Province editorial on Liberal's attempt at Head Tax redress, calls on PM Martin to admit his mistakes

Here is an editorial in today's Province newspaper. I have made my comments in parenthesis and a comment following the article.

* * * * The Province Published: Wednesday, December 28, 2005

It is becoming increasingly clear that a federal government plan designed to atone for almost a century of injustice inflicted on the Chinese-Canadian community is not merely insufficient, but risks adding insult to injury.

When community groups from across the country were flown to Vancouver Nov. 24 to hear details of the plan from multiculturalism minister Raymond Chan, their expectations were high. (especially when $100,000 came from Chan's ministry of Multiculturalism)

For more than 20 years, prominent community leaders have campaigned for an apology and compensation for victims of the notorious head tax, imposed on all Chinese immigrants to Canada from 1885 to 1923.

But the agreement in principle with four community groups that Chan announced offered only funds for educational projects and memorial plaques. (No apology, and no individual tax refund for surviving payers or spouses)

Leading intellectuals among the Chinese community in Vancouver say the negotiations that produced the deal were held with groups "hand-picked" by Ottawa and were not representative of the community at large. (The Chinese Canadian National Council which has registered up to 5,000 head tax payers and descendants are not included in negotiations because they did not agree to the Liberal program's preconditions of No Apology, and No individual compensation.)

They say the realization that an apology would not be part of the deal came as a major shock.

At a meeting this week, they estimated that as many as 90 per cent of Chinese-Canadians now want the government to rescind the agreement.

Most adamant in its opposition is the Chinese Canadian National Council, whose founding president, Joseph Wong of Toronto, has warned that the issue could tilt the balance against the Liberals in ridings where there is a substantial Chinese-Canadian vote.

Since the early 1980s, the CCNC has been compiling a register of those who paid the head tax, which rose over the years from $50 to a staggering $500. The list, which includes descendants of victims, contains some 4,000 names.

Community leaders say the demand for compensation is more symbolic than it is about the money.

"We want honorable redress for our Chinese pioneers," says Thekla Lit, a Vancouver social worker and prominent activist.

The Liberal government's hasty attempt to put right a historic wrong on the eve of an election smacks of opportunism.

The head-tax scandal already grubbies the pages of Canada's history books and any redress should not be tarnished by an association with cheap political advantage.

Prime Minister Paul Martin should admit his mistake, cancel the agreement and promise to think again. After Jan. 23.

- - -

What do you think? Leave a brief comment, name and town at: 604-605-2029, fax: 604-605-2099 or e-mail: provletters@png.canwest.com

C The Vancouver Province 2005

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What is wrong with this picture about redress and the Liberal Party?

Three opposition parties, NDP, Bloc Quebecois, Conservatives + Green Party all say that apology, individual compensation and inclusion of head tax payers and descendants is important.

Why doesn't Minister of State (Multiculturalism) Raymond Chan include the 4000 + head tax payers and descendants registered by the Chinese Canadian National Council? Doesn't he feel that they should be part of the process that he wants to address?

Chan and the National Congress of Chinese Canadians do not have written aggreement of the supposed list of 300+ community organizations which is actually dropping in numbers as more and more organizations say they did not give permission to use their names.  It is difficult to find a listed  organization that has anything to do with Chinese Canadian historical or human rights issues - except the CCNC that was  excluded from the negotiation process but was mistakenly included on the original list, or the Chinese Canadian Military Museum that stands to gain funds for a specially proposed project.

Why should the ACE program give $2.5 Million to the NCCC whose executive director Ping Tan has stated that a signifcant amount of money will be used to create the Chinese Canadian Community Foundation to administer proposals to the ACE program? Wasn't the Canadian Race Relations Foundation set up as part of the 1988 Japanese Canadian redress settlement to do exactly this? Administer programs to foster multiculturalism and better race relations for ALL Canadians? Why re-invent the wheel, unless there are other unspoken interests at stake?

An "apology" was made by Brian Mulroney to the Japanese Canadians in the House of Commons as part of the redress package that included individual compensation.  To date, no Canadian has ever sued the government over this issue.

Canadians want resolution, strong and true - not a lipservice to wrong doing, that gives money to a questionable organization with no track record of Chinese Canadian history or human rights such as the National Congress of Chinese Canadians.

Canada in 2005 is inclusive - Our Chinese Community includes 6th and 7th generations who also include Scottish, French, English, African, South Asian and First Nations bloodlines., Our Canada includes immigrants of Chinese descent not only China, but Taiwan, the Carribean, England, South Africa, Maylaysia, Singapore and Brazil.

Canadians want recognition for the head tax pioneers and descendants who have fought for Canada in WW2 and other wars, fought for the 1947 vote for all Chinese in Canada, for true patriot love and who stand on guard for thee.

- Todd Wong

The Tyee: Article on Mixed Marriage aka inter-racial marriage by Amy Chow

Amy Chow has written an article called The Face of Asian Mixed Marriage in BC
 http://thetyee.ca/Life/2005/12/27/MixedMarriageBC/ for The Tyee.ca

She tells the story of a nice Canadian boy eloping with a nice Canadian girl because his mother, has always wanted him to marry a girl that would be "more appropriate" for him and the family. It's a familiar story - not a new story... but one that most Canadians could related to and share. In this case, the boy is of Jewish ancestry and the girl is of Chinese ancestry.

I grew up in Vancouver, first meeting people from mixed marriages in the early sixties when I was a child. "Chinnie" was somebody who always was hanging out at my great-grandma's house - one of her best friends. She was white. I have recently bumped into her daughter Evelyn. It's great that we have shared history of our elders.

Mixed race marriages is common place on both sides of my family. On my mother's side, there has been a mixed race marriage in every generation since our elder Rev. Chan Yu Tan arrived in Canada in 1896. There was his son Luke, who became an actor in Hollywood. There were his grandsons Henry and Art. Incidently it was Art who married a First Nations woman, and their daughter Rhonda has become the elected band chief for the Qayqayt Nation (New Westminster), that she singlehandedly resurrected.

My mother's youngest brother married a woman of Scottish-English background, steeped in Ontario Canadian heritage. 9 of my 12 cousins on my mom's side have married caucasians + my brother. And on my father's side, 6 of my 9 cousins married caucasians.

I was the only person out of my maternal cousins that married somebody of Chinese Canadian descent. It should have worked out... our grandparents had known each other, as had our parents, our aunts and uncles, our cousins, and even their children.... but it was not to be. No regrets.

And today, I am spending my 2nd Christmas with my Canadian girlfriend of British ancestry, and her parents. I haven't seen another Asian since I left the Kelowna airport two days ago. There haven't been any racial clashes. We talk about the issues that I am involved in such as the Save Kogawa House campaign and the Chinese Canadian head tax - even with their caucasian friends.

We listened to my friends Joy Kogawa and Ann-Marie Metten on CBC radio yesterday, and we read in the newspaper about my friends Bill Chu and Gabriel Yiu and Thekla Lit who helped organize a Boxing Day press conference on Head Tax redress. And these are just Canadian issues. And the 3 dogs love all the hugs they can get. Race isn't an issue for them.


Todd out walking with dogs in Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park.

Redress: The book by Roy Miki - addressing racial identity and its consequences

It's Boxing Day morning at Kalamalka Lake, and I am not at any Boxing Day sales in Vancouver. I am reading Roy Miki's book Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian redress movement. Roy is an amazing person. In 1994 I interviewed him for an article in the Simon Fraser University student newspaper "The Peak".

I am stunned by the atrocities and restrictions placed on the Canadians of Japanese descent, even though I have read many accounts. I nod knowingly when I read that Asian Canadians were "racialized" in the 1900's - particularly by the Anti-Asiastic League who wanted to create and maintain a "white Vancouver" despite the presence of First Nations peoples. I read about the 1907 meeting at City Hall, that erupted into a riot in Chinatown, where stores were attacked and damaged, before the white rioters headed to Japantown where they were repelled by a prepared community.

This was the Vancouver where my maternal grandmother was raised, soon after being born in 1910 in Victoria BC. This was the political and social climate where my paternal grandfather was given a "Chinaman's Chance" of defending a non-guilty plea for drug trafficking, because the RCMP wanted to make an example of him as one of Victoria's top community leaders that they could "take down." This was the BC, where the $500 head tax was only applied to ethnic Chinese in an effort to keep "the Yellow Peril" away from "British" Vancouver, where the early city fathers, provincial fathers and leaders of Canadian Federation had emmigrated from Scotland and England, seeking a better life.... just as the Chinese had, leaving behind a corrupt Imperial government, famines, to come to "Gum San" - the gold mountain of opportunity.

In the first chapeter of Redress, Roy Miki tells the story of Tomekichi (Tomey) Homma "naturalized as a British Subject" in Canada, who tried to have his name put on the voter's list, but was turned down no doubt, because of the stipulation in Section 8 of the Provincial Election Act which stated: "No Chinaman, Japanese, or Indian shall have his name placed on the Register of Voters for any Electoral District, or be entitled to vote in any election."

Homma decided to challange the ruling on October 19th, 1900, but was eventurally denied by a lengthy court case and both the BC and Canadian governments. The Privy council at the time had stated that "Orientals... were so inassimilable that they were incapable of participating in the democratic process." (Miki, p. 33-34)

The Victoria Times Colonist newspaper at the time had written "We are relieved from the possibility of having polling booths swampd by a horde of Orientals who are totally uniftted either by custom of education to exercise the ballot, and whose voting would completely demoralise politics... they have not the remotest idea of what a democratic and representative government is, and are quite incapable of taking part in it." (Miki, p 28)

My great-great-grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan, was educated at the Wesleyan Mission in Hong Kong, and arrived in Canada in 1896, following his elder brother the Rev. Chan Sing Kai - the first Chinese ordained in Canada. The Chinese Methodist Church helped teach the Chinese immigrants how to speak English. A favourite story that my grandmother tells me is that her granfather would tell his family, "We are in Canada now - we should do things the Canadian way." In every generation of his 6 descendants in Canada, there have been inter-racial marriages with Caucasians. In fact, descendants in the 6th and 7th generation are now only 1/4 and 1/8 Chinese.

Yes, Canada has had a racist history, and yes Asians have successfully integrated and assimilated. But is this alone a case for redress for past wrongs? Certainly not. The case for redress is that in the 17 years since the 1988 redress settlement there has been tremendous healing in the Japanese Canadian community. In his final chapter, Miki shares that in order to become fully Canadian, the community had to forge an identity of being Japanese-Canadian through both internment and redress.

Similarly, my grandmother's younger brother Daniel Lee, a WW2 veteran, has consistenly requested that the Canadian government apologize for the head tax. Our family elders did not have the privilege or franchise to vote in the country of their birth until 1947, while other families were kept apart because of the consequences of the head tax and Chinese Exclusion Act. I am aware that as I have grown up in Canada, I have always been racialized, as my uncles before me who were denied jobs and university admittance. These were the real consequences of the head tax and continued legislated and socialized racism. Reading the accounts of the Japanese Canadians during internment, I can only marvel at what my own ancestors endured from arrivals in 1888 to 1947, when they were finally able to vote.

"Have a multi-cultural Christmas" - Vancouver Sun's Douglas Todd vs Todd Wong's experiences

Douglas Todd looks at the students and celebrations of Sir Richard McBride elementary school in Vancouver.  He compares present day activities and student ethnicity to when he attended in the early 1960s.  DT is a thoughtful writer and he explores the issues of religious holidays, political correctness, inclusion, school  cultural programming, and what the children really want and think.

Of special note, DT writes that more schools are celebrating Chinese New Year, or rather the more exclusive term "Lunar New Year," as an inclusive event that often celebrates all ethnic cultures.  I have certainly found this to be true, especially when I was invited early this year to bring my Scottish-Chinese fusion of "Gung Haggis Fat Choy" to Westridge Elementary School in Burnaby.  http://www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com/blog
/_archives/2005/2/5/303618.html

Check out DT's feature article titled
A Multicultural Christmas:
Sir Richard McBride students balance ethnicity with new traditions
Vancouver Sun - Dec 24th page C1

Personally, when I grew up at Vancouver's Laura Secord elementary school in the from 1965 to 1973 - I thought I was already experiencing multiculturalism by going to school with mostly white students.  Okay... there were a few students of Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese...etc heritage there too.  By 1973, the Chinese proportion grew significantly, and in my grade 7 class there were 6 other Wongs in the class, including the teacher.

I had started noticing more ESL immigrants of Chinese ancestry around 1970.  This was the effect of changed immigration laws in 1967, that now allowed independant Chinese immigrants, no longer only sponsored by relatives to come to Canada.  You see, even though the Chinese Exclusion Act was removed in 1947, only very limited immigration was allowed for family members only.

My experiences of Christmas growing up, involved dinners with sticky rice, turkey, cranberry sauce, stir-fried vegetables - always a combination of Chinese and Canadian food.  When we visited  my father's side of the family - there were more Chinese speakers, as his mother spoke almost exclusively Chinese, and his eldest sister had been raised in China - despite having been born in Canada. I referred to my mother's side of the family as our "English side" because the family had been in Canada longer since the arrival of my grandmother's grandfather Rev. Chan Yu Tan in 1896.  Even my great-grandmother Kate Chan was fluent in english.  So... even in my family we were multicultural... I guess.

Last year I visited my girlfriend's parents in Vernon, and we attended Christmas dinner at a friend of theirs.  I was the only, non-Asian attending, of the 10 guests.  It was my first ethnically "white" Christmas dinner.  We ate turkey with cranberry sauce, potatoes, salad... just like my own family dinners.  I felt comfortable with the company, because of shared language and values.  Nobody asked how I was enjoying the new "cultural experience" because they just assumed I was "Canadian", knowing that I considered myself a 5th generation Vancouverite.  The cultural differences and conversations were more concerned with the differences between Vancouver and Vernon. Big City culture versus Small City culture.

Culture and "multiculturalism" is relative.  Especially if it is married into the family.

Vancouver Sun:  Daphne Bramham column addresses politicians, multiculturalism and Sid and Todd's adventures at a Raymond Chan press conference in Mandarin

Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham has been exploring interesting angles in the Chinese Head Tax issue, that many media are calling the surprise election issue.  Check out Politicians must represent Everyone: Holding separate news conferences for ethnic media goes against multiculturalism goal, Friday, December 16th, p. B1 & B4.

Bramham explores that while English and French are Canada's official languages, other languages are becoming increasingly prevalent in major urban centres such as Vancouver, Surrey, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Richmond.  In an increasingly culturally diverse Canada, she pleas that our politicians must use our common language in order not to isolate, or ghettoize specific cultural or ethnic groups.

Bramham recalls the December 2nd press conference held by Richmond MP and Minister of State (Multiculturalism) Raymond Chan at his campaign office in Richmond, which was conducted in Mandarin Chinese for the Chinese language media.  English speaking media were not invited to discuss the controversial issue of Chinese head-tax redress and ACE program which Chan has signed with the National Congress of Chinese Canadians. 

This issue has been criticized by both members of the media and the community for its exclusion of both and apology and individual tax refund or compensation - not to mention an almost complete exclusion of negotiating with the Chinese Canadian National Council which has registered 4000 head tax payers and descendants.  This issue has clearly divided the Chinese community in all its myriad forms of pioneers, new immigrants, multi-generational descendants, old immigrants and more.

Bramham included details from my visit to the Chan press conference wrote:

"Two journalists were there who don't speak fluently in either Mandarin or Cantonese - Sid Chow Tan, who works for Vancouver Co-op Radio, and Todd Wong, who was writing a piece for the Web magazine, The Tyee.  both speak English as a first language and, incidently, both disagree with Chan and the Liberal government's handling of the redress issue.

"Chow Tan and Wong had to rely on other journalists and later translators to get the gist of what was said.  And it was heady stuff.

Bramham goes on to describe the content of the translation of Chan's Dec. 2 press release in which Chan accused the Chinese Canadian National Council and "some members of the NDP of using the issue of the head tax, the suffering of the head-tax payers and untruthful information to deepen the conflict within the Chinese community, attack a political party, many community volunteers and myself in order to benefit a certain political party and organization."

"This is a violaiton of justice.  Their words and action are dispicable," continues Chan.

Bramham goes on to point out that "This is headline-grabbing stuff that got prominent attention in the Chinese media and might have in most other Canadian media.  "Why were only Chinese-speaking journalists invited," she asks.  "Head-tax redress is not a Chinese issue.

Bramham points out that how Canada deals with head-tax redress will demonstrate what it means to have a compassionate, inclusive and multicultural country, using the 1988 redress settlement for the Japanese Canadians who were interned during World War 2. 

Clearly our notions of our country change with every wave of immigration.  How did the initial French and English pioneers treat the First Nations people?  How are the new immigrant Chinese treating the established mainstream English speaking community now?  Multiculturalism has been under attack in recent years for becoming a "cottage industry" that perpetuates itself according to writer Neil Bissoondath.

As a 5th generation Chinese Canadian, I grew up with stories about how difficult it was for my ancestors and my parents to find acceptance in Canada - even little things like finding an appartment, getting a job, going to University - without racial discrimination.  But today, many new Chinese language immigrants take it for granted that they can live completely in Vancouver without having to speak in English. 

At the end of her column Bramham writes:

Multiculturalism is about the kind of real integration that results from mutual respect, equal economic and social opportunites and substantive equality.  Barriers to integration of individual Canadians are barriers to the progress of Canada as a whole.

She then attributes the eloquent quote to Raymond Chan's speech when he opened a conference in October.  She concludes by stating "Apparently when it comes to multiculturalism, a lot is lost in the translation of word to action.