Lillian Eva Dyck, Victor Oh and Yuen Pau Woo: Canada’s sordid history of treating Chinese-Canadians as ‘undesirables’

2017/05/13 Leave a comment

Good and important recounting of this aspect of our history by these three senators:

As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation, another anniversary must not go overlooked. May 14, 2017 marks 70 years since the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act, the only law in Canadian history to bar a specific ethnic group from coming to Canada.

Today, roughly 1.5 million people of Chinese descent live in Canada. Although most arrived over the past two decades, the first significant wave began in the 19th century. Chinese migrants came to Canada during the 1850s for the gold rush in British Columbia’s lower Fraser Valley. Chinese prospectors earned little money because they were prohibited from working in mines until others had moved on from them.

Another wave of Chinese migrants came between 1881 and 1885 to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. They were exposed to harsh weather conditions and were tasked with the most dangerous and backbreaking jobs of building bridges over valleys and digging tunnels through mountains. These conditions led to 600 deaths, among the more than 15,000 Chinese labourers.

After the railroad was completed in 1885, many Chinese labourers remained in the country. Some headed for the prairies and eastern Canada, but most stayed in B.C.

Once Chinese labour was no longer needed, the government passed laws to limit and then prohibit Chinese immigration. In 1885, Sir John A. Macdonald’s government enacted the Chinese Immigration Act, which imposed a $50 head tax (more than $1,000 in today’s dollars) on all Chinese immigrants.

The head tax created poverty and fractured families. The majority of Chinese immigrants were men who came to the country to find work. The costly head tax forced them to leave their wives and children behind. Families that paid the fee would spend years paying off the outstanding debt.

On July 1, 1923, the federal government implemented the Chinese Immigration Act, banning Chinese immigration altogether. Other policies further restricted their ability to vote, hold public office, or practice law or medicine. Municipalities enacted additional policies. For instance, Vancouver barred Chinese from swimming in public pools.

Since the Chinese Immigration Act took effect the same day as the anniversary of Confederation, this day became known as “Humiliation Day” among Chinese-Canadians. In protest, some Chinese-Canadians closed their businesses and boycotted Dominion Day (the precursor to Canada Day) celebrations every July 1 until it was repealed. This community felt compelled to reject the nation’s birthday.

It was not until 1947 that the federal government repealed the Chinese Immigration Act, in large part due to the lobbying efforts of activists from across Canada, including lawyer Kew Doc Yip. There was also broader public support for the repeal, as a result of Chinese-Canadians’ significant contribution to the Second World War effort. However, restrictions on Chinese immigration and other discriminatory laws remained in place.

In the House of Commons that year, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King said Canada had the right to determine who it considers “desirable future citizens.” “Large-scale migration from the Orient would change the fundamental composition of the Canadian population,” he said.

It took another 20 years for this attitude to change. In 1967, Canada introduced a points-based policy that gave Chinese equal opportunity to immigrate to Canada. It allowed immigrants to apply based on education and skills. By the 1980s, Chinese immigration was on the rise, enhancing the status of Chinese communities across the country.

Finally, on June 22, 2006, the Canadian government, under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, issued a formal apology for the Chinese Immigration Act. It was an important step towards reconciliation. It reaffirmed to Chinese-Canadians that they are full and equal members of Canadian society and that their contributions were valuable to Canada’s development.

Source: Lillian Eva Dyck, Victor Oh and Yuen Pau Woo: Canada’s sordid history of treating Chinese-Canadians as ‘undesirables’ | National Post

Filed under Historical Recognition, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Housing prices: Singling out ethnicity of buyers is unhelpful | Yuen Pau Woo

2016/07/06 Leave a comment

While his first and third points are largely valid, the nature of Vancouver ethnic demographics and that those from China are the main source of foreign investment is a reality.

Similar to having a conversation about extremism and terrorism without making any reference at all to the link with religion and Islam in particular.

Finding a vocabulary to have an open discussion, and finding a way to respectfully but honestly debate the issues, is always a challenge.

But silence on the ethnic origin ignores the main driver:

First, most accounts of the role of Chinese buyers do not distinguish between non-residents and residents, or indeed between Canadian citizens, landed immigrants and foreign nationals. The vast majority of homes owned by Chinese people in the Lower Mainland belong to folks who have residency status in Canada — in other words, they are Canadians, not foreigners. There are hundreds of thousands of people with last names spelled in the fashion of mainland Chinese who are Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. [note I would not call those with Permanent Residents status Canadians, that term should be reserved for citizens]

Second, even if one is able to identify Chinese buyers who are truly “foreigners”, there has been little consideration given to their economic contribution to the local economy. Housing affordability, after all, is a function of both prices and income. Are these buyers connected to the international student population in B.C. that contributes about $1.5 billion a year to the local economy? How many local businesses have benefited from the investments of these high net worth individuals? The much-cited study identifying Chinese buyers of local condos looks at the numerator in the affordability equation, but totally ignored the denominator. Where is the equivalent study of their impact on jobs and incomes?

Third, and most importantly, singling out Chinese buyers is irrelevant when it comes to a public policy response. There may be a case for surcharges on foreign purchases of residential real estate and on property speculators, but any such policy would surely apply without regard to country of origin or ethnicity. After all, while China may be this year’s source of hot capital outflows, some other region could assume that role next year. Indeed, that may already be happening with the tightening of capital controls in China, the appreciation in the U.S. dollar, and heightened political uncertainty in much of the rest of the world.

So why this parlour game of pointing the finger at Chinese buyers? I don’t doubt that many researchers and writers on the subject have good intentions, but they are naive to think that singling out an ethnic group is nothing more than dispassionate analysis and a crusade against political correctness. On the contrary, they are unwittingly giving voice to darker sentiments in the populace and normalizing the language of chauvinism.

You see, I find out about their well-meaning articles and quotes when I get nasty spam messages from groups that actually don’t like Chinese people, or immigrants in general, and who gleefully hold up these articles as vindication of their beliefs. In the same way that the Brexit vote has given voice to racists in the U.K., the incessant focus on Chinese buyers as villains in Vancouver’s affordability crisis is propagating prejudice and promoting distrust.

None of the above is a dodge from discussing and dealing with the challenges of housing affordability in Vancouver. But there are no solutions to be found in singling out the ethnicity of buyers, and no winners in the divisive game of race baiting.

Source: Opinion: Singling out ethnicity of buyers is unhelpful | Vancouver Sun

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Ottawa’s new citizenship rules are perverse: Commentary from Right and Left

2014/02/20 2 Comments

The counter-argument to making citizenship more restrictive given the realities of globalization, by Dan Devoretz of Simon Fraser and Yuen Pau Woo of the Asia Pacific Foundation. I think their fears of the changes are over exaggerated, as Canada will still  largely remain competitive with other immigrant attracting countries.

However, the emphasis on citizenship meaningfulness and attachment needs to be balanced by the realities below. The problem for governments is that we have no realistic or practical way to measure attachment to Canada except by the proxy of physical presence:

The new act rightly identifies an important objective of citizenship policy as the need to create attachment to Canada. This policy, however, should not be defined in the narrow sense of physical presence within our borders. The reality of a globalized workforce — especially for highly skilled workers — is that they have the option to work in many different jurisdictions and likely will spend parts of their professional lives outside of their native or adopted countries. Exhibit A: the Governor of the Bank of England.

In a highly competitive market for global talent, the challenge should be defined not as how to stop immigrants from leaving, but rather as how to encourage our citizens abroad to stay attached to Canada.

The implicit message of the new act — which requires immigrants to be resident in Canada four years out of six in order to become a citizen — is that Canadians who spend more than one-third of their lives outside the country are lesser citizens. Indeed, the current rules deny Canadians the right to vote if they have lived abroad for more than five years. That would include Mark Carney by the time he completes his term at the Bank of England.

Ottawa’s new citizenship rules are perverse | Toronto Star.

A more predictable critique from the left by Patti Tamara Lenard of UofO and the Broadbent Institute:

The justifications being offered by Alexander in defense of these changes – to ensure loyalty to Canada, to protect the integrity of the system, to support the value of Canadian citizenship – are thin. There is no evidence that longer wait times increase loyalty to a state – just look at so many European states, where the average wait times for citizenship extend much longer than they do in Canada. Immigrants to European states exhibit no more, and often less, loyalty to their receiving state. The problems to which this Act is responding appear to be mere phantoms, even by Alexander’s own admission. He acknowledges that Canadians value their citizenship highly – “Canadian citizenship is uniquely valuable in the world”, he observes, implying that immigrants may somehow fail to understand this. Yet, among those Canadians who value Canadian citizenship are presumably the millions of immigrants who acquired citizenship through an expedited process.

Questionable motives drive changes to Citizenship Act

 

Filed under C-24, Citizenship, Citizenship Act Tagged with ,