Subject: (Redress) from The Ubyssey: An unforgotten chapter in Canadian history
March 17, 2006
An unforgotten chapter in Canadian historyAfter thousands of Chinese immigrants built the railway, the Canadian government imposed a malicious head tax to stem further immigration. Now, Chinese-Canadians want an apology. A look at the where the redress movement stands in Canada’s modern political landscape.
by Colleen TangSid Tan’s grandfather came to Canada when he was only 19 years old. Arriving in 1919, Chow Gim (Norman) Tan made a living working as a cooking assistant on a track steamer.
“He made his home in Canada,” said Tan of his grandfather. “He believed enough in Canada.”
Tan’s grandfather, like all Chinese immigrants at the time, was forced to pay a $500 head tax upon his arrival in the country. For nearly half a century, though, Tan’s grandfather could not be reunited with his whole family.
“The government of Canada separated [my grandma] from her husband for 25 years by a racist law,” said Tan.
It wasn’t until 1964 that Norman Tan was granted Canadian citizenship, along with his young grandson.
Tan indicated that his family’s history in North America went as far back as the San Francisco gold rush of 1849.
“In our family, after over 150 years of Tan men coming to Canada, it’s only in my generation...that [Tan children] were born in North America.”
The Chinese Immigration Act About 17,000 Chinese labourers were employed working on the Canadian Pacific Railway. They were referred to as ‘cheap labour’—paid one dollar per day, less than half of what their white colleagues made. The jobs that were offered to the Chinese workers included laying track and tunneling. They were also saddled with the most dangerous tasks, such as handling explosives. Of the 17,000 workers, approximately 700 died on the job.
But after the railway was completed in 1885 it was made clear that neither they nor their services were needed anymore. Almost immediately, a head tax payment of $500 was imposed on all Chinese people wishing to enter the country.
The head tax did not stop Chinese immigrants from crossing the Pacific. It did, however, result in many families being separated. Husbands left behind wives and children to come work in Canada; the head tax made it too costly for more than one member of a family to go.
20 years of advocatingFor decades, there have been numerous organisations lobbying the government to redress the head tax issue with survivors, spouses and descendents. During the recent federal election, this issue garnered tremendous attention from the media.
“It’s very important to recognise this issue for what it is,” said Bill Chu, head tax descendent and spokesperson for the BC Coalition of Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendents.
“Any country that had committed that sort of crime against a portion of its own citizens should really reflect on [itself] and do the right thing by apologising and compensating those harmed,” said Chu.
“I think the main thing is that the people who physically paid for the head tax [are] dying off altogether. Another ten years, probably everybody will die off.”
One of the reasons why this issue has yet to be resolved is because of a lack of political commitment on the part of Parliament.
Chu feels strongly that a collective Canadian effort is needed in order for this issue to be properly addressed.
“There’s a big need for Canadians to realise that we’re not simply talking about $500 paid way back when and [asking] for that $500,” he said. “What we’re really talking about is when discrimination against a particular culture has been legalised and authorised by the state itself.”
“It requires a serious apology on the part of the country to respond to the parties and to apologise and compensate in an honourable way,” Chu continued.
Like Chu, Thekla Li, president of BC Association for Learning and Preserving the History of WWII in Asia (BC ALPHA) believes that it is a matter of honour to apologise and redress the racism of the head tax.
“It has a great impact on the Chinese community...That’s why we find it very important to have the government redress on this racist chapter of history in Canada,” said Li. “If any of the MPs have any sense of justice they should support it.”
Victor Wong, executive director of Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and head tax payer descendant, noted that this historical injustice has had a great impact on the Chinese community. When looking at the number of Chinese Canadians holding positions in the provincial and federal governments, Wong observed that there might be a dozen but certainly less than two-dozen MP’s and MLAs.
“In comparison to our population of over a million people that is not proportional. You can see the legacy of the exclusion...[after] the legislation was removed. There were still racial barriers to participation and we’re still living with that today.”
BC ALPHA has estimated that the $23 million collected in head taxes has a present value of $1.2 billion. Japanese-Canadian internment survivors, who were victims of similar racist treatments—including not being allowed to eat at certain restaurants and segregated education—were compensated for. But it took the government 40 years to redress those issues. Each living internment survivor was given $21,000; additionally, the government invested another $36 million towards cultural, educational and social programs. Whether or not Chinese-Canadian head tax payer survivors will receive a similar arrangement is unknown.
BC ALPHA’s plan of compensation involves two stages. The first stage demands that the federal government pass a parliamentary resolution on the first of July to formally apologise for 62 years of “racial enactments” and “directly consult the surviving head tax payers” in the form of an individual compensation and education fund “to make sure this chapter of history is learned...and won’t happen again in Canada,” said Li.
The individual compensation is “a partial refund...a symbolic refund to each of the families who paid and who have the [head tax] certificate,” said Li.
Wong agreed that some form of symbolic redress and a formal apology is necessary.
“They want people to know that human dignity is not negotiable and that racism is wrong,” said Wong.
For now, CCNC and BC ALPHA have petitioned for a meeting with the current Conservative government and are awaiting a response from them.
“The government must take the initiative,” said Wong. “They have some good will. I think most Canadians, no matter how they voted, they wanted to at least give them a chance so we also want to give them a chance.”
MPs and party representatives speak While CCNC, BC ALPHA and the BC Coalition of Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants wait for their chance to negotiate with the current government, members of the New Democratic Party (NDP) continue to press the issue in parliament.
The NDP has been drumming the issue since the 1984. The party believes that this is an issue that can easily be resolved if addressed appropriately.
“The head tax issue is just one of a number of issues that with the government stepping forward and taking action, sitting down with the groups, finding out what would be an appropriate package to offer, it can be resolved in very short order,” said Peter Juilan, an NDP MP for Burnaby-New Westminster. “They do not have the political will to resolve an issue that is relatively simple to address.”
A crucial mistake the Liberals made with this issue was to try to finesse it, commented Julian.
“They didn’t deal with the issue of individual compensation. They tried to basically thin the issue,” he said. “The imposition of the head tax has galvanised a lot of activists, who are saying quite rightfully, ‘Why can’t the government just respond in an appropriate way to a long-standing historical injustice?’”
“With the Liberals and Conservatives, they are capable to give away billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts at the bat of an eye,” continued Julian, “But they’re not willing to spend some millions of dollars to negotiate with all the groups concerned.”
Both Julian and Libby Davies, NDP House leader and MP for Vancouver East, agreed that the head tax bears on Canadian identity.
“It’s a Canadian issue. It’s how Canadians work to right historical wrongs and I believe most Canadians feel very strongly that no government is perfect and no individual is perfect but if we’re...trying to restore historical grievances, that is the Canadian way,” said Julian.
Davies commented on the inequality in government itself, saying, “I think that Parliament is not representative of Canadian society and it’s reflected in the decisions that are made.”
Davies saw Martin’s attempt to redress the issue as too little, too late.
“Paul Martin’s apology I think came too late even for votes,” said Davies. “I mean the Liberals have held us up for more than a decade. They had ample opportunity to do the right thing.”
The Conservative Party made a campaign promise to reopen the issue, but according to Davies, who was a member of the Parliament committee created to enquire into the matter under the Liberal government, the Tories deserve blame for forestalling as well.
“The Conservatives themselves... basically made a deal with Liberals to drop the idea of an apology.”
Libbies said her party will continue to push the for compensation and hold the current government accountable to their election promises, said Davies.
“We’ll make sure that this issue will be dealt with early on in Parliament,” stated Davies. “Will we continue to press it? Will we continue to hold him to account? Yes. Will [Harper] keep his promise? I hope so, but I don’t know.”
According to Sana Shahram, president of the Federal Young Liberals at UBC, her group does feel that an apology is necessary and the Liberal party will hold the Conservatives accountable to their word.
“My personal view is that we definitely do owe them an apology and the party’s view on the issue is that they also think there should be an apology given, just the same that they expect to give to any Canadian who has been wronged according to their race or religion or anything,” said Shahram.
Shahram also said the apology Martin gave was done in the best way possible, given that the implications of a formal apology were not yet understood.
“I think it was actually very responsible on his part because opening up the government to lawsuits is not something that a responsible leadership would do without having known all of his options and knowing what would happen.”
Money should not be a main factor in this issue, said Shahram.
“An apology would be much more meaningful,” she insisted.
The delicate art of apologiesThe main motive for those still fighting for redress is to get a formal apology from Canada. An apology, however, is not as simple as saying sorry explained UBC history Professor Henry Yu.
“The Prime Minister could go around saying sorry all he wants but that’s meaningless,” said Yu.
An apology provides the chance for Canada, as a nation, to say that they are a better country now than they were then, he added.
“An apology is not just saying, ‘sorry we’re bad people,’ [but rather], ‘look, we’re saying sorry because we’re better people now and we wouldn’t do this again.’”
Yu made a comparison with the Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian internment redress issues and commented on its unlikely success.
“It’s quite a remarkable redress issue. If [Japanese-American internment] were to happen in the U.S. again, there’s no way in hell [that it would be redressed],” said Yu. “It went through there because there was a large scale effort that went not just to Japanese-Americans but also non-Japanese-Americans who always felt this was wrong.”
“It succeeded because they were able to prove [Japanese internment] was un-American,” continued Yu. “This was something that never should have been done.”
Yu pointed out that the U.S. governement has never apologised for slavery, and suggested one of the main reasons why there hasn’t been a formal apology to victims of the Chinese head tax is on account of liability.
“An apology isn’t just symbolic...An apology says, ‘I’m responsible.’”
Yu said that the federal election helped to bring this issue to the foreground.
“I think one of the amazing things that happened in the lead up to the election was that it became a big issue in Chinese language press,” said Yu. “A lot of people who wouldn’t have known about the issue or who didn’t care...came to realise that this is an issue at the heart of all of Chinese Canada, in all its diversity. This is an issue of how a country recognises history. The symbolism therefore is important.”
This massive interest from the Chinese-Canadian community became a problem, however, said Yu.
“I think the main problem in some sense is that once it became an issue the Liberal government thought would get them votes from Chinese Canadians...It’s just the half-assed way, to use that term, that they handled it because they just thought it would get them votes,” he said. “They just did what they thought would work and they never bothered to talk or listen to people who have been advocating for this for awhile.”
“That’s where the NDP and the Conservative Party [pointed out the Liberals] fell short of what they ought to do. Even the Martin government had to backtrack and say, ‘We didn’t do enough’.”
According to UBC political science Professor Gerald Baier, it is not the refusal of an apology, but rather the assumptions that go along with a formal apology that has dragged the issue out.
“I think anything like this is potentially going to cost money. The potential for lawsuits and arrests are high [because] an apology admits culpability and...anytime [the government] accepts responsibility, that might mean that some groups might be able to make financial claim against the government,” said Baier.
This rings true with the $2.5 million education fund signed in principle by the federal government with various Chinese organisations—an amount far short of the $1.2 billion collected in head taxes.
This money doesn’t mean the issue will just go away. This issue will continue to be pursued as long as survivors are around, predicted Baier.
“The one thing that the head tax people have on their side is their stories...and to be able to demonstrate that vividly with frailer older people helps. When you lose those people, it’s harder to make that claim,” said Baier.
There is no question as to whether or not this was historically wrong on the part of the government, he added.
“[This issue is] almost impossible to ignore...It certainly was racially motivated...There’s no question what the policy was intended to do and how it sought to do it and how unjust it was,” said Baier.
A shame that can’t be forgotten
“The history of [the head tax] is that in fact it benefited the province of British Columbia immensely...They were paying for the government and the services,” said Yu. “It is the exact opposite of what democracy is supposed to be...The people who [were] paying [weren’t] allowed to have any say in the society.”
“No one would make a historical argument that this was not discriminatory,” continued Yu. “One group had to pay it and no one else did.”
Whether or not this issue gets resolved is up to the current federal government. They have the chance now to right this historical wrong or choose not to. It took 40 years for the persecution and discrimination of Japanese-Canadians to be redressed. Chinese-Canadians have waited almost 50 years since the exclusion act was repealed. This is an issue that is not going to simply die down. In fact, with the stories of survivors coming being told to the community, in some ways, the issue seems to be at its peak.
www.ubyssey.bc.ca/20060317/article.shtml?Colours/01.htmlNOTE: (the "Ubyssey" is the University of British Columbia's (UBC) newspaper/magazine.
