Canadian leaders apologize for ‘head tax’ on Chinese

TORONTO – More than a century ago, Canada forced tens of thousands of Chinese who helped build the nation’s railroad to pay a “head tax” if they wished to remain in the country and then taxed them again to bring in their families. On Thursday, Canada apologized.

Five frail survivors who paid the head tax – the oldest is 106 – were among those at Thursday’s atonement ceremony in Ottawa. The government also announced that it would give compensation packages to the survivors and their widows.

“This was a grave injustice and one that we are morally obligated to acknowledge,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. “Our deep sorrow over the racist actions of our past will nourish our unwavering commitment to build a better future for all Canadians.”

The head tax, which started in 1885 at $50 and grew to $500 by 1903 – then two years’ wages for Chinese laborers – was collected from some 81,000 Chinese immigrants. Collections ended in 1923, when immigration from China was banned. Canada only began admitting Chinese again in 1947.

Chinese immigrants began coming to Canada in the mid-1800s in response to the gold rush in British Columbia. Some 15,000 Chinese were brought in to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway.

“This transcontinental link was the ribbon of steel that bound our fledgling country together,” Harper said of the national railroad grid. “It was an engineering feat – one for which the backbreaking toil of Chinese laborers was largely responsible – that was instrumental to the settlement of the West and the subsequent development of the Canadian economy.”

He noted that about 1,000 Chinese railroad workers died building the Canadian Pacific. “But from the moment that the railway was completed, Canada turned its back on these men.”

Chow Chin Chuen, 73, joined 100 other widows and children of head-tax payers at a downtown Toronto hotel to listen to Harper speak in a live broadcast. He said he was separated from his father, who worked in restaurants in Victoria, B.C., for 16 years as he struggled to earn the money to pay the taxes for his family.

“We first generation suffered a lot,” he said, his English still heavy with a Cantonese accent. “I don’t need the money, but without compensation, the apology is just a show.”

Harper said the government would offer “symbolic payments” to those subjected to the head tax.

Canadian Heritage, the federal ministry overseeing the redress program, said living head-tax payers and the widows of those who’ve died would receive $20,000 each.

Chinese Canadian groups had hoped the government would also pay compensation to first-generation children of the head-tax payers, such as Chow, arguing that they often lived in poverty while their families struggled to pay off debts incurred to cover the tax.

“We held wide consultations with the community,” said Robert Patterson, a spokesman for the ministry. “I think the majority felt that the collective commemoration, education programs and memorials were far more important than widescale payments to descendants.”