteenth century was regarded according to different moral standards than it is today. However, to brush this horror aside is to ignore the fact that James McGill’s wealth—and the consequent establishment of the university—was enabled by dispossession. By using words like ‘conforming,’ Frost absurdly implies that McGill was the one victimized by these transactions. Such historical power structures must be recuperated not as the casual racial prejudice and economic pragmatism that Frost describes, but as a tyrannical labour relation inextricable from the profits with which McGill University was founded.

“With regard to the institution of slavery, McGill must have been very familiar with it during his Indian trading years, and if he spent some years in the Carolinas, he lived in a society where slavery was very much part of the social fabric. So when we hear that in 1788 he purchased from Jean Cavilhe at a cost of fifty pounds a negress named Sarah, aged about twenty-five, to be a servant in his household, it must be remembered that McGill was conforming to the mores of his time… No doubt Sarah was well treated in the McGill household, but the fact remains that she was purchased and owned as a slave. James McGill was a man of the eighteenth century, not the twentieth” (64).

Ignoring for a moment Frost’s alarming use of the archaic term ‘negress’ in 1995, we must intervene in the narrative that he is fashioning here. Of course, it is important to historicize McGill and recognize that slavery in the eighteenth century was regarded according to different moral standards than it is today. However, to brush this horror aside is to ignore the fact that James McGill’s wealth—and the consequent establishment of the university—were partially enabled by this deprival of people’s freedom. By using words like ‘conforming,’ Frost absurdly implies that McGill was the one victimized by these transactions. Such historical power structures must be recuperated not as the casual racial prejudice and economic pragmatism that Frost describes, but as a tyrannical labour relation inextricable from the profits with which McGill University was founded.

Additionally, 18th century slavery in Montreal was very different from antebellum slavery in the American South. The Southern economy was dependent on slavery and there were few free Black people. In Montreal, race was not conclusively tied to full citizenship. The American Revolution led to an influx of both free and enslaved Black people in Lower Canada. For example, Caesar Johonnot was a former slave from Boston who came to Montreal around 1785 and was literate during a time when most whites in the city were not. In 1789, he was hired by James McGill and others to manage their Montreal Distillery Company, “a well-paid position that he held until the company folded in 1794.” Johonnot’s wife, usually called Margaret Campbell, is also an interesting figure. It is presumed, though uncertain, that she was Black. She was involved in her husband’s financial affairs, leasing the distillery on their property, and worked as a seamstress for James McGill’s widow, who left her £10 in her will. Several other free Black people were employed in the McGill’s home. In other words, slavery was not as big a part of the economic and social fabric of Montreal as it was in the antebellum South. To enslave a person in 18th century Montreal was arguably a more deliberate act: the denial of a freedom that, though obviously limited, was exercised by free racialized peoples throughout the society. McGill observed and respected the freedom of Black individuals such as Caesar Johonnot and Margaret Campbell, while choosing to enslave others.

Into the 19th century, as slavery became less common and eventually abolished, the status of formerly enslaved peoples’ freedom grew increasingly ambiguous. For instance, Jacques remained with the McGill family until 1838—25 years after James McGill’s death and five years after the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. He was not listed as property in McGill’s will. In McGill’s widow Charlotte Guillimin’s will, she requested that her son (McGill’s stepson) Francois Desriviers keep ‘Jack’ until his death and she left Jacques some money. Initially a slave, it seems that Jacques became somewhat free, though not explicitly so, and had no means to actualize this freedom. The very definition of slavery is thus debatable and introduces another set of historiographic challenges into its study. What remains clear is that the establishment of McGill University was facilitated at the expense of Caesar, Flora, Sarah, Jacques, and other enslaved people’s freedom. Rather than rushing to defend such violence as ‘conforming’ to social norms, historians should take on the responsibility of illuminating historical power relations, so we might better discern their persistence today, as well as our indebtedness to those subjugated in the past.

Further Reading
James McGill of Montreal, Stanley Frost
James McGill’s Will

In 1859, construction workers building houses at the corner of Rue Metcalfe and Boulevard de Maisonneuve unearthed remnants of skeletons, fire pits, tools, pottery, longhouse posts, and other evidence of an Iroquoian village formerly being located on the site. At this time, leading Canadian scientist and geologist William Dawson was the director of McGill College, responsible for developing the school into a major educational institution. Dawson examined this site – now referred to as Dawson Site – and concluded that it once held the village of Hochelaga. He published his findings the following year and many were quick to pronounce his conclusions correct so as to satisfy the intrigue surrounding Hochelaga’s enigmatic disappearance. Dawson however accounted for uncertainty in his conclusions, writing:

“I do not maintain that this evidence is sufficient certainly to identify the site, but it is enough when taken in connection with the remains actually found, to induce us to regard this as the most probable site, until better evidence can be found in favour of some other.”

In 1972, an extensive new study was conducted by James Pendergast of the National Museum of Canada and Bruce Trigger, a McGill anthropologist who would go on to mentor leading Indigenous scholars such as Audra Simpson. They reexamined the artifacts and determined that “the Dawson site is not proved to be Hochelaga,” although the villages were contemporaneous to each other and “the material culture of the two was probably identical.” Most experts now agree that the Dawson site was a smaller Iroquoian settlement located in the vicinity of the more prominent village of Hochelaga in the early 16th century.

In February 2015, construction was halted on a 27-storey Manulife Financial headquarters at 900 de Maisonneuve Ouest after concerns were raised by photojournalist Robert Galbraith that traces of Hochelaga or artifacts related to the Dawson site might be located there. The firm Archéotec, which was hired to survey the area, advised that construction could resume as the soil in which archaeological evidence might be located had already been disturbed by 19th and 20th century infrastructure projects. Galbraith and fellow amateur historian Ian Barrett maintain that the search was not extensive enough. In a statement, they contended: “The past can be subtle and elusive. But the bottom line is, you can’t find something if you don’t look for it.” Regardless, construction is underway. Many artifacts from the Dawson site are now housed at the McCord Museum, near the location of their excavation.

Further Reading – An Open Letter: Ivanhoe-Cambridge Didn’t Look for Hochelaga

McGill was initially not a prestigious academic institution. The school’s infrastructure was decrepit, few courses were taught, and only a handful of degrees were conferred annually. Often instructors could not be compensated and resources like candles and fuel were scarce. These financial problems culminated in the 1850s when McGill buildings had to be evacuated due to structural deficiencies. In the 1860s, McGill swiftly transitioned out of near-bankruptcy and developed into a renowned educational institution. This sudden reversal of fortune can be attributed to two events: the principalship of John William Dawson and a loan taken out from a trust fund set aside by the Crown for Indigenous communities.

On June 14 1860, the Executive Council of the Crown from the Province of Canada withdrew $40,000 from the General Indian Trust Fund and loaned the money to McGill College. This deal was secured by former McGill principal Charles Dewey Day, who was paid $8000 for procuring the loan. Philip Monture, director of the Land Claims Research Office at the Six Nations of the Grand River from 1975 to 2002, discovered that Day’s $8000 payment was also withdrawn from a fund allocated to the Six Nations of the Grand River. While McGill claims that its debt with the federal government was settled in 1873, money was never returned to the Indigenous communities from whom it was taken.

Following Monture’s 1989 discovery, elected council representing Six Nations filed a statement of claim against Canada and Ontario in 1995. The negotiations with the government were unsuccessful and the litigation needed to be reintroduced in 2009. McGill has continually asserted that its debt to the government has been repaid, and that the money’s ties to Six Nations remain unclear.

Following Monture’s 1989 discovery, elected council representing Six Nations filed a statement of claim against Canada and Ontario in 1995. The negotiations with the government were unsuccessful and the litigation needed to be reintroduced in 2009. McGill has continually asserted that its debt to the government has been repaid, and that the money’s ties to Six Nations remain unclear.

Even if acknowledged, the debt is not feasibly repayable; some place its current value near $1.7 billion. Alternative methods of repayment that have been recommended include McGill funding the First Peoples House or developing scholarships for Indigenous students.

Further Reading – Six Nations Land Claims Booklet

Donald Smith, later called Lord Srathcona, was a key administrator and shareholder of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). HBC stationed him in Labrador where he engaged in trades with the Inuit and Naskapi Innu nations who were the region’s only other residents. These Indigenous communities were suffering from extreme food scarcity, opening them up to exploitation by Smith and other HBC employees. For instance, Inuit and Naskapi traders would sometimes receive only “a little tobacco and a few strings of beads” in exchange for two years of hunting. He proved to be a highly valuable employee to the HBC and is described by Gustavus Myers as “the greatest and richest Canadian capitalist” of his time.

Smith was McGill’s chancellor from 1889 to his death in 1914 and one of the biggest donors in the history of the school. Perhaps most notably, in 1884, Smith made an endowment for $120,000, “on the condition that the standard of education for women should be the same as that for men for the ordinary degrees in Arts, and that the degrees to be granted to women should be those of B.A., M.A., L.L.D., which should be so granted to them by McGill University on the same conditions as to men.” The first women students at McGill were even nicknamed the “Donaldas.” Smith’s enormous gift incentivized—and effectively required—that McGill start admitting women to the university. However, this event was made possible by the capital accumulated through the exploitation and dispossession of Indigenous communities. In other words, it would seem that much of the progress made by the University is contingent on colonial violence.

William Christopher Macdonald (1831-1917) was a major donor to McGill University and its chancellor from 1914 to 1917. By the end of his life, Macdonald’s gifts and bequests to McGill exceeded $13 million, the equivalent of nearly $300 million today. Born to a wealthy family in Prince Edward Island, Macdonald renounced Catholicism and became a merchant in Boston, New York, and finally, Montreal. In 1858, he and his brother Augustine began importing tobacco from Louisville, Kentucky. In 1866, Macdonald became the sole proprietor of W.C. McDonald Tobacco Merchants and Manufacturers, rebranding with a heart-shaped tin label reading: “tobacco with a heart.” Macdonald was openly disgusted by both smoking and his business, which perhaps accounts for his persistent philanthropy.

Macdonald’s tobacco company grew from a small business into the powerhouse of the Canadian tobacco industry during the American Civil War. At this time, the vast majority of American tobacco was produced in Southern states. Wartime sanctions against the South resulted in an immense tobacco shortage in the North. Macdonald imported tobacco from the Confederacy and processed it in his Montreal factories before exporting it to Northern Union states. Essentially, Macdonald’s tobacco company provided a way for Northern merchants to bypass wartime economic sanctions and profit from slave labour. MacDonald also reportedly used unregulated and child labor in his factories, though not to an extent that was anomalous for his historical period.

MacDonald’ wealth allowed him to make countless contributions to McGill. On a number of occasions, Macdonald purchased properties surrounding McGill when commercial interests such as a hotel threatened to overwhelm the campus. He financed the pioneering nuclear physics research that earned Ernest Rutherford a Nobel Prize. Of particular importance to him was his work to improve rural education.

Macdonald joined forces with federal agricultural commissioner James W. Robertson, and together they funded and developed institutions for agricultural education in rural communities throughout Eastern Canada. This is now referred to as the Macdonald-Robertson Movement. The creation of Macdonald College in 1907 is regarded the movement’s crowning achievement, providing important infrastructure and social services to under-served rural communities. While MacDonald contributed heavily to the University’s vitalization and engaged in relatively socially progressive philanthropy, much of the wealth that allowed him to do so resulted from the exploitation and oppression of enslaved people.

Hochelaga was an Iroquois village, likely situated near where McGill campus is today, documented by Jacque Cartier on his voyage to Canada in 1535 but found abandoned in a subsequent French expedition in 1600 (see 1553 entry above for more information). The site of Hochelaga was designated a national historic site by the Advisory Board for Historic Site Preservation in 1920. In 1925, a memorial stone referred to as the Hochelaga Rock, a remnant of Hochelaga, was laid on the lower field of McGill to commemorate the village. The plaque on the monument states:

“Near here was the site of the fortified town of Hochelaga visited by Jacques Cartier, in 1535, abandoned before 1600. It contained fifty large houses, each lodging several families, who subsisted by cultivation and fishing.”

Writer and comedian Stephen Leacock was asked to speak at the monument’s unveiling ceremony because he had published The Mariner of St Malo, a book about Cartier’s voyages, ten years earlier. In this book however Leacock disparages every act of kindness Hochelaga’s residents are said to have done for Cartier. He frames their offering gifts, providing practical advice, and caring for tired sailors as acts of submission to European supremacy. During the ceremony, Leacock explained that the scale of Hochelaga described by Cartier was impossible and beyond the capacity of the Iroquois, concluding: “Hochelaga is like the farmer’s giraffe. No such animal.” Leacock’s speech clearly revealed that he had not studied Cartier’s account and was misinformed in even the most basic facts, picturing log cabins instead of Iroquoian bark-covered longhouses.

The relocation of the monument from its little known place on campus to a more visible location across from the James McGill statue was first proposed to the administration by student leaders, faculty, and concerned community members. Initially their request was rejected due to reasons like insufficient funds, Parks Canada regulations, and concerns over the monument being “too visible” if it were across from the James McGill statue. Finally in 2016, former McGill professor Michael Loft contacted provost Christopher Manfredi about moving the rock in the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendations that suggested increasing Indigenous presence at educational institutions. The rock was moved over the summer and commemorated with a ceremony featuring McGill administration and Indigenous community leaders. This move coincides with the launch of McGill’s task force on Indigenous education and Indigenous studies, which works on attracting Onkwehón:we students from across Quebec to the university and increasing Indigenous faculty, presence, space and support throughout the university.

Translated into 321 languages and dialects, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10 1948 and represents the first global expression of a set of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled. While the declaration is not legally binding, its articles have been elaborated in subsequent international treaties and it is the most cited legal document drafted by a Canadian.

John Humphrey was asked to work with a committee of the United Nations Secretariat to help the organization draft a statement on human rights. Humphrey created a 400-page blueprint that became the foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the declaration itself. He acted as the Director of the United Nations Human Rights Division for 20 years before returning to McGill in 1966, where he served as a Professor of Law and Political Science. Humphrey’s contribution to the Declaration was unacknowledged until later on in his life – a French delegate was thought to have drafted the document. It was the discovery of the first draft in Humphrey’s handwriting that led to his belated recognition and him eventually be awarded the United Nations Prize for human rights advocacy on the 40th anniversary of the United Nations. Humphrey was also involved in international efforts to investigate human rights abuses in the Philippines and represented Korean women forced to act as sex slaves to Japanese soldiers in World War Two.

The Committee Against Racism (CAR) led a demonstration protesting student deportations and Canadian immigration policy. After the implementation of bill C-55, which imposed strong immigration restrictions, a number of students from so-called developing countries were deported often without a chance to appeal. At the beginning of the December of 1975, 13 students had been deported from Montreal. CAR’s demonstration came specifically in response to two Guyanese members of the committee being threatened with a deportation order. The specific charges against the two students were vague. One, Rasheed Sattar, was charged with having insufficient funds to support himself while studying in Montreal. Sattar was able to show Immigration officers a bank manager’s statement attesting that he had enough money to live in Montreal for a year, which was normally all that is needed for a student visa. However, one of the officers felt that Sattar was being “immoral” for leaving his wife and children in Guyana to complete a one year course at a Montreal technical school. CAR also believed that several Indian, Chinese, and Caribbean students at McGill had been threatened by the Immigration department and some deported.