Well this was an interesting and relevant read! (Archbishop Lynch and New Ireland: An Unfulfilled Dream for Canada's Northwest).
Details the efforts made 1873-1887 to establish a farming colony for Irish and Scottish Catholics it what is now Manitoba.
The key figure was Irish-born Archbishop Joseph Lynch of Ontario, who took over as Archbishop in 1860 from a French-Canadian (approximately representing the take-over of the Catholic Church hierarchy in Ontario).
Archbishop Lynch was opposed to Irish immigration (although he stated many times that he approved of rural immigration, but was concerned that so many Irish Catholics settled in those vice filled cities- and some of the Irish Catholic women even married Protestants.)
So he began actively discouraging Irish immigration from 1860.
In 1873, the Archbishop of Quebec, Taschereau, visited England and Ireland. While there, he devised a plan to assist Catholic migrants from the slums of English cities to Ontario.
He expressed this to Lynch, who explained his objections.
Taschereau had erstwhile been trying to encourage French-Canadian immigration to Manitoba without much success. So he married the two plans together, and eventually Lynch agreed to head the operation, (apparently partly because it involved a trip to Ireland).
So Lynch headed to Ireland and the UK to pitch the idea to the local gentry while Governor-General Lorne worked the locals.
Lynch found a surprisingly receptive gentry class in Ireland who were willing to commit funds for assisted migration to remove the poorest of their tenants.
The British government apparently "pledged" £100,000 to get the scheme off the ground, enthusiastic as they were to empty their slums.
But the timing was real bad. Almost simultaneously, the Phoenix Park murders took place (where two MPs, IIRC, were murdered in Dublin in a political attack), which set off a wave an anti-Irish sentiment in Britain. That alone may have helped the situation...but the Canadian parliament, at nearly the same time, passed a bill calling for Home Rule for Ireland.
Britain resented her colony getting uppity and telling her what to do; Britain also seemed to realize the potential for fostering an anti-British group within Canada by encouraging too many Irish Catholics to live together.
The British backed out; although the Canadian government replaced the initial pledge. The Manitoba legislature passed laws which were identical to the later homestead act: Irish immigrants would have the right to buy 160 acres for £5, and first right of refusal on the adjacent 160 acres. Men would have jobs on the CPR. Women would grow potatoes.
The federal government even passed legislation offering Irish immigrants free rail transport from Québec or Halifax to anywhere in Canada. Gladstone's 1881 Land Act included an emigration clause. Lynch attempted to argue that an assisted migration society was necessary to make this work. But Gladstone was busy and cancelled their meeting.
Who knows what that meeting could have changed, as Lynch appears to have been right: without the support and funding from Britain, far too many Irish could not afford the passage to Quebec or Halifax, and the dream died.
en.wikipedia.org
But if you ARE interested in the study, I'd suggest reaching out to him!