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History of immigration

There has been a significant history of Chinese immigration to Canada, with the outset settlement of Chinese people in Canada being in the 1780s.^[i] The major periods of Chinese clearing would accept identify from 1858 to 1923 and 1947 to the present day, reflecting changes in the Canadian authorities'south immigration policy.

Chinese immigrants were originally considered an expendable source of cheap labour due to their economic depression and acceptance of death from Canadian employers. Between 1880 and 1885, the chief work for Chinese labourers in Canada was on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).^[one]

Nootka Sound, 1770s [edit]

In 1788, some 120 Chinese contract labourers arrived at Nootka Audio, Vancouver Island.^[i] ^[2] ^: 312 British fur trader John Meares recruited an initial grouping of 50 sailors and artisans from Canton (Guangzhou) and Macao, Prc, hoping to build a trading post and encourage trade in bounding main otter pelts between Nootka Sound and Canton.^[1] At Nootka Audio, the Chinese workers built a dockyard, a fort, and a sailing ship, named the North Due west America. Regarding this journey and the future prospects of Chinese settlement in colonial North America, Meares wrote:

The Chinese were, on this occasion, shipped equally an experiment: they have generally been esteemed as hardy, and industrious, as well every bit the ingenious race of people; they alive on fish and rice, and requiring low wages, it was actually not a matter likewise of economic consideration to employing them; and during the whole of the voyage there was every reason to be satisfied with their services. If trading posts should exist established on the American declension, a colony of these men would be a very valuable acquisition.

—John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the Northward West Declension of America ^[iii] ^: 2

The next year, Meares had some other seventy Chinese brought in from Canton. However, shortly afterward the arrival of this second group, the settlement was seized by the Spanish in what became known as the Nootka Crisis. Seeking to establish a trade monopoly on the W Coast, the Spanish imprisoned the Chinese men.^[1] It is unclear what became of them,^[two] ^: 312 but likely some returned to China while others were put to work in a nearby mine^[4] ^: 196 and later on taken to Mexico.^[v] ^: 106 No other Chinese people are known to have arrived in western North America until the gold blitz of the 1850s.

Gold Rush, 1858 [edit]

The Chinese starting time appeared in large numbers in the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1858 as part of a huge migration from California during the Fraser Canyon Gold Blitz in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia. Although the first wave arrived in May from California, news of the gilt blitz eventually attracted many Chinese from Red china. As result, Barkerville, British Columbia—located in the Cariboo—became Canada'south commencement Chinese customs,^[1] where more than than one-half of the town's population was estimated to be Chinese. Several other BC towns also had meaning Chinatowns, including Richfield, Stanley, Van Winkle, Quesnellemouthe (modern-day Quesnel), Antler, and Quesnelle Forks.^[6] ^[seven]

Omineca Miner Ah Hoo at Germansens Landing in 1913. Many Chinese remained in the province's Interior and North long later on the gold rushes. Some towns such as Stanley were predominantly Chinese for many years, while in the Fraser Canyon and even more remote areas such as the Omineca, Chinese miners stayed on to mine claims in wilderness areas.

In the goldfields, Chinese mining techniques and knowledge turned in to be meliorate than those of other miners. They employed hydraulic techniques, such as the use of 'rockers', and a technique whereby blankets were used to filter alluvial sand and and so burned, resulting in the gold melting into lumps in the burn down. In the Fraser Coulee, Chinese miners stayed on long subsequently all others had left for the Cariboo Gilt Blitz or other goldfields elsewhere in BC or the U.s.. They continued hydraulic mining and farming, and owned the majority of land in the Fraser and Thompson canyons for many years afterward.

There was no shortage of successful Chinese miners: by 1860, the Chinese population of Vancouver Island and British Columbia was estimated to be 7,000.^[1] Moreover, Lillooet'southward Chinatown lasted until the 1930s.^[six] ^[7]

Immigration for the railway, 1871–82 [edit]

When British Columbia agreed to bring together Confederation in 1871, one of its atmospheric condition was that the Dominion government build a railway linking BC to Eastern Canada within x years. British Columbian politicians and their electorate agitated for a settlement-clearing program for workers from the British Isles to provide this railway labor; even so, Prime number Minister John A. Macdonald, along with investors and other Canadian politicians, said such would be too expensive.

In opposition, notwithstanding, the Workingmen's Protective Association was established in 1878 in Victoria with the following purpose:

The objects of this society shall exist the mutual protection of the working classes of British Columbia against the great influx of Chinese; to use all legitimate means for the suppression of their immigration; to assist each other in the obtaining of employment, and to devise ways for the amelioration of the condition of the working classes of the Province in general.^[viii]

Insisting that the projection cut costs by employing Chinese workers to build the railway, Prime number Minister MacDonald told Parliament in 1882: "It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you tin't accept the railway."^[ix]

In 1880, Andrew Onderdonk—an American who was one of the chief construction contractors in British Columbia for the Canadian Pacific Railway—originally recruited Chinese laborers from California. When near of them deserted the railway workings for the more lucrative goldfields, Onderdonk and his agents signed several agreements with Chinese contractors in Red china'south Guangdong province and Taiwan, every bit well every bit via Chinese companies in Victoria.^{[ citation needed ]} These Chinese railway workers would be hired for the 200 miles of the CPR considered to be among the more difficult segments of the projected railway, peculiarly the area that goes through the Fraser Coulee.^{[ citation needed ]}

Chinese-Canadian labor was characterized by low wages (commonly receiving less than fifty% of what Caucasian workers were paid for the aforementioned work) and loftier levels of volatility.^[1] Through Onderdonk's contracts, more than 5,000 laborers were sent as "guest workers" from Communist china by ship, in add-on to over 7,000 Chinese railway workers from California whom Onderdonk besides recruited. These two groups of workers, who were willing to accept $ane a twenty-four hours for their labor, were the main force for the building of Onderdonk's seven% of the railway'southward mileage.

Between 1880 and 1885, 17,000 Chinese laborers completed the British Columbia section of the CPR, with more than 700 perishing due to bloodcurdling working conditions.^[1] Every bit was the case with non-Chinese workers, some of the laborers fell ill during construction, or died while planting explosives or in other structure accidents.^{[ citation needed ]}

Every bit with railway workers on other parts of the line in the Prairies and Northern Ontario, most of the Chinese workers lived in sail tents.^{[ citation needed ]} These tents were often dangerous and did not provide acceptable protection against falling rocks or severe weather in areas of steep terrain. Such tents were typical of working-class accommodations on the frontier for all immigrant workers although (non-Chinese) foremen, shift bosses, and trained railwaymen recruited from the UK were housed in sleeping cars and railway-built houses in Yale and the other railway towns. Chinese railway workers also established transient Chinatowns along the rail line, with housing at the largest consisting of log-houses half dug into the ground, which was a common housing fashion for natives likewise as other frontier settlers, because of the insulating effect of the footing in an area of extreme temperatures.^{[ citation needed ]}

Largely because of the Trans-Canada railway, Chinese communities adult beyond the nation, with the vast majority of Chinese Canadians lived in British Columbia during the 1880s.^[ane]

After completion of the CPR 1885–1947 [edit]

From the completion of the CPR to the end of the Exclusion Era (1923–1947), Chinese in Canada lived in mainly a "bachelors of the haversack society" since most Chinese families could not pay the expensive head tax to send their daughters to Canada. Chinese settlers began moving eastward later the completion of the CPR, although Chinese numbers in BC continued to grow.^{[ commendation needed ]}

As with many other groups of immigrants, the Chinese initially found it hard to adjust and assimilate into life in Canada. Equally a issue, they formed ethnic enclaves known as "Chinatowns" where they could live aslope fellow Chinese immigrants, with the vast majority of Chinese Canadians lived in BC during the 1880s.^[1] ^[x] Originally, the Chinese were often stereotyped every bit sojourners, meaning temporary. Peculiarly during the 19th century, the white club in British Columbia perceived the Chinese as people who could not be assimilated.^[1] In 1885, the Qing Dynasty Consul General Huang Zunxian told a Royal Commission on Chinese Clearing:

[I]t is charged that the Chinese do not emigrate to foreign countries to remain, just but to earn a sum of money and return to their homes in China. It is simply about thirty years since our people commenced emigrating to other lands. A large number take gone to the Straits' Settlements, Manila, Cochin Prc, and the West India Islands, and are permanently settled there with their families. In Cuba, fully seventy-five percent accept married native women and adopted those Islands as their futurity homes. Many of those living in the Sandwich Islands take done the same... You must recollect that the Chinese immigrant coming to this country is denied all the rights and privileges extended to others in the way of citizenship; the laws compel them to remain aliens. I know a great many Chinese will be glad to remain here permanently with their families if they are allowed to be naturalized and can enjoy privileges and rights.^[1]

By 1886, the population of Victoria Chinatown had increased tenfold from the completion of the CPR to over 17,000;^[eight] and at the plow of the 20th century, there were 17,312 Chinese settlers in Canada.^[one] By the 1940s, almost 50% of the Chinese-Canadian population lived on the West Coast.^[1] Until the 1960s, there were no pregnant populations of Chinese in any other province.^{[ citation needed ]}

Immigration Acts and Exclusion Era, 1885–1947 [edit]

In 1885, the Government of Canada passed The Chinese Clearing Deed, 1885, levying a 'Head Revenue enhancement' of $50 on any Chinese coming to Canada, thereby making Chinese people the merely indigenous group to pay a tax in order to enter Canada.^[i] What'south more is that, well before the 1885 Deed, a series of Chinese taxation acts were passed in British Columbia.^[11] After the 1885 legislation failed to deter Chinese immigration, the Canadian government passed the Chinese Immigration Human action, 1900 to increase the taxation to $100. The Chinese had no choice but to pay it even though information technology was worth ii years' salary of a railway worker.

Chinese Consolidated Chivalrous Association, 1885 [edit]

Soon afterward, Chinese merchants among larger Chinese communities formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA),^[1] which was registered as a charitable organization in Baronial 1884, just effectively served equally an "internal authoritative institution" in the Chinese-Canadian community.^[eight] The CCBA opened their get-go branch in Victoria in 1885 and a second in Vancouver in 1895. The Clan was mandatory for all Chinese in the area to join and would do everything from representing members in legal disputes to sending the remains of members who died back to their bequeathed homelands in Prc.^{[ citation needed ]}

Huang Zunxian, the Chinese Consulate in San-Francisco, played an integral role in the establishment of CCBA:

Now the Honorable Huang Zun Xian permitted to forward our case to the Chinese Ambassador to England to ship over again an official protest to the British Regime. He also instructed that we heighten funds, firstly, to rent lawyers for the instance, and secondly, to be prepared for the establishment of The Chinese Consolidated Chivalrous Association. This Chinese representative body could, therefore, address all the issues concerning the Westerners, and do benignancy past taking care of the ill and the poor Chinese.^[12] ^[8]

With the large extent of discriminatory legislation against Chinese immigrants, CCBA worked actively in seeking external support, for instance, past sending letters to the Chinese Administrator to England and the Chinese Foreign Government minister, too as corresponding with the Chinese Consul in San-Francisco. CCBA would also send petitions to local administrations. In 1909, in response to the City of Victoria's policy of segregating Chinese children in public schools, CCBA constructed the Chinese Public School.^[8]

In improver, during the early 20th century, congenial-political associations such as the Guomindang and the Freemasons were involved in Chinatown politics and community issues, adjudicating disputes inside the community and speaking for the community to the non-Chinese earth.^[one] After legislation in 1896 that stripped Chinese of voting rights in municipal elections in BC, Chinese people in BC became completely disenfranchised. The elector's list in federal elections came from the provincial elector's list, and the provincial ones came from the municipal ane.^[13]

Purple Commission and Chinese professions, 1902–07 [edit]

In 1902, the federal government appointed a Regal Committee on Chinese and Japanese Clearing, which ended that "the Chinese are more unhealthy as a class than the same class of white people," and that they were "unfit for full citizenship...obnoxious to a gratis community and dangerous to the state."^[1] Through the Chinese Immigration Act, 1903, the Government would further increase the landing fees to $500 (equivalent to CA$ten,336.27 in 2021)^[14] following demand past B.C. politicians.^[ane] Following the 1903 legislation of $500, the number of Chinese who paid the fee in the get-go fiscal year dropped from 4,719 to 8.^[1]

In addition to federal legislation, municipal ordinances restricted employment opportunities.^[xv] In BC, Chinese professionals were prohibited from practicing such professions as constabulary, pharmacy, and accountancy. During the adjacent 40 years after 1885, following the completion of the CPR, Chinese persons became involved in the labor behind an industrializing economy. With legislation banning Chinese from many professions, Chinese entered those that not-Chinese Canadians did not desire to exercise, such as laundry shops or salmon processing. Skilled or semi-skilled, Chinese Canadians labored in British Columbia sawmills and canneries; others became market gardeners or grocers, pedlars, shopkeepers, and restaurateurs.^[1] A "credit-ticket" arrangement evolved in this time whereby Chinese lenders in China or North America would agree to pay the travel expenses of a migrant who was then bound to the lender until the debt was repaid, despite the fact that such contracts would not be legally enforceable in Canada.^[i] Chinese workers opened grocery stores and restaurants that served the whole population, including non-Chinese, and Chinese cooks became the mainstay in the restaurant and hotel industries too every bit in private service.^[15] Chinese success at market place gardening led to a continuing prominent function in the produce industry in British Columbia. Ethnic discrimination was rampant during these times, as evidenced past big-scale Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver in 1907.

Exclusion Act, 1923 [edit]

The Chinese Clearing Act, 1923, better known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, replaced prohibitive fees with an outright ban on Chinese immigration to Canada with the exceptions of merchants, diplomats, students, and "special circumstances" cases. (Indigenous Chinese people with British nationality were also restricted from entering Canada.)^[1] The Chinese who entered Canada prior to 1924 had to annals with the local government and could go out Canada but for two years or less.

Just before the enactment of the Exclusion Human action, the Chinese Clan of Canada went to Ottawa to lobby against the pecker.^[ane] Since the Human activity went into upshot on 1 July 1923, Chinese people at the time referred to Dominion Day as "' Humiliation Day" and refused to celebrate Rule Day until after the act was repealed in 1947.^[1] Vancouver's Chinatown during the exclusion era became a thriving economical and social destination that was home to many Chinese Canadians on the Due west Declension.^[ane]

The discriminatory laws also gave mode to a gender imbalance among Chinese immigrants. Primarily due to the caput tax, the cost of bringing a dependent, such as a wife or aged parents, to Canada became prohibitive. As such, Chinese men typically came solitary, living as bachelors in Canada. In 1886, at that place were only 119 females among a total population of 1680;^[16] ^[8] in 1931, only 3,648 were women among a total Chinese population of 46,519. A survey was washed in 1922 past Republican Cathay'south Overseas Chinese Bureau showed that, among Victoria Chinatown'due south whole population of 3,681, only 456 were females.^[17] In the late 1920s, it was estimated that there were only 5 married Chinese women in Calgary and 6 in Edmonton.^[1]

World War Two, 1939–45 [edit]

Later on Canada entered World War II on 10 September 1939, Chinese communities greatly contributed to Canada'due south war effort, mainly in an effort to persuade Canada to intervene confronting Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese State of war, which had started in 1937 (although Canada did not declare state of war on Japan until the set on on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941). The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association requested its members to buy Canadian and Chinese state of war bonds and to boycott Japanese goods.

Mail service-state of war period, 1947–99 [edit]

With the Exclusion Human activity of 1923 beingness repealed in 1947, the majority of immigrants in Canada emigrated from the Communist china, including Hong Kong, and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Other Chinese immigrants take come from South asia, Southeast Asia, South Africa, the Caribbean, and South America.^[one] From 1947 to the early 1970s, Chinese immigrants to Canada came more often than not from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia.^[one] Besides post-obit the abolishment of the Exclusion Act, Chinese-Canadians gained the vote federally and provincially in 1947.^[1]

The experiences of the Holocaust made racial discrimination confronting Chinese-Canadians unacceptable in Canada, at least from the standpoint of government policy.^{[ commendation needed ]} With the aim of defeating Nazism and its extreme discrimination, Canada could not maintain its racial legislation without looking hypocritical. Moreover, with Chinese Canadian contributions in World State of war II, and also because the anti-Chinese legislation violated the United nations Charter, the government of Canada repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and gave Chinese Canadians full citizenship rights in 1947. Chinese immigration, withal, was limited only to the spouse of a Chinese who had Canadian citizenship and his dependants.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China (China) in October 1949 and its support for the communist North in the Korean State of war, Chinese in Canada faced another wave of resentment, as Chinese were viewed every bit communist agents from the Red china. Moreover, those from mainland Communist china who were eligible in the family unit reunification program had to visit the Canadian High Committee in Hong Kong, as Canada and the PRC did non have diplomatic relations until 1970.

Chinese Aligning Argument Program and other policies, 1960–73 [edit]

In 1959, the Section of Citizenship and Immigration discovered a trouble with clearing papers used by Chinese immigrants to enter Canada, and the Regal Canadian Mounted Constabulary were brought in to investigate. Apparently, some Chinese had been inbound Canada by purchasing real or fake birth certificates of Chinese-Canadian children bought and sold in Hong Kong. These children carrying false identity papers were referred to equally paper sons. In response, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Ellen Fairclough appear the "Chinese Adjustment Statement Program" on 9 June 1960, which granted amnesty for newspaper sons or daughters if they confessed to the government. As a result, almost 12,000 paper sons came forward, until the immunity catamenia concluded in Oct 1973.

Independent Chinese immigration in Canada came after Canada eliminated race and the "place of origin" department from its immigration policy in 1967. Iv years later, in 1971, an official policy of multiculturalism was implemented in efforts to tackle institutional racism.

Many Chinese besides enlisted in the Canadian forces, despite Ottawa and the BC government being unwilling to ship Chinese-Canadian recruits into action, since they did non want Chinese to ask for enfranchisement afterwards the war. However, with xc,000 British troops captured in the Battles of Malaya and Singapore in February 1942, Ottawa decided to send Chinese-Canadian forces in as spies to train the local guerrillas to resist the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1944. These spies were nevertheless little more than a token gesture, as the event of Globe War II had been more or less decided by that time.

Late 1970s [edit]

A turning point for Chinese in Canada was an incident in September 1979 involving a W5 feature report, which stated that foreign Chinese were taking abroad opportunities from Canadian citizens for university educations. In response, Chinese communities nationwide united to fight anti-Chinese sentiments.

The report, suggesting that there were 100,000 strange students, featured a girl complaining that her loftier marks had non allowed her into the University of Toronto'due south chemist's program because seats had been taken up by foreign students.^[18]

The data used in the report, nonetheless, proved inaccurate. The Canadian Agency for International Education revealed that there were only 55,000 strange students in Canada at all levels of educational activity, and but xx,000 full-time foreign university students.^[18] Historian Anthony B. Chan devoted an entire chapter of his 1983 book Aureate Mount to the incident, and found that, reverse to the claims of the prospective chemist's student, there were no foreign students in Toronto's programme that year.^[18] Chan emphasized the anger that the Chinese-Canadian customs had about the images of anonymous Chinese people in the feature was considering they felt the "implication was that all students of Chinese origin were foreigners, and that Canadian taxpayers were subsidizing Chinese students—regardless of citizenship."^[18]

Chinese communities nationwide staged protests confronting CTV Television, the network that airs W5.^[eighteen] Initially, CTV would only offering a "statement of regret" but the protests continued until an apology was fabricated in 1980. Network executive Murray Chercover acknowledged the inaccuracy of a cracking bargain of the program's information, adding that the network "sincerely repent[south] for the fact Chinese-Canadians were depicted as foreigners, and for whatsoever distress this stereotyping may have caused them in the context of our multicultural gild."^[18] The protesters met in Toronto in 1980 and agreed to form the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) to improve represent Chinese Canadians on a national level.

1980s–90s [edit]

The 1980s saw movement of Chinese in Canada from the ethnic enclaves of Chinatowns to outlying suburbs of major Canadian cities. This movement was seen by some every bit changing the fabric of some communities with the establishment of new ethnic enclaves, commercial areas, and employ of Chinese-language signage. Carole Bell, Deputy Mayor of Markham, Ontario, expressed that the overwhelming Chinese presence in the urban center was causing other residents to move out of Markham. Additionally during the 1980s, local communities in Toronto and Vancouver have defendant the Chinese immigrants for hyperinflating property prices.

During the mid-1980s and early on 1990s, Canada's recession and growth of the Chinese economy resulted in a shift in Chinese migration in Canada. Attracted by the employment opportunities dorsum dwelling, some newer immigrants moved back, with many retaining their Canadian citizenship.^{[ citation needed ]} This resulted in the phenomenon of astronaut families, whereby the husband, existence the coin-earner, would only visit Canada in one case or twice a year, ordinarily during Dec or the summertime months, merely the residual of his family would live in Canada.

The Chinese community besides sought redress for past injustices washed against them. Since the early 1980s, there has been a campaign to redress the Head Tax paid by Chinese entering Canada from 1885 to 1923, led by the CCNC. All the same, the movement did not gather enough back up to be noticed by the government until the 1990s. Even so, the government was largely resistant to the calls of apologizing and refunding the head tax to the payers or their descendants. Canadian courts also ruled that while the government had no legal obligation to redress the head revenue enhancement, it had a moral obligation to do so. The Liberal governments of the 1990s adopted the position of "no amends, no bounty" as the basis of negotiating with the Chinese groups and were criticized for stonewalling the Chinese community.^{[ citation needed ]}

Immigrants from Hong Kong, tardily 1990s [edit]

With the political uncertainties every bit Hong Kong headed towards 1997, many residents of Hong Kong chose to emigrate to Canada, as information technology was relatively easier for them to enter the country due to their Democracy of Nations connections.^{[ commendation needed ]} It was too relatively easier for Hong Kongers to migrate to Canada than to the US, as the latter set fixed quotas for different nationalities, while Canada ran on a "points" organization, allowing immigrants to arrive if they accept desirable factors such as graduate degrees, training, funds to start new businesses and language abilities.

According to statistics compiled by the Canadian Consulate in Hong Kong, from 1991 to 1996, "about 30,000 Hong Kongers emigrated annually to Canada, comprising over one-half of all Hong Kong emigration and most xx% of the full number of immigrants to Canada." The great majority of these people settled in the Toronto and Vancouver areas, as there are well-established Chinese communities in those cities. Afterwards the Handover, there was a sharp refuse in immigration numbers, possibly indicating a smooth transition towards political stability. In the years to come up, the unemployment and underemployment of many Hong Kong immigrants in Canada prompted a stream of returning migrants.^{[ citation needed ]}

Immigration in the 21st century [edit]

Today, Communist china has taken over from Hong Kong equally the largest source of Chinese clearing. A corking number of immigrants have been Cantonese speakers, and a asymmetric representation of Cantonese over other Chinese immigrants is prevalent in many Chinese communities in Canada. The Peoples Republic of Prc (PRC) has besides taken over from all countries and regions as the country sending the most immigrants to Canada.

According to statistics from Citizenship and Clearing Canada (CIC), between 1999 and 2009 the largest number of immigrants to Canada came from the China.^[one] CIC statistics for 2002 showed that the Canadian immigrants from the PRC averaged well over xxx,000 immigrants per yr, totaling an average of fifteen% of all immigrants to Canada. This trend showed no sign of slowing down, with an all-time high of 42,295 reached in 2005.^[nineteen] Past 2010, 36,580 immigrants from the Philippines surpassed the thirty,195 from the PRC. Filipinos retained their condition every bit the number one immigrant group to Canada in 2011 with 34,991. The Prc lagged behind with 28,696.^[1]

Chinese-Canadians take become more involved in politics, both provincially and federally. Douglas Jung (1957–1962)^[one] not only became the first Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) of Chinese and Asian descent in the House of Commons, just as well the beginning fellow member of a visible minority elected to the Parliament of Canada. In 1993, Raymond Chan became the first ethnic Chinese to exist appointed into the cabinet, after winning the riding of Richmond in the 1993 federal election. Many Chinese-Canadians have run for function in subsequent federal elections:^[1]

after two failed attempts, New Democratic Political party candidate Olivia Grub (married woman of NDP leader Jack Layton) was elected in the 2006 federal election, representing the riding of Trinity—Spadina;
Alan Lowe became the get-go Chinese-Canadian Mayor of Victoria BC (1999–2008);
Ida Chong was a Saanich municipal councilor in the Victoria BC region earlier being elected in 2001 every bit a BC provincial cabinet minister in Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell's assistants;
the Bloc Québécois had an ethnic-Chinese candidate, May Chiu, running in the riding of LaSalle—Émard against Liberal Political party leader Paul Martin during the 2006 election;
Philip Lee became the first Asian Lieutenant-Governor in Manitoba;
Norman Kwong, Canada's first professional person Chinese-Canadian football player, also became Alberta's outset Chinese Lieutenant-Governor.

Because of the influx of Chinese emigrants from the global diaspora, community organizations reflecting Chinese people from Cuba, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Republic of peru, and so on, take established a considerable presence in Canada. Immigrants from the People's republic of china have organized into many associations. The Chinese Professionals Association of Canada (CPAC) reported having a membership of over thirty,000 in 2019. In terms of pedagogy, the Chinese Canadian Historical Lodge of British Columbia was created in 2004 to educate the full general public well-nigh Chinese people in Canada; the University of Toronto'southward Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library is a dedicated resource heart for Chinese-Canadian studies; the Toronto-based Chinese Culture and Pedagogy Order of Canada teaches Chinese and aims to develop education and cultural exchanges between Canada and Cathay.^[1]

Apology and redress, 2004–06 [edit]

As the nature of parliament headed towards a minority situation, all political parties needed votes from all sectors of the Canadian electorates. During the 2004 federal election campaign, NDP leader Jack Layton pledged to event an apology and bounty for the Exclusion-Era head taxation. After the 2006 ballot, the newly elected Conservative Political party indicated in its Throne Speech that it would provide a formal apology and appropriate redress to families affected by racist policies of the by. Information technology concluded a serial of National Consultations across Canada in 2006, from April 21–30, in Halifax, Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal, and Winnipeg.

The Liberal Party, who lost the 2006 ballot (as the outgoing government) inverse their positions and were defendant of "flip-flopping" on the upshot during the election campaign too equally being questioned about their sincerity. Many Chinese, particularly the surviving head-revenue enhancement payers and their descendants take criticized Raymond Chan, the Chinese-Canadian chiffonier government minister who was left in charge of settling the affair, for compromising the Chinese customs in favour of the government and misleading the public.^{[ citation needed ]}

On 22 June 2006, Prime number Minister Stephen Harper delivered a bulletin of redress in the House of Commons, offering an apology in Cantonese and compensation for the caput taxation in one case paid by Chinese immigrants. Survivors or their spouses were paid approximately $20,000 CAD in compensation. Although their children will non be offered this payment, Chinese Canadian leaders like Joseph Wong regarded information technology as an important and significant motility in Chinese Canadian history.^{[ citation needed ]} There were well-nigh 20 people who paid the tax still alive in 2006.^[20] ^[21] ^[22]

The Chinese Canadian Community circa 2021

In modern Canada, Chinese Canadian immigrants tend to exist treated as if they belong to a single cultural or ethnic customs with common interests and common spokesmen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Communist china, like India, is not i homogeneous nation, rather it is a federation of equally many nations as make upwards Western Europe, each with populations in the hundreds of millions and traditionally speaking distinctive languages which, while often mutually unintelligible in speech, are mutually intelligible when written, thanks to a unique innovation made by an early Qin emperor. In the interests of nation building, the current authorities is hastening the demise of these languages in favour of the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Members of each of these different nations emigrated at different times, and in numbers completely asymmetric to their relative numbers in China. So from an ethno-cultural point of view, treating all of these groups as i, called Chinese-Canadians, who somehow reflect the makeup of modern China, is coordinating to treating Canadians of French, Castilian, Latin American, Portuguese and Italian heritage, every bit one grouping that reverberate modern Europe. I hears the term "Han Chinese" used as a racial indicator of "true" Chinese vs Mongolian, Manchurian, Tibetan, or other subgroups of people who have inhabited or even ruled big parts of Communist china historically. That term could be interpreted equally being analogous to "Western European" when used to describe the racial groups that make up Eurasia.

The imperative to immigrate from China was different for different groups at different times, so the composition of the Canadian population of Chinese descent bears analyzing from the perspective of when they came to Canada. This will likewise explicate how and how much Chinese Canadians as a group differ from Chinese in China.

The initial migrations (1850 - 1923) were from the poorest classes of China who were willing to accept the risk, pay the Head Revenue enhancement, and put in the hard work in search of economical survival and then prosperity. In the Nineteenth Century, the poorest migratory groups lived in the uttermost south of China, hence formed the emigrating classes. Those from Fujian province and south declension groups such every bit the Hakka migrated primarily s w to Southeast Asia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam (more than about them later), and fifty-fifty across the Indian Ocean to South Africa through British Empire connections. The group that colonized North America, both Canada and the US, during the Gold Rushes and railroad building years, were largely from rural villages in the hilly counties (the "Four Counties", Sze Yap in Wade–Giles Cantonese, Xi Yi in Pinyin Standard mandarin) to the westward of Guangzhou (Canton), who were speakers of a sister language of Cantonese called Toi-san (Tai Shan in Pinyin). This group came to North America largely with the intent of sending money dwelling house to amass plenty for a comfortable retirement, since they were quickly denied political, familial migratory, educational and economic rights in Canada. With the passage of the restrictive travel and family unit unification laws, the society in Canada was overwhelmingly a bachelor one interspersed with 2 year long conjugal visits if affluent enough. The relatively few women and families were even so enough to establish modest communities of Canadian born Chinese, and their descendants can merits up to 5 and six generations of existence Canadian built-in. Toisan-ese was the main spoken language of North American Chinatowns until well after the Second World State of war (1960's). 1 marvel of this group is that Canadian immigration officials of the Victorian era did not realize that Chinese three syllable names start with the surname, with a generational proper name in the eye, and the given name at the end. So official English names were often registered backwards (eg) Wong Wai Kwong, who in Canada is known as Mr. W. W. Kwong, but in China is Mr. Wong, and belongs to the Wong family association. Also, names that were Anglicized in this era used the Wade–Giles phonetic organization, with the upshot of names spelled Lee, Wong and Chan, instead of the Pinyin system adopted by the People'due south Commonwealth of China which would Anglicize those same names equally Li, Huang and Jian.

Afterwards 1947 and the loosening of restrictions to Chinese immigration, family reunification commenced and continued for the next four decades. But because of identify-of-origin restrictions, immigration from China would remain express until the immigration policy change of 1967. While the US saw the influx of Mandarin speaking Nationalist Chinese allies after the Communist victory in China in 1949, Chinese Canadians remained overwhelmingly of Toisanese descent. A few politically connected Standard mandarin speakers, likewise as Shanghainese speakers from the concern capital of China, and Cantonese speakers from the British colony of Hong Kong, came to Canada in those years, but non in as great numbers. In Canadian immigration statistics, all would be listed every bit simply Chinese.

In the 1960s, People's republic of china rationed water to Hong Kong as it flexed its muscles to remind the Uk that the charter would be upwardly in 1997, precipitating the next chapter in Chinese immigration to Canada, merely this time by urban Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong. This grouping was mostly well educated, entrepreneurial, and more affluent, compared to the uneducated hard working labourers of a century earlier. Old downtown Toisanese Chinatowns were superseded by new suburban Cantonese speaking ones, and the affluence of the Cantonese migrants was felt in business and property development. Over a decade or ii, Cantonese speakers became more numerous than Toisanese speakers, most of whose descendants had become English speakers. This was also the era of "astronaut" families, where wives and/or children were settled in Canada merely businessmen stayed in Hong Kong due to more favourable business and tax laws. During the latter years of the 20th century, Cantonese speakers, despite existence 5% of Chinese in China, constituted the majority of Chinese Canadians.

People of Chinese descent also immigrated to Canada after having spent many years or generations in many other countries. For example, in 1979 and 1980, ethnic Chinese who had immigrated to Vietnam over preceding centuries were forced to flee Vietnam and tens of thousands arrived in Canada during those years as refugees known as the "boat people", not to exist confused with ethnic Vietnamese refugees who came earlier after the end of the Vietnam State of war. During the Apartheid Era in South Africa, South Africans of Chinese descent came to Canada. Surnames from this group tin sometimes be identified because the immigration officials in Southward Africa in bygone days registered their Anglicized names using ii or all three of the Chinese names, resulting in polysyllabic surnames.

Information technology is worth emphasizing that none of the foregoing immigrants nor their descendants ever lived in Communist china, nor under whatsoever Communist government. Most came to Canada by option and became productive Canadians. Most of their descendants fully embraced and integrated with Canadian upstanding, cultural and social mores. Historically, these Canadian Chinese were often fleeing the government of China at the time, equally in the anti-Qing dynasty supporters of the nineteenth century, or refugees from Communism in 1949

The most current wave of Chinese immigration, since the turn of the century, have been Mandarin speakers who were born and raised in the People's Republic of China. It is probably redundant to point out that this well-nigh recent group has very little in common with the previously discussed groups, in fact could be treated as a completely separate ethnic group. The Anglicization of their names will apply the Pinyin system, and volition have Mandarin pronunciation (eg) Sung vs Song or Soong, of Jian vs Chan. Nevertheless, Mandarin speakers from Taiwan, which make up yet some other group of Chinese Canadians, will spell their names the same way.

In summary, in that location is no "Chinese Canadian" cultural entity per se, rather a rather splintered group of people who "look Chinese" from various backgrounds and histories, of which the iii largest groups are largely assimilated 4th and fifth generation descendants of Toisanese speakers, kickoff and 2d generation Cantonese speakers with ties to Hong Kong, and Mandarin speakers born and educated in the People'due south Republic of Communist china.

It is difficult to quote references as there aren't any and this is fairly common knowledge among Chinese Canadians.

Run across also [edit]

Chinese head taxation in Canada
Chinese Immigration Act, 1923
Immigration to Canada
Chinese Canadians in British Columbia
Chinese Canadians in Ontario
Asiatic Exclusion League
Lost Years: A People'southward Struggle for Justice

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^thousand ^h ⁱ ^j ^grand ⁵⁰ ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ⁵ ^{due west} ^x ^y ^z ^aa ^ab ^ac ^ad ^ae ^af ^ag ^ah ^ai ^aj Chan, Anthony B. [2013 July 30] 2019 May 22. "Chinese Canadians Archived 27 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Ottawa: Historica Canada. Retrieved 2020 December 14.
^ ^a ^b Laurence J. C. Ma; Carolyn L. Cartier (2003). The Chinese Diaspora: Space, Place, Mobility, and Identity. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN978-0-7425-1756-1. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 18 Oct 2016.
^ John Meares (1790). Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America: To which are Prefixed, an Introductory Narrative of a Voyage Performed in 1786, from Bengal, in the Ship Nootka; Observations on the Probable Being of a northwest Passage; and Some Account of the Merchandise Between the North Westward Coast of America and Red china; and the Latter State and U.k..
^ Arnold J. Meagher (2008). The Coolie Trade: The Traffic in Chinese Laborers to Latin America 1847-1874. Arnold J Meagher. ISBN978-1-4363-0943-1.
^ Arthur Lower (ane Nov 2011). Sea of Destiny: A Curtailed History of the Due north Pacific, 1500-1978. UBC Press. ISBN978-0-7748-4352-2.
^ ^a ^b Mark S. Wade, The Cariboo Road, publ. The Haunted Bookshop, Victoria BC, 1979, 239pp. ASIN: B0000EEN1W
^ ^a ^b Robin Skelton, They Telephone call It Cariboo, Sono Nis Press (Dec 1980), 237pp. ISBN 0-919462-84-7, ISBN 978-0-919462-84-vii.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^{due east} ^f "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 25 Feb 2020. Retrieved 15 December 2020. {{cite spider web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ Berton, Pierre. The Last Spike. Penguin. ISBN 0-fourteen-011763-6. pp. 249-l.
^ CBC television reporter, Eve Savory: "The National Magazine", June 27, 1997
^ Provincial Legislation, British Columbia. 2008 March 19. "Listing of Acts passed in British Columbia in 1873 and 1876, 1877 and 1878, 1879 including the State Tax Deed and Chinese Tax Act." Library and Archives Canada.
^ Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. 2011 March 18. "Bulletin inviting contributions to the Clan." University of Victoria Libraries Digital Collections.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 7 December 2008. Retrieved 20 March 2009. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as championship (link)
^ Inflation data (Consumer Price Index) since 1914 provided by Statistics Canada tin be plant e.yard. at the Bank of Canada aggrandizement reckoner Archived 10 May 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ ^a ^b Wai-Man, Lee (Spring–Summertime 1984). "Dance No More: Chinese Hand Laundries in Toronto". Polyphony. half dozen (1): 32. Archived from the original on v September 2013. Retrieved 12 Baronial 2013.
^ Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. 2011 March 18. "List of numbers and occupations of Chinese in British Columbia Archived 10 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine." University of Victoria Libraries Digital Collections.
^ Chinese Consolidated Chivalrous Association. 2011 March 18. "Chinese population and their occupations in Victoria." University of Victoria Libraries Digital Collections.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f "Protesting racism on TV". CBC Athenaeum. Archived from the original on 2 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2008.
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 23 August 2007. Retrieved ten May 2007. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 20 February 2012. Retrieved 16 Feb 2012. {{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy equally title (link)
^ [one] Archived 26 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine [
^ [2] Archived 13 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine (xix to 34 seconds)

External links [edit]

Lost Years
Chinese Canadian Redress
Chinese Canadian National Council
Historica's Heritage Minute video docudrama "Nitro." (Adobe Wink Actor)

Library resources [edit]

Chinese Canadian Genealogy at the Vancouver Public Library
Chinese-Canadians: Profiles from a Community - Vancouver Public Library wiki
Chinese Immigration in BC - An archival collection from the UBC Library Digital Collections documenting Chinese settlement in British Columbia
Historic Chinese Language Materials in British Columbia, Asian Library and the Centre for Chinese Research, Academy of British Columbia, Vancouver
Multicultural Canada website - includes 8 total-text searchable Chinese newspapers from B.C. and Ontario, publications relating to immigration, photographs, and the records of Victoria's Chinese Benevolent Association and the Cheekungtong (Chinese Freemasons) of Victoria and Vancouver
The Early on Chinese Canadians 1858-1947, Library and Archives Canada