History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 251

Catholic families. A network of counsellors in Quebec and Manitoba supplied practical
assistance, as well as spiritual guidance. The latter was considered important because
clergy in Flanders were beginning to decry the potential loss of faith faced by
immigrants to predominantly Protestant areas.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, consuls were reporting numerous cases of
fraudulent contracts offered to Belgian miners or agricultural workers in the Maritimes,
Ontario, and western Canada. Regulations governing the activities of steamship and
immigration agents were tightened up. In 1924 the agronomist Alexandre Lonay came
to Quebec to investigate agricultural possibilities for Walloons, and he returned two
years later with a group of fifty farmers. Most of them soon left for Ontario and
eventually perhaps the United States. As a result, in 1929 Louis Varlez and Lucien
Brunin were commissioned to visit and report on all the centres of Belgian immigration
in Canada. Their travels were paid for by the provincial governments and the
Canadian Pacific Railway Company, all of which had an interest in promoting
immigration. In their report, Varlez and Brunin commented on the “network of
organizations ready to provide information” to newcomers but cautioned Flemish
farming immigrants to settle near established fellow countrymen in the new land.
Most of the Belgian immigrants came to Canada on their own, without the support of
either the state or private-sector organizations. Still, there were an unusual number of
colonization schemes involving Belgian immigrants, only a few of which met with
success. These projects were established either by the clergy intent on perpetuating
religious loyalties among settlers or by financiers and entrepreneurs pursuing their
own interests. The first scheme was organized by Abbé P.J. Verbist, who was
appointed immigration agent for the Quebec government in western Europe and
published Les Belges et les Alsaciens-Lorrains au Canada in 1872. He succeeded in
attracting a number of immigrants – merchants, manufacturers, ar F