In the months following the suppression of Hungary’s Revolution of 1956, Canada provided asylum to some 38,000 Hungarian refugees – on a per capita basis, more than any other nation. This essay argues that Canadian media played a decisive role in sensitizing the public to the refugees’ plight and in putting pressure on the country’s political leaders to take action. The Hungarian-Canadian diaspora press was divided on whether to accept the “fifty-sixers,”but themainstream English and French Canadian media rallied public opinion around accepting an unparalleled influx of refugees to Canada and providing unprecedented forms of government assistance to ease the refugees’ arrival and integration.