Racism In Canada

Term Paper Title	Racism In Canada
# of Words	1156
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	4.62

Racism in Canada

Racism in Canada

The common belief that Canada is far less racist then their neighbors to the
south is perhaps one of the greatest falsehoods of North American society today.
Through out history, Canada has been home to many race-based atrocities. Because
of time and lack of media attention these events have been buried. To such an
extent have these issues been neglected that the general public now cannot
recognized them or discern them as part of their country’s past. Although
recently over the past thirty to forty years Canada has been on the leading edge
with human rights and in areas of equality between people/sexes, this has not
always been the case. Canada’s history has been just a recently blemished as
that of the infamous United States. Three examples that depict this downfall
are: the Chinese head tax, the internet of Japanese Canadians during world war
two and the open anti-Semitism of the early though mid nineteen hundreds. It is
important that people begin to recognize the downfalls of our marvelous country
rather then living in ignorance.

The first example of open racism in Canada was shown shortly after the
completion of the Canadian Nation Railway in 1885. The government chose to enact
a law designed to restrict immigration access of Chinese to Canada. This law
stated that any immigrant of a Chinese heritage was required to pay a “head
tax” in order to become a resident of the country. The law was enacted
primarily because the need for cheap laborers was no longer necessary due to the
completion of the railway. Unlike most other laws concerning immigration, this
new tax was only directed towards people of a Chinese decent consequently
singling out one minority group and purposely restricting their access. The head
tax started an amount of fifty dollars but was increased to one hundred dollars
by 1900, it was again increased to a small fortune of five hundred dollars per
person in 1903. On top of this, Newfoundland imposed an additional three
hundred-dollar provincial head tax on top of the already high five
hundred-dollar federal tax. Through the use of head tax, it is estimated that
the Canadian government collected over 24 million dollars from approximately
81,000 Chinese immigrants. At the same time that this tax was being collected,
the Canadian government was offering European immigrants financial and property
incentives to move to Canada. This only showed the clear bias of the Canadian
government towards the Chinese people. This tax continued to be in effect until
1923 when it was replaced by the “exclusion act”. This “exclusion act”
was set in place to prevent access of the Chinese to Canada entirely. The “exclusion
act” was part of active law for nearly a quatrer of a century and during that
time, only a total of seven people of Chinese descent were allowed into the
country. The law was eventually revoked years after the end of World War 2 but,
strictly enforced quotas were placed on Chinese immigrants, hence limiting the
number of Chinese who were allowed into the country. In addition, the Chinese
were last to gain the right to vote in federal elections (1951) and even up to
this point, the Canadian government refuses to compensate the remaining people
who were effected by the unjust head tax of the past.

Another example of Canada’s racist history is the treatment of the Jewish.
Unlike the underground racism of the United States during the 1920’s, the
Canadian attitude was quite open towards that of anti-Semitism. It wasn’t
uncommon to see signs on beaches or in public places, which read ‘No dogs or
Jews Allowed’. Signs such as these were commonly found in major urban areas
such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Furthermore, ...

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