Once the ship was within two days of the Halifax Harbour, Ottawa, which was under pressure from high ranking officials and politicians, had refused to grant the Jewish refugee families a home in Canada (National Post News, 2011). Dr. Messinger, who is now 78 and a retired physician in Buffalo, N.Y, is a Holocaust survivor and was a passenger abroad the M.S St. Louis in 1939 at the age of 6, had said in an interview with the National post, "Nobody wanted us. We were Jews, we were expendable It was terrible ., terrible, terrible of Canada and the United States, of all countries, to not let us in" (National Post News, 2011). The fact that Canada had refused to admit the 937 Jewish refugee passengers on the M.S St. Louis in 1939, even while being aware of the consequences of denying entry such as the death of hundreds, demonstrates the harsh and unfair treatment the Canadian government had towards the Jewish refugees at the time of the Holocaust. A vital aspect in the plight of the Jewish refugees and the trouble they faced in order to immigrate was the widespread presence of anti – Semitism in Canada (The Quebec History Encyclopedia, 2006). This deterred countries from accepting large numbers of refugees. In 1938, after Kristallnacht had taken place, the Canadian Jewish parliament had arranged to sponsor 10,000 Jewish refugees to Canada and assure their financial support yet, the Government of Canada had rejected this proposal (The Quebec History Encyclopedia, 2006). The reason was simple for this rejection, because not only was immigration unpopular in the circumstance of the Great depression, but as well, anti - Semitism was widespread in Canada. The Canadian government turning away the 10,000 Jewish refugees demonstrates the anti – Semitic attitude Canadians had against the Jews, and therefore displaying the unfair treatment that this resulted in. Another problem for the Jews was that Canada did not have refugee policy because it did not distinguish between refugees who required special considerations and regular immigrants (The Quebec History Encyclopedia, 2006).
