Half a year ago I wrote about the Chinese Canadian Head Tax, a racist piece of Canadian law that discouraged Chinese from immigrating to Canada after the construction of the Canadian railway. Back then, members of the Chinese community (with the neccessary political connections) negotiated with the then in power Federal Liberal party for $12.5 million to set up a foundation that would teach Canadians about that part of anti-Chinese history.
The families of the from 81,000 Chinese who paid the very expensive tax wouldn’t have gotten redressed, and the government stipulated that they would not offer a formal apology.
Several community groups which have been strongly advocating for an apology and redress for many years were publicly outraged. (A group they felt didn’t represent them had made more progress with the government than they had - the would settle for nothing less than full apology and redress). They felt that an apology to Japanese Canadians who were placed in internment camps set a precedent for other racial policies. Ironically, the supposedly inadequate deal with the Liberals was the best deal the Chinese would get - the government has a no-apology policy, they don’t agree that a precident was set, and they certainly don’t want to set any more precidents for other racial groups (namely the Italian and Ukranian communities) that were discriminated against (that’s just bad politics).
With the Liberal government, the agreement fell through. During the Federal campaign, the Harper government gained support by promising an apology and redress. And he’s promised to do so before Parliment rises for the summer.
I gotta admit, Harper plays great politics but I’m concerned about the pandora’s box this may be opening. My family didn’t pay the head tax (not from China anyways), so maybe I’m wrong to think that pushing for a redress is something of a cash grab - it does little to combat racism which I wish would have been the goal of the Chinese community. Instead of future generations having more awareness of the Chinese role in Canada’s history a bunch of pushy families will get benefits on top of the improved lives they received from immigrating to Canada.
Honestly, if Harper makes good on the promise it’ll be a good thing. But those Chinese that called the negotiators of the Liberal Agreement in Principle _traitors_? The boos and hisses and shouting and curse words at community meetings?
In other news, the Toronto Sun has recently made some changes to appeal to the Chinese community. They have been featuring a number of Chinese community stories on their front page. I know so little about the Sun. I wonder how it’s going.
Head tax redress package coming in June - [thestar.com]
The Changing Face of Duo Len Duo - [torontosun.com]
Head Tax (Canada) - [wikipedia.org]