Chinese Immigration to Canada

S. ToddCHC 2DI

“The Chinaman has no common interest with us, and while he gives us labour, he is paid for it…he has no British instincts and ought not to have a vote.”-Sir John A. Macdonald(Canada House of Commons Debate, 1885)

Clifford Sifton• Clifford Sifton was the Immigration

Minister and he was largely responsible for the increase in immigration to Canada during the years 1896-1905

• Needed to fill the west in order to add to the production of the country, solve the “railway problem” and help pay the national debt. The government offered free homesteads to applicants who qualified

• Many Chinese Canadians came to Canada after the gold rush in California hoping to find gold and a new life in B.C• Many were merchants, prospectors,

servants• Many Chinese sent their wages back

to China to support families and save for the “Head Tax”

The Railway

• Chinese labour was needed in order to build the railway and without their labour the railway would not have been built

• considered cheap labour• performed the most dangerous and difficult

jobs - handled all explosives needed for laying track; essentially cleared the way for the white men to perform their jobs

• For every mile of track laid, one Chinese person died

Discrimination and the “Head Tax”

• In 1884, the government looked into the “Chinese problem”• Felt that there were too many

Chinese in Canada and it was losing its British identity• Solution: Tax the Chinese just for

being Chinese

Head Tax Rates• 1885 = $50/year• 1900 = $100/year• 1903 = $500/year• In 1923 the government passed the Chinese

Exclusion Act which completely “closed the door” on any immigrants coming from China

• Chinese immigrants were the ONLY immigrants that faced such a tax or an exclusion law on the Chinese

• In 1892, there was a smallpox outbreak in Calgary which the whites blamed on the Chinese

-quarantined and later, many were hunted by mobs• By 1912, Saskatchewan passed a law that made

it an offence to frequent any business operated by “any Oriental person”

1947• -Chinese Canadians finally granted the right to

vote and receive Canadian citizenship