The Chinese in Toronto from 1878. Arlene Chan

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      In this cartoon from the Saturday Sunset, August 24, 1907, the gatekeeper, dressed in a Union Jack, closes the gate to the “Oriental” men, while the well-dressed “whites” are seen arriving with women and children.

      Fears about the Yellow Peril and its threat to the British race became a powerful rallying point for politicians, who parlayed the deep-seated antagonism to handily steer the course of anti-Chinese legislation. Chinese could not purchase Crown lands. They could not work in underground coal mines or on any public works projects, like road and bridge construction. All Chinese over the age of 14 had to pay a $10 annual fee for a residential licence.

      The law that sealed the alien status of the Chinese, however, was the Electoral Franchise Act. Up until 1875, Chinese exercised the right to vote in British Columbia. That year, provincial legislation barred the Chinese from elections. In 1885 Prime Minister Macdonald took disenfranchisement to a new level by introducing the franchise act, which gave the federal government control over the right to vote across the country at all three levels of elections. Chinese, even naturalized Canadian citizens, were not allowed to vote in a federal election. No vote in federal elections meant no vote in any provincial or municipal elections. Without registration on the electoral roll, Chinese were further disqualified from occupations like political office, law, medicine, and pharmacy.

      Another government response to anti-Chinese sentiment was the establishment of a Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration to investigate the “Chinese question.” According to its 1884 report, there were 10,492 Chinese living in British Columbia, 4,000 of them railway workers.³ The testimonies of 51 witnesses, almost all prejudiced against the Chinese, were documented. In the words of one witness, “Unless the Chinese character should undergo a radical change they cannot become permanent settlers.”⁴ His comments were representative of most others.

      The Chinese were regarded as sojourners whose intentions were to earn money and return to China. A sojourner is defined as someone who spends “many years of his lifetime in a foreign country without being assimilated by it.”⁵ The notion that the Chinese were in Canada merely as sojourners has proven to be highly controversial among historians and scholars. The issue in dispute is whether the early Chinese immigrants really did not intend on staying in Canada or wanted to settle but were rejected on racist grounds.

      One of the lone voices in support of the Chinese was that of Huang Zunxian, the Chinese Consul General of San Francisco, appointed by the Chinese government and given jurisdiction over the Chinese in Canada. He countered the majority of other witnesses by giving evidence of Chinese who had settled with their families in other locales, like the West Indies, Cuba, and the Philippines:

      It is charged that the Chinese do not emigrate to foreign countries to remain, but only to earn a sum of money and return to their homes in China. There are quite a number of foreigners in China, but few of them have brought their families. 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 as 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.⁶

      Head Tax

      Consul General Huang’s voice fell on deaf ears. The report of the Royal Commission secured Canada’s first anti-Chinese immigration law. In 1885 a head tax of $50 was levied on every Chinese landing in Canada, with the intent of discouraging their further immigration. Prime Minister Macdonald’s address to parliamentarians in 1886 reflected the attitude of the day: “I do not think that it would be to the advantage of Canada or any other country occupied by Aryans for members of the Mongolian race to become permanent inhabitants of the country.”⁷ The head tax was even more sinister because the Chinese were the only group ever assessed such a fee, based purely on race. It ranked among the most anti-Chinese legislation of the day — institutional racism at its worst.

      Head tax certificates were required for all Chinese immigrants as proof of their payment for entry into Canada. Officially called C.I. 5 certificates, “C.I.” an abbreviation for Chinese Immigration, these were issued by the federal authorities to show the amount of the head tax and the port and date of arrival. An official stamp was required on the certificate for those who wished to return to Canada following a visit to China. Because copies were not kept by the government, the certificates were all the more carefully guarded from damage and loss.

      At $50 the head tax was a financial hardship, and deliberately so, to discourage Chinese immigration, particularly wives and children. The Royal Commission estimated that the average Chinese labourer earned $225 a year, spent $130 for food and clothing, $24 for rent, $28 for other expenses, and saved a modest $43.⁸ As such, the $50 head tax exceeded one year’s savings and made it impossible for most men to pay for a spouse or child to come to Canada.

      Lem Wong was among the 1,762 Chinese immigrants who came in 1896 and paid the $50 head tax, collectively generating $88,000 in taxes for the federal coffers.⁹ Born in 1881 in a small village near Guangzhou, he departed at age 15 with his uncle and landed a job in a Vancouver laundry. He moved eastward, working in other laundries before settling in London, Ontario, where he set up his own hand laundry. After a few years, he opened a restaurant that ensured the future of his wife and four children, one of whom was Gretta Wong Grant, the first female Chinese Canadian lawyer.

      The punitive head tax had short-lived success in curbing immigration. At first, the number of Chinese immigrants dropped drastically, from the thousands of previous years to 212 in 1886.¹⁰ By 1890, however, the trend reversed and the numbers climbed again. The outrage of British Columbians led to the doubling of the head tax to $100 in 1900. A year later, the federal government appointed another royal commission.

      This time, the subject of investigation included not only the Chinese but also the Japanese. The Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese. Immigration recorded public opinion from many individuals, whose prejudicial comments reiterated how Canadians in the nineteenth century generally felt about the “Orientals.” One witness demeaned the Chinese as “a most undesirable class of immigrants” who “retard the progress of the country, and keep good immigrants from coming in here.”¹¹ Another considered the Chinese “physically and mentally an inferior race, and if allowed to come into the country without restriction … the white race would be driven our [sic] or be degenerated and degraded.”¹² The issue of the Chinese sojourner was resurrected.