Head tax remains a painful memory

Toronto Star
October 26, 2005

Head tax remains a painful memory
Immigrants from China had to pay to enter Canada

Groups seeking redress as Ottawa debates legislation

HAROLD LEVY
STAFF REPORTER

For Toronto lawyer Susan Eng, the head tax imposed by the Canadian government on Chinese people entering Canada between 1885 and 1923 is not an arcane historical fact.

It is a nasty reminder of an unabashedly racist law and a festering injustice that goes to the core of her being.

Canada had welcomed more than 10,000 Chinese immigrants when they were needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and 1885. That changed, however, in 1885, soon after the last spike had been driven in the ground, when Ottawa imposed a $50 head tax on all Chinese immigrants in response to widespread anti-Chinese sentiment.

By the time her father Tong, then 16, entered Canada in 1919, the head tax had risen to a prohibitive $500, which Eng says was equal to about two years' pay at the time.

After her father died in 1970, Eng, who had never had a chance to discuss the ugly experience with him, was shocked to discover that he had carried his head-tax certificate in his wallet for five decades. The stamp on the back read: "It is necessary that this certificate be carefully preserved as it is of value as a means of identification."

"He must have felt that he was in the country only by virtue of having paid the tax and that it could be taken away from him at any time," Eng said. Eng is co-chair of a new organization called the Ontario Coalition of Head Tax Payers and Families, which is committed to securing redress for the men's widows and descendants.

Yesterday, the coalition and members of several other community groups -
including the Chinese Canadian National Council, which has been pressing for
redress for more than 20 years - appeared before the House of Commons
Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa.

They are seeking amendments to Bill C-333, a private member's bill sponsored
by Conservative MP Inky Mark (Dauphin-Swan River), which is aimed at
recognizing the injustices done to Chinese immigrants.

Eng said her father also fell prey to the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act,
which was passed in 1923 after the head tax was repealed. The law barred all
but a handful of Chinese immigrants and prevented her father from marrying
and bringing a wife to Canada for almost 25 years, since they were not
allowed to re-enter the country. The law was repealed in 1947.

Her father was one of an estimated 81,000 Chinese immigrants who paid more
than $23 million in total to government coffers after the head tax was
introduced. Today, it's estimated that only four of them, including a
98-year-old man in British Columbia, are left.

The groups that appeared before the committee are particularly concerned
about a provision in the bill that designates a group called the National
Congress of Chinese Canadians, co-chaired by Toronto lawyer Ping Tan, to
negotiate redress with the government.

This concern was reflected in a submission to the committee by the Metro
Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic: "The selection of this
organization, as opposed to groups representing the head-tax payers and
families themselves ... is a slap in the face to those for whom this bill is
intended to honour and recognize."

Eng said she is "extremely disturbed" by the provision.

"The government says it will only negotiate with groups that accept its
condition of no apology and no financial compensation," she said. "It seems
the government only wants to negotiate with a voice that agrees with them."