Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Canadian government developed several racist policies to contest the settlement of Chinese immigrants in Canada. Following the government’s reaction to Chinese immigrants a Canadian moral panic evolved . The first Canadian Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald (1878-1891) had a vision for the ideal “white” Canada . This Canada would be physically and morally prosperous by exhibiting European dominance over visible minorities. Racism occurred in different aspects from general mistreatment to formal legislation limiting movement and entry into Canada’s borders. The first Chinese immigrated to Canada in the early nineteenth century following the gold rush. Initially Chinese immigrants sojourned to Canada, creating an aura of mistrust. The sojourners national identity was questioned. By the early twentieth century the Chinese were Canada’s largest ethnic non-European group . ……check textbook….John A. Macdonald warned “if [the Chinese] came in great numbers and settled on the Pacific coast they …show more content…
might control the vote of that whole Province, and they would send Chinese representative to sit here, who would represent Chinese eccentricities, Chinese immorality, Asiatic principles altogether opposite to our wishes; and, in the even balance of parties, they might enforce those Asiatic principles, those immoralities[…], the eccentricities which are abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles, on this House.” In response to fear, the Canadian government created racist policies and regulations to exploit Chinese immigrants to further their political agenda and national policy. This paper will be constructed in three stages. The first stage will evaluate the formal legislation John A. Macdonald’s government developed and endorsed to control the Chinese population. The second stage will demonstrate how Canadian labor laws victimized Chinese workers. The third stage will examine drug policies that were developed in response to the Chinese population. The first Chinese Immigration Act was established in 1885.
The foundation of the legislation was to impede and discourage the entry of new Chinese immigrants into Canada. Therefore, the process of racialization or what Timothy Stanley terms “biological racism” began . In 1885, the government had fulfilled the promise of completing the national railway to the Pacific coast. Thus, the Chinese Head Tax was implemented . The Chinese Head Tax was fifty dollars in 1885, as a result immigrants wishing to enter Canada would pay the financial burden. Several amendments were made to the Chinese Immigration Act. In 1900, the tax was doubled to $100, and in 1903 an astounding $500 . The head tax was tremendously difficult to pay. Many Chinese had already borrowed money to come to Canada, the additional tax made it impossible to afford. Furthermore, the 1903 head was significantly more than some Chinese worker’s annual
wages.
The Canadian Pacific Railway was the first transcontinental railway built to connect Canada from coast to coast. (Canadian Pacific Para. 9) The construction almost delayed completely because of John A. MacDonald losing power, but it was finally continued with the help of a syndicate. (Canadian Pacific Para. 4) Due to the insufficient amount of adequate workers in British Columbia, Chinese contract workers were imported to help construct the track with minimal pay and harsh conditions. (Canada Para. 1) Chinese-Canadians were discriminated by being given the most dangerous job, no food or shelter provided, and the least pay. Unfortunately, when the track was completed, the Exclusion Act for Chinese immigrants was established to stop immigration from China, (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 5) while also making it impossible for family members from China to immigrate. (Calgary Chinese Cultural Centre Para. 11)
Zong L. & Perry, B. (2011). Chinese immigrants in Canada and social injustice: From overt to
This quotation is taken from a Hollywood film, but has a tendency to ring true in legal disputes in Canada involving minority groups. Racism as a component in the Canadian societal context has prevented the realization of truth and justice throughout history. For instance, Donald Marshall Jr. endured a wrongful conviction as a result of racism in the criminal justice system. While this dilemma has proved to be most difficult for minority groups to overcome, critical race theory, as implemented by defence lawyers in R.D.S. v. The Queen, has allowed for the realization of racism as truth in Canadian society and provides a tool for minority groups in future legal battles.
The development and implementation of John A. Macdonald’s National Policy was able to accomplish it’s three main goals: completion of the Canada Pacific Railway, the increase in tariffs and import duty to protect resources and industrial interest, as well as expanding immigration to the West of Canada. However, this period of success was also met with many disadvantages as well. The policy put forth for western immigration was discriminatory to francophone Canadians, causing massive emigration to the United States. In addition, the only areas to benefit from the National Policy were the heartland areas from Windsor to Montreal, causing regional innequality in Western Canada and the maritime provinces.
Vancouver currently maintains an image as a sort of maternal ethnic melting pot, a region rich in cultural diversity and with a municipality that is both tolerant and welcoming of various displays and traditions. However, upon closer examination of recent history, it becomes clear that the concept of the city embracing minorities with a warm liberal hug is both incorrect and a form of manipulation in itself. The articles Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver and The Idea of Chinatown unravel the cultural sanitization that occurred in Vancouver at the turn of the nineteenth century as a means of state domination. Through careful synthesis of primary documents, the articles piece together the systematic oppression suffered by BC indigenous people and Chinese immigrants, reformulating our perception of the interests of the Canadian government.
In the year 1957, Canada elected its first Prime minister without English or French root, John Diefenbaker. While growing up in the city of Toronto, because of his German name, he was often teased. [1] He grew up as an outcast, and so he was able to relate to the discrimination and inequality many of the minorities in Canada felt. This essay will attempt to answer the question: To what extent did Prime Minister John Diefenbaker help promote equality to the minority communities. . The minorities in this time period were the women, aboriginals, and immigrants. During his time as the Prime Minister, he was able to help protect the rights of this group because many of their rights were being abused by the society. Diefenbaker also helped the minorities to stand up for themselves and other groups. Diefenbaker was able to bring positive change to the minority communities by making an official Bill of Rights and appointing people of discriminated groups to the parliament while other members did not.
One particular ethnic group that suffered severe discrimination was the Chinese people. They first came to America for several reasons. One of them was the gold rush in California in 1849, in which they were included in a group of immigrants called the “Forty-Niners” (179). From gold mining, they switched to other jobs with resulted in the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. People felt that Chinese people were taking the jobs away from them, because Chinese people worked for much smaller salaries that businesses preferred. This mindset gave way to the creation of The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which prohibits more Chinese immigrants from coming to America. In addition, the act states “no State or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship”. Like the Naturalization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created to hinder Chinese people from becoming citizens so that America could remain homogenously white (186). It also aimed to stop Chinese people from establishing a bigger community in the country in hopes of eliminating the threat of competition to their white counterparts (186). Like African-Americans, Chinese people were considered racially inferior and have struggled to prove that they were worthy to be called true Americans, rather than
The period of 1914 to 1939, Canada’s immigration policy got very unfair. Changes were made to the Immigration Act in 1914 that allowed the rejection of anyone from any race that was deemed unsuitable for Canada’s requirements. Also, in that same year, the Komagata Maru came to the coast of Vancouver. It was a ship that carried many from Punjab, India. The ship wasn’t allowed to dock and passengers weren’t allowed to disembark off the ship. The ship hadn’t sailed directly to B.C. from India so only 24 passengers were allowed to disembark; most of them were doctors or Canadian citizens already. Another act to keep out unwanted immigrants from Canada was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923. This act came into effect on July 1st, 1923. It banned all Chinese immigrants from entering Canada, except merchants, diplomats and foreign students. Before the Chinese Exclusion Act was put into place, the Chinese had to pay a head tax of $500 just to get into the country. The numbers of Japanese immigrants were also restricted. The Canadian government restricted only 150 Japanese immigrants to come to Canada in a year. In 1925, the government relaxed restrictions on immigrants coming from many countrie...
Harold Cardinal made a bold statement in his book, The Unjust Society, in 1969 about the history of Canada’s relationship with Aboriginal peoples. His entire book is, in fact, a jab at Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s idea of ‘the just society’. Pierre Elliott Trudeau made great assumptions about First Nations people by declaring that Aboriginal people should be happy about no longer being described as Indian. His goal was to rid Canada of Indians by assimilating them into the Canadian framework. Considered by many as a progressive policy, Trudeau’s white paper demonstrates just how accurate the following statement made by Harold Cardinal at the beginning of his book is : “The history of Canada’s Indians is a shameful chronicle of the white man’s disinterest,
Labour leaders in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s were strongly opposed to the idea of Asians immigrating to Canada. In “Constructing the Great Menace” by David Goutor, it outlines the oppression of Asians by labour leaders which does not conclude that labour leaders hated all immigration and had a prejudice against all racialized groups. The unionists’ main argument for this opposition is based on the stereotype that Asians were claimed to have “accepted low wages and degraded working conditions” thus proving that they will diminish the standard of living for Canadian workers. These Labour Leaders were prejudice to Asians in an effort to supposedly protect Canadian workers and their jobs. However, it is not fair to say that labour
The author is a Canadian citizen with Chinese roots. To find a better living condition her grandfather abandoned his family, his country and ancestry and moved to Canada. Despite the inhospitable attitude of Canada towards the immigrants at those days, people from various parts of the world endured the difficult times with determination seeing the ray of hope at the other end. However, this perseverance presented the citizenship status for the progeny and a chance to live in the great land of Canada. Chong reinforces, “I belong to a community of values” (Chong, D. 2015. p. 5). Today, Canadian citizenship is valued worldwide and is a coveted title, because the people around the globe views Canadians as sophisticated and amiable.
During the last decade, the awareness of racial discrimination, in some extent, happening every day in North America has been aroused, which is called racial microaggression —“a brief and commonplace verbal, behavioural, or environmental indignities that communicate negative racial insults to people of colour” (Sue, Capodilupo, et al., 2007). This problem even hit Canada — a multicultural nation — and was widely discussed in Canada after a forced apology. In February 2014, a student, studied at McGill University, was obliged to apologize for an email involved in racial microaggression (Hamilton, 2014). Subsequently, McGill struggled
In the 1900’s a prominent English scholar Gilbert Murray said: “There is in the world a hierarchy of races;[some] will direct and rule the others, and the lower work of the world will tend in the long run to be done by the lower breeds of men. This we of the ruling colour will no doubt accept as obvious.”(Walker; 1997) It was very true at the time; everywhere you looked you could see that white men assumed all roles of responsibility. Canada has been fighting a never-ending war against racism in the 19th century. It. It has modified or created many laws to help try to combat the discrimination that exists within our country. Canada has modified its immigration act to make it less discriminatory. It has created the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to bring equality to everyone and it has, created human rights acts to protect people of different races.
Every year, over 250,000 people make Canada their new home. Attracted by its education system, economy and universal healthcare system, there are few other places in the world like it. All Canadians are guaranteed equality before the law and equality of opportunity, regardless of where they are from. However, some might argue that Canadian policy has not been put into practice as well as it should be. Is the concept of true equality a far-fetched idea? It seems that Canada has taken great measures to promote the integration of immigrants socially, but can the same be said for their integration economically? Politically? To judge whether or not Canada has been successful at promoting the integration of immigrants in these realms, a deeper understanding of Canadian policy must be considered.
Under the sub-header Across the Pacific, this was interesting because I never knew that the credit-ticket system was used and was called the “Chinese despotism.” Chinese were considered as hard workers, and till this day Chinese really do live up to that title. During the mid-1850s, 24 thousand Chinese were working in California mines at which is now San Francisco. The advertisements of “gold mountain” were over exaggerated and appealed to mainly Chinese immigrants who want to become rich. Unfortunately, people believed those advertisements and arrived in San Francisco to mine gold. Relevant to today, there are even more Chinese individuals that are immigrating to the United States for various reasons. I do agree that Chinese immigration,