Head-tax payer quoted

by Charlie Smith
Georgia Straight - October 27, 2005

Vancouver human-rights activist Sid Tan has brought a message from one of
the country's last remaining head-tax payers before a parliamentary
committee. Tan, spokesperson for the Association of Chinese Canadians for
Equality and Solidarity Society, appeared before the Canadian Heritage
committee on October 24 to criticize a private member's bill on redress.

During his presentation, Tan read from a letter written to the prime
minister by Charlie Quon, a 98-year-old head-tax payer living in Vancouver.
In the letter, Quon said that the $500 head tax he paid to the federal
government in 1923 was discriminatory. The same year, Parliament introduced
a law that virtually banned Chinese immigration until 1947.

"For the Lo Wah Kiu, July 1, 1923, then Dominion Day and now Canada Day, was
referred to as Humiliation Day because that was the day Chinese exclusion
became law," Tan said, according to a text of his remarks that he sent to
the Straight.

Bill C-333 specifies that Ottawa negotiate an agreement with the National
Congress of Chinese Canadians, which opposes compensation for head-tax
payers and for their descendants. Tan told the committee that his group and
the BC Coalition of Head-Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants demand direct
redress and an apology.