It was very easy to immigrate to Canada 45 years ago. You answered a few questions, spoke English and you were in. It is much much harder today. Once you got your landed immigrant status you were in the same boat as any Canadian (except traveling was harder–you needed a stateless person’s passport, assuming you had renounced your citizenship which they mostly did quickly).
A former student did it and came to Montreal, got admitted to McGill as a grad student with a TA-ship, got a girlfriend, married her (I guess they must have celebrated their 45th anniversary), wrote a PhD with me and then settled down to a job in the community college system here from which he is semi-retired. Nowadays it would be much much harder.