Compensation demanded for head tax descendants too

(CBC) - Edmonton descendants of Chinese immigrants who paid a head tax to Canada between 1885 and 1923 want to be added to the list of those receiving compensation.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a formal apology in the House of Commons on Thursday, saying "the government of Canada recognizes the stigma and exclusion" the tax represented.

He also promised "symbolic payments" to immigrants who paid the head tax and their widows. The payments are expected to be $20,000.

Only about 30 immigrants who paid and several hundred widows of payers are still alive. In Edmonton, approximately 100 families are related to the men who paid that head tax.

Phil Kwan, whose father paid the head tax, said descendants like him should also receive payments.

Affording the head tax was difficult for his family, he recalled.

"We only got enough food for nine months. The other three months we had to suffer in hunger. So when we were young, we went to sleep with half empty stomachs," he said.

John Yee, whose father also paid the head tax, said the fight for redress has lasted too long.

"How many tax payers and spouses have passed away since? So how much money has the government saved in that last 20 years, in reality?"

Calgary resident Lyn Chow, whose father also paid the head tax, applauded Harper, arguing that hearing the government's apology was more important than the promise of money.

However, he said the money should be spent collectively.

"That's a lot of money," he said. "If you put it in a trust fund you could do some big things with it. You could build a Chinese museum, a Chinese school, or fund Chinese cultural activity."

An estimated 80,000 Chinese immigrants paid the tax, which was intended to deter Chinese immigration after Chinese workers helped build the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885.

The tax started at $50 per person in 1885 and rose to $500 per person in 1903, equal to as much as two years' salary.

After it was withdrawn in 1923, the head tax was replaced by the Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the country altogether until 1947.

In a journey dubbed the "Redress Express," about 100 people, including some who paid the head tax and their families, boarded a train in Vancouver last week to travel to Ottawa to hear the apology.

In 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney apologized to Japanese-Canadians for their internment during the Second World War.

© the CBC, 2006