History of Chinese immigration to Canada
This is the history of Chinese immigration to Canada.
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2 Immigration in mid-19th Century 3 Chinese in Canada after the Completion of the CPR 4 Post-War Chinese in Canada 5 See also 6 External Links |
While the first Chinese in British North America (what is known as Canada today) could be traced back in 1788, the first major wave of Chinese entering Canada started after the Opium War. Most of this first group came from the Taishan County of Guangdong Province to escape from poverty and political instability during the mid 19th century. Most of those rural Cantonese make their ways into Canada via the crown colony of Hong Kong.
Chinese appeared in large numbers in the colony of British Columbia in 1858, when there was a gold rush in the Fraser Valley. This attracted many Chinese from China itself, and also some who has originally arrived in California. It should be noted that the Chinese who came to Canada had a different mindset from that of their European counterparts. While most the European settlers planned to start a new life in the new land, the Chinese in Canada were merely sojourners who wished to return to their ancestrial homeland back in China.
Chinese railway workers made a significant contribution to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad in British Columbia. When the colony of British Columbia agreed to join Confederation in 1871, one of the conditions was that the Dominion governmnet would build a railway linking BC with Eastern Canada. Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, wanted to cut costs by employing Chinese to build the railway, and famously said "no Chinese, no railroad."
In 1880, Onderdonk, the leader of Canadian Pacific Railroad construction, signed several agreements with Chinese gangs in Guangdong province of China. Through those contracts more than five thousand laborers were sent from China by ship. Onderdonk also recruited over seven thousand Chinese railway workers from California. These two groups of workers were the main force for the building of the railroad. Many of them fell ill during construction or died while planting explosives. Many others were injured or died because of construction accidents. By the end of 1881, the first group of Chinese laborers, which were previously numbered at five thousand, had less than fifteen hundred remaining. Onderdonk needed more workers, so he directly contacted some large Chinese firms to send many more workers to Canada.
Most of the Chinese workers lived in tents. These canvas tents were often unsafe and rocks fell during the night. Onderdonk paid Chinese workers only one dollar a day while white workers were paid five or six times that amount. Even though Chinese railway workers were only responsible for 300 miles of the entire Canadian Pacific Railway, they were given the most dangerous section of the railroad, notably the section that goes through the Rocky Mountains.
Because the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1885, Canada no longer needed Chinese labourers. As a result, the Government of Canada passed a law in 1885 levying a "Head Tax" of $50 to any Chinese coming to Canada. After the 1885 legislation failed to deter Chinese immigration to Canada, the Government of Canada passed another law in 1900 to increase the tax to $100, and in 1904 it was (land fees) to 500 Canadian dollars (equivalent to $8000 CDN in 2003). The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, better known as Chinese Exclusion Act, banned Chinese immigrations to Canada with the exceptions of merchants, diplomats, students, or "special circumstances." The Chinese that entered Canada before to 1923 had to register with the local authorities, and could only leave Canada for up to two years. Because the Exclusion Act went into effect on July 1, 1923, the Chinese at the time referred to Dominion Day as "Humiliation Day" and refused to celebrate Dominion Day until the act was repealed.
From the completion of the CPR to the end of the Exclusion Era (1923-1947), Chinese in Canada were mainly a "bachelor's society" since many Chinese families would not pay the expensive head tax to send their daughters into Canada. Also, since the Chinese in Canada could only speak piegon English, they had to hide in the "Chinatown Ghettos". With resentment of Chinese growing in British Columbia, settlement of Chinese began moving eastward after the completion of the CPR. With legislation banning Chinese from many professions, Chinese entered professions that European Canadians did not want to do, like laundry shops, or salmon processing. Chinese also opening grocery stores and resturants that catered to the local Chinese population.
After legislation in 1896 that stripped Chinese voting rights in municipal elections in BC, Chinese in BC became completely disenfranchised. The voters' list in federal elections came from the provincial election's voters' list, and the provincial ones came from the municipal one. As a way to counter the racist environment, Chinese merchants began forming the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, with the first branch in Victoria in 1885 and the second one in Vancouver in 1895. The Association was manadatory for all Chinese in the area to join, and it did everything from representing members in legal disputes to sending the remains of a member who died back to his or her ancestrial homeland in China.
After Canada entered World War II on September 10, 1939, Chinese communities greatly contributed to Canada's war effort, mainly in an attempt to persuade Canada to intervene against Japan in the Sino-Japanese War, which started back in 1937. The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association requested its member to purchase Canadian and Chinese war bonds, and to boycott Japanese goods. Also, many Chinese enlisted into the Canadian forces. But Ottawa and the BC Government were unwilling to send Chinese-Canadian recruits into action, since they did not want Chinese to ask for enfranchisement after the war. However, with 100 000 Britsh troops captured in British Malaya in February 1942, Ottawa decided to sent Chinese-Canadian forces in as spies to train the local guerrilas to resist the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1944. However, these spies did not make much of a difference, as the outcome of World War II was more or less decided by that time.
After Chinese-Canadian contributions in World War II, and also because some of the anti-Chinese legislations violated the UN Charter, the Government of Canada repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and give Chinese Canadians full citizenship rights in 1947. However, Chinese immigration was only limited to the spouse of a Chinese who has Canadian citizenship and his dependents. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China in October 1949, and its support for the communist North in the Korean War, Chinese in Canada faced another wave of resentment, as Chinese were viewed as communist agents from the PRC (although most Chinese-Canadians at the time were strongly pro-Nationalist).
In 1959, the Department of Immigration discovered that there was an abuse of immigration papers by some of the Chinese immigrants and called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for an investigation. It turned out that some Chinese entered Canada by purchasing real or fake birth certificates of Chinese Canadian children bought and sold in Hong Kong. These children carrying false identity were referred to as "Paper Sons". In response, Douglas Jung (the first Chinese MP in Canadian history) introduced a private member's bill in 1962 called the Chinese Adjustment Program. The bill granted amnesty for paper sons or daughters if they confess to the government. Until the end of the amnesty period in October 1973. As a result about 12 000 paper sons came forward.
Independent Chinese immigration in Canada came after Canada eliminated race and the "place of origin" section from its immigration policy in 1967. From 1947 to the early 1970s, Chinese immigrants from Canada came from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Chinese from the mainland who were eligible in the family reunion had to visit either the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong, or the Canadian Embassy in the Republic of China, since Canada and the PRC did not have diplomatic relations until 1970.
Institutional racism was completely eliminated in 1971 with the implementation of the Multicultural policy. After the implementation of the policy, the finally Chinese felt that they were welcomed into the mainstream of Canadian society. With the political uncertainty over the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, many residents of Hong Kong chose to immigrate to Canada. It was easy for them to enter Canada due to their British Commonwealth connections. According to the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong's statistics, from 1991 to 1996, "about 30,000 Hong Kongers emigrated annually to Canada, comprising over half of all Hong Kong emigration and about 20 percent of the total number of immigrants to Canada."
Today, mainland China has taken over from Hong Kong and Taiwan as the biggest sources of Chinese immigration. The PRC has also taken over all countries and regions as the countries with the most immigrants to Canada. According to the 2002 statistics from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, PRC has supplied the biggest sources of Canadian immigrants since 2000, averaging well over 30000 immigrants per year, totaling a average of 15% of all immigrants to Canada.Early History
Immigration in mid-19th Century
Chinese in Canada after the Completion of the CPR
Post-War Chinese in Canada