Chinese Immigration Act

Chinese labour was instrumental to the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, but after the railroad was completed in 1885, the federal government wanted to restrict new Chinese immigration. They enacted An Act to restrict and regulate Chinese immigration into Canada, imposing a $50 head tax. The head tax was raised to $100 with The Chinese Immigration Act, 1900, and to $500 with the Chinese Immigration Act, 1903. In 2006, the federal government apologized for this discriminatory policy.

In 1885, the federal government decided to pass the Chinese Immigration Act, which put a special $50 head tax on Chinese immigrants in the hopes that this would deter the Chinese from entering Canada. No other ethnic group had to pay this kind of tax at the time. The head tax would increase a number of times in the early 20th century, and would prevent wives and families from joining their husbands or fathers in Canada.

The Chinese Immigration Act of 1900 (which went into effect on January 1, 1902) increased the tax to $100, and finally, in the Chinese Immigration Act of 1903, it was raised to $500. Some Chinese were exempt.

The $500 Head Tax definitely reduced Chinese immigration between early 1904 and late 1906, although the numbers began to recover in 1907.

In 1923, the federal government decided that the $500 head tax was not effective enough, and a new approch to Chinese immigration was necessary. They passed The Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, which excluded practically all Chinese immigration, save a few categories that seen as temporary, and therefore qualifed as “non-immigrants”. This Act was repealed in 1947

British Columbia

In 1897, the British Columbia Legislature passes its own Alien Labour Act excluding Chinese and Japanese. This Act against Chinese and Japanese was disallowed. The British Columbia Legislature again passed a restriction on Chinese and Japanese immigration in 1898, and again it was disallowed.

In 1899, the British Columbia Legislature again requested the federal government to raise the head tax to $500. In the previous three years, an average of 2100 Chinese per year had entered Canada through British Columbia. The British Columbia Legislature pointed out that New Zealand and New South Wales (in Australia) had passed head taxes of $100 and $500 respectively and were allowing only one Chinese per 50 tons of ship’s weight.

Canada’s federal government again disallowed the legislation and advised British Columbia not to put Japanese and Chinese together in their legislation since Canada and Britain had too much trade with Japan. Japanese and Chinese sought to escape legislation directed at them by becoming naturalized.

The British Columbia legislature became determined to continue to pass Oriental legislation until the federal and British authorities “came to their senses”. In response to British Columbia’s Natal Act (a reference to Natal, South Africa, not to birth) which required Oriental immigrants to pass a test to find out if they could read and write English, and which would also prevent Orientals from being naturalized, Prime Minister Laurier introduced a new Immigration Act in 1900. It raised the head tax from $50 to $100 and disallowed British Columbia’s Natal Act. To placate British Columbia, Laurier promised a Royal Commission on Oriental Immigration.

In 1902, the federal government had disallowed 13 British Columbia Oriental bills. In response, the British Columbia legislature re-enacted all 13 of the bills again in 1903. However, when frustrated British Columbians asked Premier James Dunsmuir, whose coal mines benefitted from cheap Chinese labour, to take British Columbia’s concerns to the foot of the British throne at coronation ceremonies for the new King, Dunsmuir refused. In fact, he reacted contemptuously to labour’s requests for higher wages, prohibition of Orientals, union labels on manufactured goods, the 8-hour day, the 6-day week and the abolition of the Senate. He shut down two of his mines.

Law is our Passion

This entry about Chinese Immigration Act has been published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 (CC BY 3.0) licence, which permits unrestricted use and reproduction, provided the author or authors of the Chinese Immigration Act entry and the Encyclopedia of Law are in each case credited as the source of the Chinese Immigration Act entry. Please note this CC BY licence applies to some textual content of Chinese Immigration Act, and that some images and other textual or non-textual elements may be covered by special copyright arrangements. For guidance on citing Chinese Immigration Act (giving attribution as required by the CC BY licence), please see below our recommendation of "Cite this Entry".

• APA
• MLA
• MLA 7
• CHICAGO
• OSCOLA

Usage Metrics

427 Views

Google Scholar: Search for Chinese Immigration Act Related Content

 

Schema Summary

This entry was last updated: November 6, 2014