Chinese head-tax payers head to Ottawa for apology

[daigong]

Vancouver -- A VIA Rail train carrying nine people -- Chinese head-tax payers, their spouses or descendants -- left Vancouver yesterday evening. They will pick up other supporters on the way and get to Ottawa in time for the government's apology for the imposition of the tax, expected on June 22.

Mary Woo Sims of the B.C. Coalition of Head Tax Payers, said more than 100 people are expected to get on the train in Toronto. VIA Rail is providing complimentary seats.

"I think this is . . . a very significant way in which VIA recognizes the contribution of the forefathers and foremothers of the Chinese community in Canada who came to help build the railway," she said.

REPARATIONS BABY

[Asmodai]

Eeeeeh.
 
I'm not sure about the descendents part.
 
If I held the modern version of every government that ever slighted my ancestors to account, I'd have a list longer than my arm, and still be collecting long after I'm dead.
 
Clearly the head-tax was wrong and those that had to pay it should be compensated. I'm not sure we can extend this sort of thing to descendents though without opening waaay too many cans of worms.

[JFC]

^ What Asmo said.

[ytl]

Well, if you know how seriously their ancesters got screwed because of the Head Tax..... you will agree that the descendents should have the right to get paid back.

"In the early 1900s, the value of $500 was enough to purchase two homes in Montreal, or a 1/4 section of land in many provinces. These penalties, or "taxes," never actually benefitted the original payers as the funds went into a Consolidated Revenue Fund and were spent on 'public' facilities from which Chinese were generally barred--and, who, later, also had their right to vote taken away, as "dis-enfranchised" subjects (i.e., taxation, without representation). Some, therefore, point out that the use of "head tax," is a great euphemism, or misnomer, in both the literal and legal sense of the terms."

"The Government of Canada collected well over $24 million in face value from about 81,000 head tax payers, some of the money being used to support Canada's war effort in World War I. The total head tax collected by 1923 has been estimated as equivalent to over $1.2 billion in 1988 dollars.

In terms of social impact, due to the tax, Chinese Canadian communities in Canada became a "bachelor society," since many families in China could not afford to pay the tax to send for their families to Canada. Significantly, families were separated for several decades, and the growth of Canada's Chinese community remained stunted for several generations, despite having a history in the country that spans almost two centuries."