history of discrimination in canada my country was built on the backs of other men

History of discrimination in Canada

My country was built on the backs of other men.

• The first federal Chinese Exclusion Act in 1885 imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants of $50, – increased to $100 in 1900 – and to $500 in 1903. (This amounted to about two years' wages)

– From 1886 to 1923, more than $22 million were collected in head tax payments.

• In 1923 the Chinese Immigration Act came into force, bringing about the almost total prohibition of Chinese immigration to Canada. – repealed in 1947, entry of Chinese remained restricted

under more general rules relating to persons of "Asiatic race".

Discrimination of Chinese

Report on Systemic Racism and Discrimination In Canadian Refugee and Immigration Policies Canadian Council for Refugees 1 November 2000 http://www.web.net/~ccr/antiracrep.htmhttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3695/is_199604/ai_n8748787

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Head_Tax_Recipt.jpg

Discrimination against Japanese

• In 1907 a Canadian government delegation to Japan concluded a "gentlemen’s agreement" whereby the Japanese government would voluntarily limit emigration of Japanese to Canada to 400 persons a year. During the Second World War, 22,000 Japanese Canadians were expelled from within a hundred miles of the Pacific, thousands were detained, and at the end of the war, "repatriation" to Japan was encouraged. 4,000 people left, two thirds of them Canadian citizens.

Report on Systemic Racism and Discrimination In Canadian Refugee and Immigration Policies Canadian Council for Refugees 1 November 2000 http://www.web.net/~ccr/antiracrep.htm

In Our Own Backyard- A Snapshot of Discrimination in Canada by Dale Hall March 2006http://www.georgebrown.ca/Admin/hr/hra/newsletterMarch2006.pdf.

http://www.georgebrown.ca/Admin/hr/hra/newsletterMarch2006.pdf

encarta.msn.com/media_461551169_761555666_-1_...

Canadian naval officers at Esquimalt, British Columbia, confiscate a Japanese Canadian fisherman's boat in 1941. During World War II the Canadian government confined thousands of Japanese Canadians and seized their assets. National Library of Canada

People of Indian origin

• In 1908 the Canadian government adopted an Order in Council imposing a "continuous passage rule" which had the effect of excluding from immigration people who could not make a direct journey to Canada. One of the main targets of this measure was prospective immigrants from India, since there was at the time no direct voyage from India. In 1914 a group of 376 Indians challenged this restriction, arriving in Vancouver on board the Komagatu Maru. After two months in the harbour and an unsuccessful court challenge, they were forced to return.


Continuous journey requirment

• The goal of excluding certain racialized groups was in part accomplished through the rigid enforcement of seemingly neutral immigration, health and financial requirements. For example, the "continuous journey" rule was strictly applied against Asians in the early 20th century, but not against Europeans. At the beginning of the 1920s, during a period of deep hostility towards Eastern Europeans, the rule was also enforced for a while against Europeans.


Jews

• During the years when the Nazis were in power in Germany (and immediately afterwards), Canadian immigration policy was actively anti-Semitic,

• The result was that Canada’s record for accepting Jews fleeing the Holocaust is among the worst in the Western world.

• Canadian policy towards Jewish refugees was summed up in the words of one official:

"None is too many".


Blacks

• Although in the 19th century Canada represented freedom for some black Americans escaping slavery through the underground railroad,

• in the 20th century immigration of persons of African origin was actively discouraged. – A 1911 Order in Council prohibited "any immigrant belonging to

the Negro race, which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada".

• achieved through measures such as penalties imposed on railway companies that distributed transportation subsidies to blacks,

• requirement for additional medical examinations, • the hiring of agents to actively discourage black Americans from

coming to Canada.


• In June 1919 the entry of Doukhobors, Mennonites and Hutterites was prohibited on the ground of their "peculiar habits, modes of life and methods of holding property". The prohibition lasted until 1922 in the case of Mennonites and Hutterites, longer for Doukhobors.

• Until the 1960s, Canada chose its immigrants on the basis of their racial categorization rather than the individual merits of the applicant, with preference being given to immigrants of Northern European (especially British) origin over the so-called "black and Asiatic races", and at times over central and southern European "races".


CURRENT POLICIES WITH DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT

• Requirement that refugees produce "satisfactory identity documents" in order to be granted permanent residence – This requirement negatively affects certain groups of refugees:

— Refugees who come from countries where identity is not traditionally established through official documents (notably African countries)

– Citizens of countries where there is no government authority that can issue the documents

– Groups who are less likely to possess such documents such as youth, women or people from rural areas


Indian Act, first passed in 1876.

• The goal: – the destruction of Native culture and the

assimilation of Native people into white society.

• The solution to what was called "the Indian problem" – was simply to make a whole race of people

disappear

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3695/is_199604/ai_n8748787

Residential schools

• By 1920, it was compulsory for Indian parents to give up their children for education in these residential schools. – Children as young as three were forced to live apart from the

security of their families.• The children were constantly told about the

worthlessness of the society from which they had been "rescued." – Former students recall how countless times they were told they

were dirty and lazy and no good.• The worst sin a child could commit was to speak his or

her own language. The punishment for this was severe.– At Thunderchild School it could mean 100 lashes of a whip.

Think about that for a moment -- one hundred lashes.

Nowadays

• 52% of primary school students speak English as a second language

• the PRC has supplied the biggest number of Canadian immigrants since 2000, – averaging well over 30,000 immigrants per

year, totaling an average of 15% of all immigrants to Canada. This wave, however, dropped to only 8,000 a year in 2004. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_immigration_to_Canada

Recently

• The murders of Helen Betty Osborne and Felicia Solomon are two of the cases highlighted in a new report by Amnesty International – – Stolen Sisters: A human rights response to

discrimination and violence against Indigenous women in Canada.

• 1996 Canadian government statistic – Indigenous women between the ages of 25 and 44,

with status under the Indian Act, were five times more likely than all other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR200012004

'Systemic discrimination' against native prison inmates•

'Aboriginal people are routinely disadvantaged once they are placed into the custody of the correctional service.' - Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers– Ottawa (18 Oct. 2006) - Canada's national ombudsman for federal

prison inmates says Canada is guilty of "systemic discrimination" against aboriginal offenders.

– The number of aboriginals in prison climbed 22% between 1996 and 2004,

• while the general population dropped 12%, • For women native prisoners, the numbers were even more

dramatic, rising 74% over the same period.• Among all prisoners, aboriginals now account for 18.5% of

federal inmates, but only 2.7% of the Canadian population.– Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, the minister responsible for the

prison system, was quick to criticize the report after it was made public. – ''I visited personally a number of federal institutions and have spent time

with aboriginals themselves individually and in groups in the institutions,'' he told MPs in the Commons. ''I am confident in the professionalism of the people who work for Corrections Canada.''

www.nupge.ca/news_2006/n18oc06a.htm

www.lawrencemacaulay.ca/Parliament.html

www.lcc.gc.ca/about/2004_dis_paper_4-fr.asp

history of discrimination in canada my country was built on the backs of other men

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