Organizers of a new exhibit marked Canada Day by remembering the country’s discriminatory immigration past and cautioning against the repeat of history with recent changes to the law.
The Road to Justice exhibit features historical photos and chronicles the legal struggle for equal rights for Chinese Canadians. It’s running at the rotunda of the Toronto City Hall Tuesday through Thursday.
“While Canada today presents itself as a multicultural society which respects the equality of all Canadians regardless of their background, for many decades, laws were used deliberately in Canada to exclude people on the basis of race,” said Avvy Go of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.
“Laws can be used as a tool to promote justice, but it could just as easily be used as a tool for exclusion. We learn that unjust and discriminatory laws could create devastating impact on an entire community. If we don’t heed the lessons of history, we are bound to repeat the same mistakes.”
Go said she could see a parallel between Canada’s immigration laws in the past and present.
Chinese migrant workers were brought to Canada to build the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1870s but were discarded as unwanted labourers once the CPR was completed. A $50 head tax was imposed in 1885, which was increased to $500 in 1903. (For comparison, Go said, a jar of peanut butter cost just 10 cents and a hotel room charged $2 per night in 1903.)
To stem out any inflow of Chinese migrants, the Canadian government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1923. It was repealed in 1947, thanks to Kew Doc Yip, the first Chinese Canadian lawyer, and to Chinese Canadian veterans, who fought for Canada even when Ottawa didn’t want them.
Go said Canada’s increasing import of foreign workers today is no different from its import of Chinese railroad workers, who also lived in precarious status.
Canada’s new Citizenship Act, which was proclaimed into law last month, imposes tougher language requirements and doubling the citizenship fee to $400, she said, making it more difficult for newcomers, especially those with low income and from the developing world, to become citizens.
“All of these changes speak to who we are as a nation and what it means to be a Canadian citizen today,” said Go. “We hope that this exhibit will help spark some discussions not just about our past, but more importantly, about the future of our country.”
The travel exhibit, funded by the Canadian Auto Workers union, is based on the research material of a website in the same name developed by the legal clinic with money from the federal Community Historical Recognition Program. Community groups and schools are welcomed to present it on loan.
Source: thestar.com/
Author: Nicholas Keung
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