'We are not asking you to open wide the gates for Chinese immigration': The committee for the repeal of the Chinese immigration act and early human rights activism in Canada

Canadian Historical Review

Volumn 84, Issue 3, 2003, Pages

  Bangarth, Stephanie D ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 48949119844     PISSN: 00083755     EISSN: 17101093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3138/chr.84.3.395     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. The term 'civil rights' also requires defining, as it contains a great deal of conceptual baggage, due largely to its American usage. There, the phrase pertains to the rights of a person by virtue of citizenship or to rights assured by the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments of the American Constitution. It is not a term interchangeable with the notion of 'civil liberties,' as civil rights in the Canadian lexicon are referred to only in connection with property rights that are included in the list of provincial powers in the British North America Act (s. 92, ss. 13). D.A. Schmeiser, Civil Liberties in Canada (Toronto: Oxford University Press 1964), 13
2. This discussion was based on categories framed by Walter Tarnopolsky in The Canadian Bill of Rights 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1978).
3. Ross Lambertson has re-examined the differences between 'classical' and 'modern' egalitarian rights in his doctoral dissertation, 'Activists in the Age of Rights: The Struggle for Human Rights in Canada, 1945-1960,' (University of Victoria 1998), introduction.
4. Individual human rights encompass the claim to all that constitutes a desirable life. Collective human rights, in contrast, refer to rights that can be exercised only by a collectivity, such as the right of Aboriginal peoples to national self-determination. Robert O. Matthews and Cranford Pratt, eds., Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1988), 5
5. RO Matthews, C Pratt, Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy, Ibid., 3-6
6. Herbert A. Sohn, 'Human Rights Legislation in Ontario: A Case Study' (PhD dissertation, University of Toronto 1975);
7. R. Brian Howe, 'The Evolution of Human Rights Policy in Ontario,' Canadian Journal of Political Science 24, 4 (1991): 783-802
8. and 'Incrementalism and Human Rights Reform,' Journal of Canadian Studies 28, (1993): 29-44;
9. John Bagnall, 'The Ontario Conservatives and the Development of Anti-Discrimination Policy' (PhD dissertation. Queen's University 1984)
10. James W. St. G. Walker, 'Race,' Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada: Historical Case Studies (Waterloo and Toronto: The Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History and Wilfrid Laurier University Press 1997)
11. 'The "Jewish Phase" in the Movement for Racial Equality in Canada,' paper presented to 'A Heritage in Transition': A Conference on the Study of Canadian Jewry at York University, 7 June 1998
12. 'Routes of Diversity: Strategies for Change, 1945-1970,' background paper prepared for the Multiculturalism Program, Department of Canadian Heritage, 2001;
13. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 'Aroused by Injustice: The Canadian Human Rights Policy Community, 1945-1955,' paper presented at the Canadian Ethnic Studies Conference, 24-26 March 2000
14. and '"The Dresden Story": Racism, Human Rights, and the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada,' Labour/Le Travail 47 (spring 2001): 43-82
15. Carmela Patrias and Ruth A. Frager, '"This Is Our Country, These Are Our Rights": Minorities and the Origins of Ontario's Human Rights Campaigns,' Canadian Historical Review 82, 1 (2001): 1-35
16. There is a large and growing body of literature on discrimination against the Chinese in Canada. See, for example, Carol F. Lee, 'The Road to Enfranchisement: Chinese and Japanese in British Columbia,' BC Studies 30 (1976): 35-47;
17. W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever: Popular Attitudes and Public Policy Toward Orientals in British Columbia (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1978), 23-35;
18. Patricia E. Roy, 'British Columbia's Fear of Asians, 1900-1950,' Social History 13, 25 (1980): 161-72
19. 'The Oriental "Menace" in British Columbia,' Historical Essays on British Columbia, ed. by J. Friesen and H. Ralston (Toronto: Gage 1980), 243-55
20. and A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 (Vancouver: UBC Press 1989);
21. Edgar Wickberg et al. From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1981);
22. F. McEvoy, 'A Symbol of Racial Discrimination: The Chinese Immigration Act and Canada's Relations with Chinese, 1924-47,' Canadian Ethnic Studies 14 (1982): 24-42;
23. Jin Tan and Patricia E. Roy, The Chinese in Canada, CHA Booklet 9 (Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association 1985), 6-8;
24. Roger Daniels, 'Chinese and Japanese in North America: The Canadian and American Experiences Compared,' Canadian Review of American Studies 17, 2 (1986): 173-87;
25. Kay J. Anderson, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991);
26. Peter S. Li, The Chinese in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press 1998).
27. The 1923 law is found at Canada, Statutes, 1923, c. 38. The day the act was officially took effect, 1 July 1923, became known as 'Humiliation Day' to the Chinese in Canada. Between 1924 and 1946, only eight immigrants were admitted, so stringent were the entry qualifications. Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto Chapter website, http://ccnc.ca/toronto/history/info/content, 4;
28. Lee, 'The Road to Enfranchisement,' 45-7.
29. Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 8 May 1922, 1555
30. National Archives of Canada (NA), RG 27, vol. 1500, file 2-k-184, Report and Recommendations: Special Committee on Orientals in B.C., 1940
31. Li, The Chinese in Canada, 90-1;
32. McEvoy, 'A Symbol of Racial Discrimination,' 28-33;
33. United States, Congressional Record - House, 10 June 1943, 5716-21
34. T.A. Crerar, minister, of mines and resources to Jolliffe, 24 March 1944; Crerar to A.R. Adamson, MP, 27 March 1944
35. Lambertson, 'Aroused by Injustice,' 6
36. Ramsay Cook, 'Canadian Liberalism in Wartime: A Study of the Defence of Canada Regulations and Some Canadian Attitudes to Civil Liberties in Wartime' (MA thesis, Queen's University 1955), 277.
37. See also Cook, 'Canadian Freedom in Wartime, 1939-1945,' in W.H. Heick and Roger Graham, eds., His Own Man: Essays in Honour of Arthur Reginald Lower (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press 1974).
38. Chinese Canadian National Council, Toronto Chapter website, 'History,' 5
39. Globe and Mail, 27 July 2001, 'Obituaries - Kew Dock Yip'; 'Obituaries - Irving Himel'
40. Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-1928 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971), 16-17.
41. Allen, The Social Passion, 16;
42. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 33-5
43. United Church Archives (UCA), General Council Committees Section, Commission on the Church, Nation, and World Order, box 2, file 17, Grace and Angus MacInnis, 'Oriental Canadians - outcasts or citizens?,' nd
44. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 78 n157
45. Rev. W.J. Gallagher to Hon. J.A. Glen, minister of mines and resources, 18 Dec. 1946;
46. NA, MG 26, J1, vol. 434, Tom Yip, chairman, United Church Chinese Mission Board to Mackenzie King, 18 Feb. 1947;
47. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 230-5
48. Howe, 'Incrementalism and Human Rights Reform,' 30-1;
49. Walker, 'Race,' Rights and the Law, 199, 202
50. and 'The "Jewish Phase" in the Movement for Racial Equality in Canada,' 3-4;
51. Lambertson, '"The Dresden Story,"' 47. The author uses the term 'incremental' in its mathematical definition, meaning the amount, usually small, by which a variable increases or is increased. Walker, Frager, Patrias, and this author argue that the campaigns were orchestrated. The term has a different meaning for political scientists, such as Howe, noted above, in that incrementalism involves a series of choices made in small increments from one situation to the next, without a dear vision.
52. For more on incrementalism, see Leslie A. Pal, Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times (Scarborough, Ont.: ITP Nelson 1997), chap. 1.
53. and Frager and Patrias, '"This is Our Country, These Are Our Rights."'
54. See, for example, Howe, 'Human Rights Policy in Ontario';
55. Sohn. 'Human Rights Legislation in Ontario';
56. Bryan Palmer, Working Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 1982), 280-4;
57. Ward, White Canada Forever, 163-4.
58. Alan A. Borovoy, 'Fair Accommodation Practices Act: The "Dresden Affair,"' University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review 14 (Jan. 1956): 13-23
59. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 37, 72 n118;
60. NA, RG 76, vol. 122, file 23635, pt 9, Proceedings of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour, 10 March 1948
61. For more on this reform elite, see Doug Owram, The Government Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1998), chap. 6
62. 'The Formation of a New Reform Elite, 1930-1945.'
63. D. Owram, The Formation of a New Reform Elite, 1930-1945, Ibid., 141; Who's Who in Canada.
64. On George Tatham, see Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 79, n62;
65. Reg Whitaker, Double Standard: The Secret History of Canadian Immigration (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys 1987), 152
66. RG 76, vol. 589, file 827821, pt 13, Chong Ying, Chinese Community Centres of Ontario, to King, 5 July 1946;
67. NA, RG 76, vol. 589, file 827821, pt 13, 'Itinerant' Fred Han Sang to Minister of Resources, 6 Dec. 1946;
68. The role of the Chinese Canadian community, and the activities of Foon Sien Wong in particular, are explored in a conference paper by Lisa Rose Mar, 'The Civil Rights Movement in Canada: A Chinese Canadian Perspective,' 15th Biennial Conference of the Canadian Ethnic Studies Association, Toronto, 26 March 2000.
69. NA, RG 2, vol. 166, file 1-50-3 (vol. 2). Himel, 'Chinese Rights in Canada,' published by the CRCIA, 1948
70. Several newspaper articles and editorials can be found in a clippings file in RG 76, vol. 122, file 23635, pt 7. Southam was named in 1946 as the honorary director of the Ottawa Civil Liberties Association. The editor of the Free Press, J.W. Dafoe, his associate George Ferguson, and his Ottawa correspondent, Grant Dexter, were all included in Owram's 'new reform elite.' Owram, The Government Generation, 185;
71. Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 46, 84 n201, 85 n202
72. Victoria Times, 28 Jan. 1947;
73. Regina Leader-Post, 29 Jan. 1947
74. NA, RG 2, PCO Series A-5-a, vol. 2639, Cabinet Conclusions, Meeting, 10 Dec. 1946, re: Emergency powers; legislation; Chinese in Canada
75. Winnipeg Free Press, 8 Feb. 1947;
76. Edmonton Bulletin, 12 Feb. 1947;
77. It is interesting to note that only the Armenians managed to escape the 'Asian' label. Freda Hawkins, Canada and Immigration: Public Policy and Public Concern, 2nd ed. (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1988), 94-5
78. Proceedings of the Standing Committee on Immigration and Labour, Ibid., 98-9
79. While Senator Cairine Wilson is most widely known as the first woman appointed to the Senate, she was also an important member of the human rights community. Active in organizations such as the League of Nations Society, CLAT, and the founding meeting of the Ottawa Civil Liberties Association, Wilson also worked to liberalize immigration and refugee policies. She played an important role in the prewar campaign to permit more Jews to immigrate to Canada, through her position as president (1938) of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution. Franca Iacovetta, 'A Respectable Feminist: The Political Career of Senator Cairine Wilson, 1921-1962,' in Linda Kealey and Joan Sangster, eds., Beyond the Vote: Canadian Women and Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1989), 63-85
80. as cited in Lambertson, 'Activists in the Age of Rights,' 142, n123;
81. Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1993-1948 (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys 1983), 44-6
82. Statutory Orders and Regulations, 56-180
83. as cited in Wickberg et al., From China to Canada, 212, 220 n22
84. For more on the Committee for a Bill of Rights, see Christopher MacLennan, 'Toward the Charter: Canadians and the Demand for a National Bill of Rights, 1929-1960' (PhD dissertation. University of Western Ontario 1996), esp. chap. 2.
85. See Walker, 'The "Jewish Phase" in the Movement for Racial Equality in Canada';
86. Sue Ferguson, 'A Town Divided,' Maclean's, 10 Sept. 2001, 42-3;
87. and Stuart MacLean, Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Cananda (Toronto: Viking Penguin 1992), chapter on Dresden.
88. For listings of the groups and individuals in the many delegations to the Ontario government on this issue, see the appendices of Sohn, 'Human Rights Legislation.'
89. There is a modern-day note to this story. A $1.2 billion class-action lawsuit was launched by the Chinese Canadian National Council against the federal government on behalf of those forced to pay the head tax and relegated by the 1923 act to the misery of poverty. The case went before the Ontario Superior Court (Mack et al. v. The Attorney General of Canada), where it was struck down on 9 July 2001. The case was then brought before the Ontario Court of Appeal. On 13 September 2002 Mr Justice James MacPherson and Mr Justice Michael Moldover ruled that the lawsuit was beyond reach of contemporary law. This particular story, however, is not over. Lawyers for the Chinese Canadian National Council have sent a complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council over allegations that Justice MacPherson made objectionable comments during the appeal hearing in June. Ontario Reports 55 OR (3rd) Part 2, 9 Nov. 2001, 'Mack et al. v. The Attorney General of Canada,' 113-29;
90. Globe and Mail, 11 July 13 July 2001;
91. Toronto Star, 10 June 2002;
92. Globe and Mail, 14 and 19 Sept. 2002