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Komogata Maru

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The SS Komagata Maru was a chartered ship featured in a dramatic challenge to Canada's former practice of excluding immigrants from India. This challenge took place in the spring and summer of 1914, on the eve of the First World War. It proved to be a bitter and tragic experience for the passengers, first in an unsuccessful and eventually physical confrontation with officials, police and the military at the Port of Vancouver, and then in a deadly encounter with police and troops near Kolkata on the passengers' return to India.

The events in Vancouver illustrated the widespread assumption among white Canadians that Canada was "a white man's country." The whole story also exposed the fundamental unfairness of British rule in India, then the most prized colonial possession of the British Empire. It was one more proof for many South Asians of their second-class status within the Empire. From this perspective, the fall-out from the Komagata Maru was a noteworthy chapter in the history of the independence struggle in India. In 1914-15, the immediate impact was to encourage a small band of nationalists in an abortive armed rising against British rule. In the longer term, the Komagata Maru was a factor in turning Indian public opinion against the British. ( See also Immigration Policy; Prejudice and Discrimination.)

South Asians in Canada Before the Komagata Maru

A few thousand South Asians, mostly Punjabi men from India's north, had migrated to British Columbia and the Pacific coast of the United States early in the 20th century. The vanguard found work at wages that were very high by Indian standards and they sent home letters encouraging their countrymen to follow.

Although their initial numbers were small, they attracted an inordinate amount of negative Canadian and American attention, prompted by cultural and racial prejudice and labour fears of economic competition. Anti-Asian lobbies in Canada and the United States were already fiercely opposed to Chinese and Japanese immigration, and they mounted a vigorous campaign against Punjabis and other South Asians. As a consequence, Canada stopped immigration from India in 1908 and the United States followed suit in 1910. To keep South Asians out, American immigration officials simply applied their existing regulations as ruthlessly as they could. Canadian officials, by contrast relied on two regulations first introduced in 1908 ( see Immigration Policy).

By one of these regulations, immigration officers could - if they chose - block the entry of anyone who came to Canada other than by a continuous journey from their home country. This was effective because passenger agents - under instructions from the governments of India and Canada - would not sell natives of India through tickets to Canada. By another regulation, Canadian immigration officers were empowered to turn back any Asians who arrived with less than $200, a very large sum of money in 1914. (This did not apply to Chinese and Japanese, who were kept out by other measures). These two regulations were deliberately deceptive because, while they were designed solely to exclude immigrants from India, they did not state this as their direct purpose. That evasiveness was so that British imperial officials in India could deny the existence of any laws in Canada that barred Indian immigration.

After Canada and the United States stopped South Asian immigration, Punjabi and other South Asian activists concentrated on trying to reopen the door to Canada. They believed they had a more powerful argument in dealing with Canada than with the United States because, like India, Canada was a part of the British Empire. From the beginning, they were very persistent in supporting would-be-immigrants from India (including women and children), in fighting individual immigration cases in court, in lobbying officials in Ottawa, London and Delhi, and in publishing propaganda aimed both at white Canadian and South Asian audiences.

A moment of great encouragement came in November 1913 when a Canadian judge overruled an immigration department order for the deportation of 38 Punjabi Sikhs. These immigrants had come to Canada via Japan on a regularly scheduled Japanese passenger liner, the Panama Maru. Immigration officials had ordered them deported because they had not come by continuous journey from India and because they were not carrying the requisite amount of money. The judge found fault with the continuous journey regulation and also the regulation specifying a $200 requirement. He looked closely at the wording of these regulations and ruled them inconsistent with the wording of the Immigration Act and therefore invalid. He then allowed the passengers to land. It was this victory for the passengers in the Panama Maru case that encouraged the sailing of the Komagata Maru in the following April 1914.

Unfortunately, by April the legal situation had changed. The Canadian government had quickly rewritten its regulations to meet the objections it encountered in court. Although briefly invalidated, the continuous journey and $200 requirement regulations were back in force by January 1914, three months before the Komagata Maru left Hong Kong for Vancouver. The leadership of the Komagata Maru passengers might have been deterred from sailing after the reissue of these regulations. Instead, they convinced themselves that a Canadian court would rule in their favour. If that did not happen, they believed they could stir a great protest among Sikh troops in India, and so threaten the stability of the British Empire that the Canadian government would have to give way. On both counts, it turned out they were wrong.

Chartering the Komagata Maru

The individual who hired the Komagata Maru and who acted as chief spokesperson for the passengers was a wealthy Sikh named Gurdit Singh Sirhali who was then in his mid-50s. He had made his money as an importer and contractor in Malaya and Singapore although he had always maintained a home in his ancestral village in Punjab. His search for a ship to carry Punjabi immigrants to Canada had begun in December 1913, shortly after the Panama Maru case had led to a temporary lifting of the continuous journey and $200 regulations. Gurdit Singh had been visiting Hong Kong on his own private business, and while there he had met a large number of Punjabi men who were intent on emigrating to Canada or the United States. Some of these men had been in Hong Kong and other British-controlled ports of East Asia for many months and even years, hopefully waiting for a chance to cross the Pacific. Regular shipping lines would not take them in the knowledge that they would be turned back at the port of arrival and then be ordered back to Asia at the expense of the shipping company that brought them.

Gurdit Singh Sirhali's search for a ship for these people took several months as he made inquiries in Kolkata, Singapore and Hong Kong. The ship he found, the itinerant Komagata Maru, temporarily in Hong Kong, was available precisely because it was not British owned or controlled, although it was a British-built ship. It was a steel-hulled steamship designed for the North Atlantic immigrant trade and it had operated under German ownership for over 20 years. Recently, it had been purchased by a small Japanese company for employment in the Pacific as a tramp cargo ship. Gurdit Singh hired it from this Japanese company through a German shipping agent in Hong Kong after getting nowhere in finding a ship through British shipping agents. One can infer that British shipping agents were dubious about a project that involved a legal challenge to Canadian law. It was fraught with political and legal problems and did not look like good business.

At nearly 3,000 tons, the Komagata Maru was a good size for the times and it was well equipped, possessing electric lighting and running water, although it did not have desalination equipment and could take on fresh water only when in port. (Water did become an issue when the ship was held for a long time in Vancouver. Yet the passengers did subsequently survive a long ordeal on board in remarkably good health.) When it had been a regularly scheduled immigrant ship carrying European immigrants from Baltic, Black Sea and Mediterranean ports, the Komagata Maru had accommodated nearly 550 steerage and 16 cabin passengers, a little more than Gurdit Singh intended to carry judging by the 533 bunks he had installed. He had enough room in the forward area of the main deck to create temple space for daily worship, led by a Sikh priest. The space was also used for political lectures and readings of emotional political poetry. For the passengers, that time in worship and in lectures and readings facilitated extraordinary cohesion, under the very difficult circumstances of a long confinement on board ship.

The Passengers and their Crossing to Vancouver

All of the passengers were Punjabis; and, with the exception of two wives and four children, all were men. Sikhs numbered at least 337, Muslims about 27 and Hindus about 12. (None of the passenger lists gives a precise basis for calculating figures on religious affiliation.) Most of the Muslims were from the Shapur District of western Punjab, now in Pakistan. Otherwise, the passengers were from farming villages and districts in central Punjab. There were three distinct groups: those from Doaba, north of the Sutlej River; those from Malwa, south of the Sutlej; and those from Majha, west of the Beas River. A large contingent came from Gurdit Singh's Majha region and an even larger one from the Malwa region of his two principal lieutenants. Much smaller was the group from Doaba, although Doaba has been the main source of Punjabi immigration to Canada over the years. If men from Doaba had played a larger role in organizing the Komagata Maru, then this region might have been better represented on the ship. Trust between the organizers and potential passengers was an issue, and local loyalties were crucial in determining who went and who did not.

Nearly all of the passengers were from elite landowning village families rather than the low-status groups - notably weavers, leatherworkers and sweepers - that made up half of the village populations of rural Punjab. The sons of these landowning families were a chief source of recruits for the British Indian army. Many of the passengers had served in the army or in the police of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore and other British outposts in East Asia. They were independent, self-financed or family-financed economic emigrants for whom emigration was a speculative venture aimed at personal and joint-family advancement. Because many spoke little or no English and all wanted to maximize earnings, they were generally looking for the outdoor jobs available to unskilled labourers - prepared to do menial work that they would not do in India. Judging by the established pattern of Punjabis in North America, most intended to stay overseas for several years in order to earn and save before returning home. Their long-term purpose was suggested by the choice made by nearly all of them to come without wives and children, even though many were married. The great attractions of North America were high wages and immediate investment opportunities in small businesses, farms and city lots. The real reward for their time overseas would be the money they took home for their families when they eventually returned.

At the time, few Canadians had any sympathy for the people on the Komagata Maru or believed that as subjects of the Empire they had a right to enter a self-governing country such as Canada. In fact, very few left-wing Canadians were able to sympathize with the anti-British, anti-imperial message that the passengers heard daily from Gurdit Singh's young, politicized lieutenants. On board, these passengers received intense political education through lectures, readings from revolutionary literature and discussion. As a group, they were also self-selected to trust the leadership on the ship. Many others, who had originally planned to go from Hong Kong, had nervously dropped out after the Hong Kong police arrested Gurdit Singh on suspicion of fraudulently selling passages, only to release him without charges.

The ship sailed from Hong Kong on 4 April 1914 with just 150 passengers. To make up the numbers, Gurdit Singh sent two of his lieutenants to recruit passengers among Punjabis in the Philippines and in China. As the ship proceeded via Shanghai and the Japanese ports of Moji and Yokohama, these late recruits, travelling by regular liners, caught up. Some also came directly from India, making up the number of passengers to 376 by the time the ship left Japan.

The Treatment the Passengers Received in Canada

These passengers arrived in Canadian waters on 21 May 1914 and anchored in Vancouver's harbor on 23 May. Gurdit Singh and his lieutenants knew that Canada had been rejecting South Asian immigrants for the previous six years and that they faced a likely struggle to gain entry for everyone. Nonetheless, Gurdit Singh, his lieutenants and the ordinary passengers were not prepared for the uncompromising measures taken by the Canadian authorities. None of the passengers was allowed ashore, even for preliminary examination, except for 20 returning residents and a very few special cases. The great majority found themselves confined to the ship throughout their time in Canadian waters.

A long confrontation ensued with the passengers resisting immigration department efforts to make them to leave voluntarily. These efforts included limiting their communications with the outside world, blocking their attempts to take their case to a Canadian court, refusing to supply the ship with food and water except when conditions became desperate; and, at one point after a continuing standoff, attempting to take control of the ship by force with a police boarding party.

The passengers had Punjabi and other South Asian friends on shore who hired lawyers on their behalf, who also tried to negotiate with the officials, and who, on several occasions, sent out food and water when conditions on board became desperate. After a month, the two sides finally agreed to take a case to the British Columbia Court of Appeal. This case went ahead very quickly, but ended with a judgment in favour of the Canadian government and against the passengers. The court found no principle in Canadian or British law that gave the passengers a right of entry.

The Tragedy at Budge Budge and the Memory of the Komagata Maru

Gurdit Singh and the passengers accepted the decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal without attempting an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada or beyond that to the Judicial Committee of the British Privy Council in London. They had neither the resources nor willingness to continue a long legal struggle. Even so, their departure was delayed several more weeks. In an atmosphere of deep mistrust, the passengers and their friends on shore argued with government officials about who should provision the ship for its return. In the end, the Canadian government accepted the responsibility as far as Hong Kong. Finally, on 23 July, 355 disappointed and radicalized passengers left for Asia. After a long delay in Japan, where some passengers disembarked, 321 passengers reached the Indian port of Budge Budge near Kolkata on 29 September 1914. By then the First World War had begun. En route, the passengers made contact with German diplomats and exchanged friendly signals with a German cruiser, the Emden, which was then sinking British shipping in the Bay of Bengal.

Understandably, the revolutionary mood on the Komagata Maru had intensified even though these were dangerous times in India for any suspected opponents of the British. With the First World War underway, Indian troops were being recruited to fight alongside the British in the Middle East and Europe. For British officials in India, the uncertain loyalty of many of their Indian subjects was an immense concern. In this atmosphere, a deep-seated distrust affected the handling by British officials of the arrival of the Komagata Maru in India. Within hours of disembarking at Budge Budge, 20 of the passengers were killed in an encounter with British Indian police and troops who were unwilling to let the passengers disperse into Kolkata, and who tried to force them unwillingly onto a specially commissioned train bound for Punjab.

After the violence at Budge Budge, and the initial escape of most of the passengers, 27 avoided arrest despite an extensive police search in the region of Budge Budge and Kolkata. However, the majority were rounded up and held in a Kolkata prison until the Indian government completed a self-serving inquiry into the affair. By then, the passengers of the Komagata Maru had a reputation as dangerous revolutionaries, even in the minds of moderate Indian politicians whose perceptions were shaped by what they learned from a censored colonial Indian press. Only in the aftermath of the War, when the campaign for Indian independence intensified, did the passengers' side of the story begin to emerge. Today, it is the generally accepted story.

Legacy

The Komagata Maru was quickly forgotten by most Canadians and it remained largely forgotten for several generations, except among Punjabi Canadians. Change came as Canadians became increasingly aware of a growing Punjabi and South Asian community in their midst, particularly after the 1970s. As late as 1961, and as a direct consequence of Canada's anti-Asian immigration policies, the national census counted only 6,774 South Asians in the country. Ten years later, after immigration opened up, there were 67,925 and the numbers have doubled or more than doubled each decade since. By the 1990s, South Asians, particularly Punjabi Sikhs, were numerous enough to possess an unmistakable political presence.

As the centenary of the Komagata Maru grew closer, Canadian Sikhs began to push for an official apology. The idea, however, still ran into opposition from a sector of the voting public. In May 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper did deliver an apology at a fair organized by Sikhs in a park in Surrey, British Columbia. Many of the Sikhs present were unhappy with the place chosen for this apology. They wanted it delivered in the House of Commons in Ottawa, where comparable Canadian government apologies for past injustices against other minorities had been made ( see Government Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools). On 18 May 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for the incident before the House of Commons: "Today - while knowing that no words can fully erase the pain and suffering experienced by the passengers - I offer a sincere apology on behalf of the government for the laws in force at the time that allowed Canada to be indifferent to the plight of the passengers of the Komagata Maru."

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The SS Komagata Maru was a chartered ship featured in a dramatic challenge to Canada's former practice of excluding immigrants from India. This challenge took place in the spring and summer of 1914, on the eve of the First World War.

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Komogata Maru

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When Nimrat Randhawa and her family immigrated to Canada in the summer of 2003, they arrived completely in the dark - literally.

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More than just an isolated "incident", The Komagata Maru story reflects a deliberate, exclusionary policy of the Canadian government to keep out ethnicities with whom it deemed unfit to enter. These justifications were couched in racist and ethnocentric views of "progress", "civilization", and "suitability" which all buttressed the view that Canada should remain a "White Man's Country".

On May 23, 1914, a crowded ship from Hong Kong carrying 376 passengers, most being immigrants from Punjab, British India, arrived in Vancouver's Burrard Inlet on the west coast of the Dominion of Canada. The passengers, all British subjects, were challenging the Continuous Passage regulation, which stated that immigrants must "come from the country of their birth, or citizenship, by a continuous journey and on through tickets purchased before leaving the country of their birth, or citizenship." The regulation had been brought into force in 1908 in an effort to curb Indian immigration to Canada. As a result, the Komagata Maru was denied docking by the authorities and only twenty returning residents, and the ship's doctor and his family were eventually granted admission to Canada. Following a two month stalemate, the ship was escorted out of the harbour by the Canadian military on July 23, 1914 and forced to sail back to Budge-Budge, India where nineteen of the passengers were killed by gunfire upon disembarking and many others imprisoned.

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More than just an isolated "incident", The Komagata Maru story reflects a deliberate, exclusionary policy of the Canadian government to keep out ethnicities with whom it deemed unfit to enter. These justifications were couched in racist and ethnocentric views of "progress", "civilization", and "suitability" which all buttressed the view that Canada should remain a "White Man's Country".

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Backgrounder

On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru reached Vancouver's harbour via Hong Kong and Japan carrying 376 prospective South Asian immigrants who hoped to settle in Canada. The passengers, however, did not receive a friendly welcome. Their arrival provoked massive opposition from the public, and prevalent ideas of race and exclusion held by the majority of the local population led to an outpouring of racial rhetoric and considerable effort to force the ship's return to India. In response to this backlash, the local South Asian community came together to fight the deportation of the passengers. While a legal challenge mounted, the community was unsuccessful and the vast majority of the passengers were forced to leave. This collective action was a pivotal event in the community's early struggle for equal treatment in Canada. Today, the Komagata Maru incident has resonance within Canadian history and public discourse, and has significant iconic value within the South Asian-Canadian community.

In the years prior to the Komagata Maru's arrival, the Canadian government placed limitations on South Asian immigration through racially restrictive policies. A 1908 order-in-council required "Asiatic" immigrants to possess at least $200 to enter the country. A second order-in-council required all immigrants to come to Canada via "continuous journey," directly from their country of origin. This policy was aimed at South Asians as nonstop travel from India to Canada was largely unavailable. Sikh businessman Gurdit Singh chartered the Komagata Maru from Hong Kong to confront these restrictions and hoped that he and his passengers, all British citizens, would be able to enter Canada.

This would not be the case. Immigration officials did not allow the ship to dock and the passengers were isolated on board, unable to communicate with the South Asian community on shore. In the weeks that followed, conditions on the ship, including access to food and water, grew desperate. The local South Asian community rose to the defence of the passengers, formed a committee, raised large amounts of money, and hired a lawyer to challenge the restrictive immigration laws. A test case was put before the courts, but lost in its final appeal, and the passengers were issued deportation orders. When they refused to leave until provisions for the return trip were supplied and fought attempts by officials to board their ship, the government sent in the heavily-armed warship HMCS Rainbow. The Komagata Maru passengers stood their ground, singing patriotic songs and reading from Sikh scripture. Finally, thanks in part to efforts by the local South Asian community to negotiate an agreement, the government provided food and water for the ship. On 23 July 1914, the Komagata Maru left Vancouver harbour with the majority of its passengers aboard and returned to India.

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Backgrounder On May 23, 1914, the Komagata Maru reached Vancouver's harbour via Hong Kong and Japan carrying 376 prospective South Asian immigrants who hoped to settle in Canada. The passengers, however, did not receive a friendly welcome.

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Head tax certificate issued to Lee Don, age 22, arrived Victoria, B.C. on July 23, 1918 (VPL 30625)
Almost immediately upon completion of the CPR, pressure from the B.C. provincial legislature to pass exclusionary legislation against the Chinese led to the enactment by the federal government of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885. This legislation imposed a $50 fee, called the "head tax," on each Chinese person entering Canada. Only six classes of people were exempt: diplomats, clergymen, merchants, students, tourists and men of science. Modelled on the 1881 poll tax passed in New Zealand, the intention of the head tax was to discourage Chinese labourers from coming to Canada.

In 1901, the tax was increased to $100 and in 1903 it was increased again, to $500 - the equivalent of two years wages for a labourer. Despite the heavy tax, Chinese migrants continued to come, as they could earn 10 to 20 times more in Canada. Many Chinese Canadians borrowed money to pay the tax. Then they laboured for years to pay off their debts.

No other ethnic group in British Columbian history has suffered such formally sanctioned mistreatment of its members on entering Canada over such an extended period. During the period of the head tax between 1885 and 1923, over 97,000 Chinese immigrants still came to Canada seeking a better life, with many helping to build B.C. and Canadian society.

They lived and worked in every town and city across British Columbia. In many small towns, Chinese Canadian cafés served as community gathering places. Chinese Canadian farmers grew fresh produce and Chinese Canadian grocers supplied local neighbourhoods. The B.C. government received approximately 40 per cent of the $23 million total (nominal value) tax revenue collected through the head tax.

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Head tax certificate issued to Lee Don, age 22, arrived Victoria, B.C. on July 23, 1918 (VPL 30625) Almost immediately upon completion of the CPR, pressure from the B.C. provincial legislature to pass exclusionary legislation against the Chinese led to the enactment by the federal government of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885.

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2. The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act

By Matthew McRae, Communications Advisor

When he was a little boy growing up in Vancouver, Dr. Henry Yu didn't understand why his grandfather frequently took him on long walks to visit Chinatown.

It was only when Dr. Yu was much older that he realized that his grandfather's walks were connected to two discriminatory policies from Canada's past: the Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act.

To understand these two policies and the terrible effect they had on generations of individuals, you need to know a little about the history of Chinese immigration to Canada. In the late 1800s, there was an influx of Chinese immigration to Canada's West. Many came to help build the Canadian Pacific Railway - the first Canadian Railway to cross the Rocky Mountains and reach the Pacific Coast - but Chinese people emigrated for many other reasons, too: working on farms, opening stores and participating in logging operations in British Columbia and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, many white Canadians were hostile to Chinese immigration. In 1885, immediately after construction on the Canadian Pacific Railway was complete, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, which stipulated that, with almost no exceptions, every person of Chinese origin immigrating to Canada had to pay a fee of $50, called a head tax. No other group in Canadian history has ever been forced to pay a tax based solely on their country of origin. "It was an attempt to basically discriminate against the Chinese," Dr. Yu explained. "...it was a way to alter the flow of migrants to the new Canada to be weighted towards European and in particular British migrants."

In 1900, the head tax was raised to $100. Then, three years later, it went up to $500 per person. Between 1885 and 1923, approximately 81,000 Chinese immigrants paid the head tax, contributing millions of dollars to government coffers. One of those who paid the tax was Dr. Yu's maternal grandfather, Yeung Sing Yew, who immigrated to Canada in 1923. Yeung was also one of the last Chinese immigrants to pay the head tax; in the same year as he arrived in the country, the Canadian government passed a new Chinese Immigration Act, which came to be known as the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Under the new act, Chinese immigration to Canada was completely banned. This legislation was kept in place until 1947, and its effect on Canada's Chinese community was devastating.

Because of the costly head tax, by 1923, Canada's Chinese communities were largely "bachelor societies," where men outnumbered women by a ratio of almost twenty-eight to one. Many Chinese men had come to Canada alone, hoping to save enough money to bring over their wives and families. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 destroyed those dreams. Yeung spent many years living alone in Canada.

Even after 1947, immigration to Canada was still challenging. Until Canada's immigration system was overhauled in 1967, few Chinese were let into the country, and usually only for family reunification purposes. In fact, Yeung first met his daughter - Dr. Yu's mother - when she immigrated to Canada in 1965. Both of Dr. Yu's parents worked full time, so when he was young, he spent a lot of time with his grandparents -this brings us back to the long walks to Chinatown.

It was only when Dr. Yu was older, and knew his grandfather's whole story that he finally understood what the long walks were about: they demonstrated his grandfather's joy at being reunited with his family. "It explains his showing me off to all those other elderly men gathered at these cafes in Chinatown," Dr. Yu told me. He recounted how excited the old men would be, and how they would enthusiastically congratulate his grandfather: "It explains why my grandfather having me here was like an explosion of joy because the Exclusion Act basically made it impossible for many of them... to marry someone and have kids turn into grandkids. Many of them would die alone literally, growing old alone except for these other men in these cafes."

This experience helped teach Dr. Yu that the effects of racial discrimination take a psychological toll on many generations. He remembers how, until the late 1940s, the Chinese in British Columbia were not allowed to swim in pools with whites, and were segregated in movie theatres. He told me how many Chinese immigrants lived in fear of being deported because authorities would often look for reasons to remove people from the country. Dr. Yu's grandfather used a fake identity, called a "paper name," to get into Canada because he did not have a legal birth certificate - something that was very common at the time - and so he worried for many years about the authorities coming for him.

"So my grandfather, you could say he lived a life that unfortunately distorted who he could be, who he was - and by the time I knew him as an elder in the community, he wasn't the same man he was when he was young. When I learned about things like the head tax.... It explained things about my grandfather that I already felt and knew. It's kind of interesting that you can feel something's wrong and not know why until later. You kind of don't know the words, and then you finally find a name for your pain. You say "Oh now I get it. Now I understand.""

Chinese Canadians did call for acknowledgment of the human rights violations they experienced due to the head tax and Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1983, Dak Leon Mark and Shack Yee requested that the Canadian government refund the $500 head tax they had each paid. In the years that followed, some 4,000 Chinese Canadians came forward seeking redress. Some Chinese Canadians also pursued justice through the court of law. Redress finally came in June 2006, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in the House of Commons. That same year, $20,000 in redress was offered by the Government of Canada to all surviving individuals who had paid the head tax. The government also allocated $24 million for a community historical recognition program and $10 million for a national historical recognition Program meant to educate Canadians on the impacts of the head tax and the racism experienced by many different groups in Canada.

Dr. Henry Yu is now a professor of History at the University of British Columbia. He has played a key role in the Chinese Head Tax Digitization Project, which created a searchable database of Chinese Canadian immigrants who paid the head tax. The database allows individuals to search for family members, and it allows researchers access to important demographic information. For Dr. Yu, it also serves as a connection to his grandfather and to all those who have passed away, ensuring they and their stories are never forgotten:

"You could say that in this research, this database, I can find ways to hear from him and all those other men who are otherwise silent. And so that's where, in a way, we were able to find a voice and let it say things that perhaps they couldn't at the time."

The story of the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act and the struggle for redress can be found in the Museum's Canadian Journeys gallery. This blog was written in part using research conducted by Mallory Richard, who worked at the Museum as both a researcher and a project coordinator.

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The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act | CMHR

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We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. Keep browsing to accept. Close Visit for only $5 from January 14-31, 2020. Learn More Stories The Chinese head tax and the Chinese Exclusion Act By Matthew McRae, Communications Advisor When he was a little boy growing up in Vancouver, Dr. Henry Yu didn't understand why his grandfather frequently took him on long walks to visit Chinatown.

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Japanese Internment
British Columbia wages war against Japanese Canadians

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air..."

Japanese Canadians were shipped to interior B.C. aboard trains during the Second World War. Picture here, children looking out a train window on their way to internment camps. (National Archives of Canada)

With news of the attack on the American naval base at Hawaii on December 7, 1941, years of smoldering fear and resentment against Japanese Canadians exploded into panic and anger in British Columbia.

At the time there were about 22,000 Japanese Canadians in British Columbia, some descendants of the first immigrants who sought work in Canada in the late 1800s. From the beginning, these newcomers had been subject to intense discrimination by a largely white Canadian society.

Muriel Kitagawa, a young mother of Japanese descent, wrote to her brother Wes, a medical student at the University of Toronto.

"We have been tempered for the anti-Japanese feeling these long years. It has only intensified into overt acts of unthinking hoodlumism like throwing flaming torches into rooming houses and bricks through plate glass."

Within days of the Pearl Harbor attack, Canadian Pacific Railways fired all its Japanese workers, and most other Canadian industries followed suit. Japanese fishermen in British Columbia were ordered to stay in port, and 1,200 fishing boats were seized by the Canadian navy.

In Ottawa, top RCMP and military officials said fears of disloyalty and sabotage by Japanese Canadians were unfounded. But the war had offered a convenient excuse for British Columbians to act on entrenched anti-Asian sentiments.

Ian MacKenzie, the federal cabinet minister from British Columbia pushed the Canadian government to take action.

"It is the governments plan to get these people out of B.C. as fast as possible. It is my personal intention, as long as I remain in public life, to see they never come back here. Let our slogan be for British Columbia: No Japs from the Rockies to the seas.'"

Persecution intensified on December 18th,1941 when Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong and killed or imprisoned most of the 2,000 Canadian soldiers defending the island.

"B.C. is falling all over itself in the scramble to be the first to kick us out from jobs and homes ... it has just boiled down to race persecution, and signs have been posted on all highways ... JAPS ... KEEP OUT." Muriel Kitigawa wrote to her brother. "We are tightening our belts for the starvation to come. The diseases ... the crippling ... the twisting of our souls ... death would be the easiest to bear."

On January 14, 1942, a 100-mile wide strip along the coast was designated a "protected area" by the federal government and all male Japanese Canadians between the ages of 18 and 45 were to be removed from the area and taken to road camps in the interior

On March 4, 1942, all people of Japanese racial origin were told to leave the protected area. A dusk to dawn curfew was imposed and enforced by police. Most of the Japanese with either naturalized citizens or born in Canada.

Japanese Canadian women and children were relocated to shantytowns in the B.C. wilderness during the Second World War. Pictured here, a community kitchen at Japanese-Canadian internment camp in Greenwood, B.C., 1943. (National Archives of Canada, C-024452)

Japanese Canadians were told to pack a single suitcase each and taken to holding areas, to wait for trains to take them inland. Vancouver's Hastings Park was one of areas where families waited, sometimes for months, to be relocated.

"Hundreds of women and children were squeezed into the livestock building," remembered Yukiharu Misuyabu, an interned teenager. "Each family separated from the next by a flimsy piece of cloth hung from the upper deck of double-decked steel bunks. The walls between the rows of steel bunks were only five feet high, their normal use being to tether animals."

After months in animal stalls, the Japanese-Canadians were shipped on sealed trains to the interior Husbands and wives, parents and children were separated -- the men to work on road gangs: women and children to shantytowns in the B.C. wilderness.

Yukiharu Misuyabu and his family went to Lemon Creek, where 2,000 Japanese lived in shacks.

"The walls of our shack were one layer of thin wooden board covered with two-ply paper sandwiching a flimsy layer of tar. There was no ceiling below the roof. In the winter, moisture condensed on the inside of the cold walls and turned to ice."

In January 1943, the Canadian government succumbed to more pressure from B.C. politicians and authorized the sale of all the properties seized from Japanese Canadians. The homes, cars, businesses and personal property left behind were sold for a pittance. The lives Japanese Canadians had built in Canada were erased.

Kitigawa raged against her government.

"The bitterness, the anguish is complete," wrote Kitigawa. "You, who deal in lifeless figures, files and statistics, could never measure the depth of hurt and outrage dealt out to those of us who love this land. It is because we are Canadians, that we protest the violation of our birthright. "

The movement of 23,000 Japanese Canadians during the war was the largest mass exodus in Canadian history.

After the war, the federal government decided to remove all Japanese Canadians from British Columbia. They forced them to choose between deportation to war-ravaged Japan or dispersal east of the Rocky Mountains. Most chose the latter, moving to Ontario, Québec and the Prairie provinces.

Public protest would eventually stop the deportations, but not before 4,000 Japanese Canadians left the country. On 1 April 1949, Japanese Canadians regained their freedom to live anywhere in Canada.

Forty-three years after the end of the war, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney acknowledged the wartime wrongs and announced compensation packages including of $21,000 for each individual directly wronged.

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Japanese Internment British Columbia wages war against Japanese Canadians "We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air..." Japanese Canadians were shipped to interior B.C. aboard trains during the Second World War. Picture here, children looking out a train window on their way to internment camps.

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After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, both the United States and Canada cracked down on their citizens of Japanese descent. In British Columbia, entire Japanese-Canadian neighbourhoods were eradicated. Homes and possessions belonging to Japanese-Canadians were seized and sold. Some Japanese-Canadians - deemed threats to national security - were forced into internment camps.

In 1988 the federal government apologized for this historical wrong. Now, a new project will explore and highlight the human and cultural costs of this forced dispossession.

The Landscapes of Justice project with see fourteen university, museum, and Japanese cultural organizations work together to create a travelling museum exhibition as well as an online an educational component for students.

The $3-million, seven-year project was launched in 2014 and draws upon, among other materials, the Royal BC Museum's considerable collection of Japanese-Canadian photos, letters, and other artifacts.

"The story of the Japanese-Canadian experience during the Second World War is well-documented but perhaps not widely understood by most British Columbians," said Kathryn Bridge, deputy director of the Royal BC Museum. The lead organization is the University of Victoria.

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kayak: canada’s history magazine for kids

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After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, both the United States and Canada cracked down on their citizens of Japanese descent. In British Columbia, entire Japanese-Canadian neighbourhoods were eradicated. Homes and possessions belonging to Japanese-Canadians were seized and sold. Some Japanese-Canadians - deemed threats to national security - were forced into internment camps.

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Rare views of Japanese-Canadian internment: 19 images remembering one of Canada's darkest hours

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Last week was the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Amid commemorations of the Americans killed in the attack, as well as the brutal war that followed, also came a solemn remembrance of how the United States interned coastal Japanese-American populations that it wrongly believed were a dangerous fifth column.

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Chinese immigrants not welcome after railway completed

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The Chinese were instrumental in building Canada's railway, but were no longer welcome after it was done.

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Background

The first major wave of Chinese immigration began with the Fraser River gold rush of 1858. From 1881 to 1885, more than 15,000 Chinese labourers came to work on the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald acknowledged the necessity of Chinese labour. When the government of British Columbia tried to ban Chinese immigration in 1882, Macdonald said in the House of Commons, "either you must have this labour or you can't have the railway." ( See The "Other" Last Spike.) But as construction of the railway neared completion, Macdonald willingly yielded to prejudiced and discriminatory politicians, trade unionists and public opinion. In 1884, he appointed the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration to investigate the restriction of Chinese immigrants. ( See also Royal Commissions.)

Commissioners Sir Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau and John Hamilton Gray heard testimonies from 51 witnesses. Most of them gave negative reports. The only testimonials from Chinese people were provided by two consular officials from San Francisco, California. Other nations' immigration policies were looked at by the commission, including the American Chinese Exclusion Act (1882). Chinese immigration laws in New Zealand (1881) and Victoria, Australia (1855), both levied a £10 poll tax on Chinese immigrants.

In 1885, the commissioners concluded that there was little evidence to support the negative claims against the Chinese. They also found that Chinese immigration was in fact beneficial to the development of British Columbia. Still, their findings were aligned with most of the witnesses. Instead of exclusion, Chapleau and Gray called for legislation to restrict Chinese immigration - specifically, a $10 entry fee for Chinese immigrants. Money raised by such taxation was to be spent on a health inspector to examine all Chinese passengers for diseases. The tax would also pay for a joint tribunal; it would closely monitor and control the lives of Chinese people in Canada.

The Canadian government passed the Chinese Immigration Act on 20 July 1885. It included a $50 head tax. This amount was intended to be an obstacle for entry to Canada. The Royal Commission found that the average Chinese labourer earned $300 a year and saved a modest $43 after living expenses.

By 1902, it was clear that the head tax had not slowed Chinese immigration - even after it doubled from $50 to $100. A second inquiry, the Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, suggested the head tax be increased to $500. This fee was equal to about two years' salary or the purchase of two homes. It was instituted by Parliament in 1903.

Chinese Immigration Act

Under the Chinese Immigration Act, Chinese migrants had to pay a head tax of $50 to come to Canada. ( Diplomats, government representatives, tourists, merchants, scientists and students were exempt.) The Chinese were the only group that had to pay the head tax. ( See Immigration Policy.)

The Act contained other restrictions. Ships were permitted only one Chinese passenger for every 50 tons of the ship's total weight - compared with one person per 2 tons for ships carrying European immigrants. Entrance was denied to Chinese immigrants with leprosy or infectious diseases and to any known sex workers. All Chinese residents, whether naturalized or Canadian-born, had to pay a fee of $0.50 to register with local authorities.

There were many amendments to the Act. In 1887, Chinese women married to non-Chinese men were exempted from the head tax, as were any Chinese people travelling through Canada by railway en route to another country. Under an 1892 amendment, any Chinese person who temporarily left the country had to register with immigration authorities. In 1908, students were no longer exempted from the head tax. In 1917, immigration officials gained the right to arrest any Chinese person believed to be in Canada illegally. In 1921, Chinese people who left Canada for more than two years or left without registering, had to pay the head tax upon his or her return.

The head tax was in effect for 38 years (1885-1923). Over that time, around 82,000 Chinese immigrants paid nearly $23 million in tax. In 1906, Newfoundland, still a British colony, passed the Act Respecting the Immigration of Chinese Persons. Commonly known as the Newfoundland Chinese Immigration Act, it introduced a $300 head tax. Newfoundland's head tax remained in effect until Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation in 1949.

Despite these anti-Chinese immigration laws, the Chinese population in Canada increased from 4,383 to 39,587 between 1881 and 1921. In response, the federal government resorted to a drastic solution. On 1 July 1923, the head tax was abolished and the Chinese Immigration Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, was passed. It banned all Chinese immigrants, save for a handful of merchants, diplomats and students. While Canadians celebrated Dominion Day (now Canada Day) on 1 July, the Chinese communities in Canada saw it as "Humiliation Day" and boycotted festivities. The Act was in effect for 24 years, from 1923 until its repeal in 1947.

Head Tax Certificates

From 1885 until 1949, the year Newfoundland ended its head tax, Chinese immigrants were issued certificates as proof of head-tax payment. These documents were officially classified as C.I.5 certificates - C.I. meaning "Chinese Immigration." They listed names, ports and dates of arrival, as well as amounts paid. Anyone travelling to China needed an official stamp on the certificate to re-enter Canada. Otherwise, returning travellers had to pay the head tax. The format of the certificate was changed at least four times. A photograph was added in 1912 to curb illegal immigration.

Other C.I. certificates were also used. For instance, the C.I.6 certificate was issued to Chinese immigrants who had arrived before the head tax. Chinese people, born overseas or in Canada, needed the C.I.9 certificate for temporary travel outside of Canada.

General Registers of Chinese Immigration

Details of all Chinese people arriving from 1885 until 1949 were handwritten in large ledger books. There were 19 columns of information, including name; port or place where registered; date of registration; amount of head tax; sex; age; place of birth; profession or occupation; name of vessel or train upon arrival; and physical marks. No other immigrant group was documented to this degree.

The Newfoundland Register of Arrivals and Outward Registrations had two lists: one for records of entry; the other for departures. Chinese immigrants were issued NF 63 certificates from 1910 to 1949. Anyone leaving Newfoundland temporarily or permanently was issued a C.I.9 certificate and was recorded on the list for departures.

The Port of New Westminster Register of Chinese Immigration, 1887-1908, is the only port register known to have survived. It lists Chinese immigrants who paid the head tax at the port of New Westminster, British Columbia.

Impact on Chinese Community Life

Institutional racism was perpetuated by the Chinese Immigration Act and more than 100 other policies. They denied Chinese people the right to vote; to practice law or medicine; to hold public office; to seek employment on public works; or to own crown land, among other restrictions. This prejudice and discrimination was echoed by politicians, the public and the press. As a result, the Chinese community suffered low social standing. But the most devastating consequence of the Act was its impact on family life.

The majority of Chinese people in Canada were men whose wives and children remained in China. Europeans were encouraged to come to Canada with offers of free land. ( See also Dominion Lands Act; History of Settlement in the Canadian Prairies.) But the head tax made it financially impossible (save for a few instances) to bring families from China. Other significant roadblocks were the cost of passage and the loss of cultural traditions. Women were expected to stay behind to look after children, parents and extended family members, as well as ancestral burial sites. In 1911, the ratio of Chinese men to women in Canada was 28 to 1. This was the highest gender imbalance among any ethnic group in Canada until the end of the Second World War.

These men lived in what became known as a bachelor society. Their meager savings were sent regularly to their families in China, who endured decades of poverty, starvation, banditry and civil wars. The head tax did not deter Chinese immigration, but it did stunt the growth of the Chinese population in Canada.

Apology and Redress

After the repeal of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1947, the Chinese Canadian community began calling on the federal government for redress (correction and compensation) for its anti- immigration policies. In 1983, a simple act by two elderly head-tax payers sparked a decades-long campaign for action. Dak Leon Mark and Shack Yee asked their local member of Parliament (MP) for a refund of their $500 head tax payments. Their request was denied.

Two national organizations - the Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and later the National Congress of Chinese Canadians (NCCC) - pressured the government to acknowledge and address its history of anti-Chinese immigration policy. Both organizations' objectives were the same, but their demands were different. The NCCC wanted an apology and funds for an educational foundation. The CCNC sought an acknowledgement in Parliament, an apology and symbolic financial compensation. It lobbied on behalf of 4,000 head-tax payers, their spouses and descendants.

Other organizations, protests and events rallied Chinese Canadians across the country. In 1988, the Japanese Canadian Redress Agreement was signed by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. The Agreement acknowledged and redressed the injustices suffered by Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. ( See Internment of Japanese Canadians.) Years later, the Prime Minister attempted to settle other redress claims. However, these symbolic offers were rejected by the Chinese, Italian and Ukrainian Canadian communities. ( See also: Internment in Canada; Ukrainian Internment in Canada.)

A class-action lawsuit, filed in 2000 by Shack Jang Mak (a head-tax payer) and the widow and son of head-tax payer Guang Foo Lee, was struck down in the Ontario Superior Court. In 2004, in response to a submission filed by Chinese Canadian organizations, Doudou Diène, the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, recommended that Canada redress the head tax.

That same year, MP Inky Mark introduced private member's Bill C-333. It expressed sorrow for the head tax and other immigration restrictions from 1885 to 1947. The bill opened negotiations with the NCCC for the development of public education initiatives. However, the CCNC, head-tax payers and their families were excluded from the discussions.

The Liberal government under Prime Minister Paul Martin dissolved in late 2005. As a result, Bill C-333 did not become law. In the months leading up to the 2006 federal election, the head tax was a significant campaign issue. Martin made a personal apology on Fairchild Radio (which airs Chinese-language programming). However, it was not an official apology, as expected by the Chinese community. The Conservative Party pledged to redress the head tax if elected.

On 22 June 2006, newly elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in the House of Commons to head-tax payers, their families and the Chinese Canadian community. He pledged "symbolic payments to living head-tax payers and living spouses of deceased payers." A commitment was made to establish "funds to help finance community projects aimed at acknowledging the impact of past wartime measures and immigration restrictions on the Chinese Canadian community and other ethnocultural communities."

Six days later, Newfoundland and Labrador premier Danny Williams apologized for the $300 head tax imposed by the former Dominion of Newfoundland. The City of New Westminster apologized in 2010 for its past exclusionary policies. In 2014, BC premier Christy Clark apologized for the province's more than 100 anti-Chinese laws and policies of the past.

Fewer than 50 head-tax payers were among the 785 people who received payments of $20,000 from the federal government in 2009. Many descendants of head-tax payers continue the redress campaign for family members excluded from the 2006 settlement.

Significance

The head tax was enacted to restrict immigration after Chinese labour was no longer needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. British Columbia not only benefited by receiving 40 per cent of the country's $23 million in head-tax revenues, but it also placated its anti-Chinese politicians and citizens in the process. The paradox was that the discriminatory legislation to keep out the Chinese in fact increased their levels of immigration. Ultimately, the head tax was the final step towards outright exclusion.

Legacy

In 2008, the Government of Canada's Community Historical Recognition Program was established through consultation with Chinese, Italian, Ukrainian, Jewish and Indo-Canadian communities. Its goal was to educate Canadians about the hardships resulting from immigration restrictions and wartime measures. A $5 million fund was allocated for projects about Chinese immigration restrictions. This led to the creation of 33 art, music, film, literature, theatre, oral history and photography projects. They include Lost Years: A People's Struggle for Justice; The Ties That Bind; and Newfoundland Head Tax and the Chinese Community.

See also: Racial Segregation of Asian Canadians; Asian Heritage in Canada; Celebrating Asian Heritage in Canada.

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The Chinese head tax was enacted to restrict immigration after Chinese labour was no longer needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Between 1885 and 192...

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(courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-057250)

Background

By the start of the Second World War, Japanese people had long suffered the sting of racism in Canada. Ever since the first Japanese person, a man named Manzo Nagano, stepped ashore in New Westminster in 1877, White settlers in British Columbia tried to exclude people whom they considered to be "undesirables." They passed laws to keep Japanese people from working in the mines; to prevent them from voting; and to prohibit them from working on any project funded by the province.

Then came the news, on 7 December 1941, of Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, where Canadian troops were stationed. ( See Canada and the Battle of Hong Kong.) With these shocking events, fears of a Japanese invasion were sparked. Their flames were fanned by a sensationalist press. Distrust of Japanese Canadians spread along the Pacific Coast. The RCMP moved quickly to arrest suspected Japanese operatives. The Royal Canadian Navy impounded 1,200 Japanese-owned fishing boats. On the recommendation of the RCMP, Japanese newspapers and schools were voluntarily shut down to avoid racist backlash.

Fishermen's Reserve rounding up Japanese-Canadian fishing vessels in Steveston, BC, 10 December 1941.

"From the army point of view, I cannot see that Japanese Canadians constitute the slightest menace to national security," wrote Major-General Kenneth Stuart. Nevertheless, BC politicians were in a rage. They spoke of the Japanese "in the way that the Nazis would have spoken about Jewish Germans," said Escott Reid, a Canadian diplomat. "When they spoke I felt... the physical presence of evil."

Detained, Dispossessed and Dispersed

On 24 February 1942, the federal Cabinet of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King issued Order-in-Council P.C. 1486 to remove and detain "any and all persons" from any "protective area" in the country. Those powers were broad enough to apply to anyone. But they were specifically used to target Japanese Canadians along the West Coast. The following week, the British Columbia Security Commission was established. It implemented and carried out Japanese internment.

On 16 March, the first Japanese Canadians were taken from areas 160 km inland from the Pacific coast - deemed a "protected area" - and brought to Hastings Park in Vancouver. ( See Japanese Canadians Held at Hastings Park.) More than 8,000 detainees were processed through Hastings Park. Women and children were housed in the Livestock Building. All property that could not be carried was taken into government custody.

"I was a 22-year-old Japanese Canadian," said Tom Tamagi, "a prisoner of my own country of birth. We were confined inside the high wire fence of Hastings Park just like caged animals."

Trains then carried the Japanese detainees to Slocan, New Denver, Kaslo, Greenwood and Sandon - ghost towns in the Kootenays. Others were offered the option of working on sugar beet farms in Alberta and Manitoba ( see Sugar Industry), where they would be able to keep their families intact.

Though the camps were not surrounded with barbed wire fences, as they were in the United States, conditions were overcrowded and poor. There was no electricity or running water. Those who resisted their internment were sent to prisoner of war camps in Petawawa, Ontario; or to Camp 101 on the northern shore of Lake Superior.

In a further betrayal, an order-in-council signed 19 January 1943 liquidated all Japanese property that had been under the government's "protective custody." Homes, farms, businesses and personal property were sold. The proceeds were used to pay the costs of detaining Japanese Canadians.

Image: Jack Long / National Film Board of Canada/Library and Archives Canada/PA-142853.

Anti-Japanese Racism

Anti-Japanese racism was not confined to British Columbia. Though in need of labour, Albertans did not want Japanese Canadians in their midst. Alberta sugar beet farmers crowded Japanese labourers into tiny shacks, uninsulated granaries and chicken coops; they paid them a pittance for their hard labour.

More than 90 per cent of Japanese Canadians - some 21,000 people - were uprooted during the war. The majority were British subjects by birth. (Before 1947, both people born in Canada and naturalized immigrants were considered British subjects; in other words, they were citizens of the Commonwealth. Canadian citizenship came into effect in January 1947.)

Even after the war, Mackenzie King continued to bow to the most strident demands of the politicians and the citizens he represented. He offered Japanese Canadians two choices: move to Japan; or disperse to provinces east of the Rocky Mountains. He never expressed any regrets for the treatment of Japanese Canadians, during the war or after.

Community kitchen at a Japanese Canadian internment camp in Greenwood BC, 1943.

In 1946, nearly 4,000 former internees chose to leave Canada for bombed-out Japan. About 2,000 were aging first-generation immigrants - 1,300 were children under 16 years of age. The last controls on Japanese Canadians were not lifted until 1948, when they were granted the right to vote. Finally, Canadian society began to open to the Japanese.

Apology and Redress

The military threat cited to justify the detention of Japanese Canadians never existed outside the anxious imaginations of some British Columbians. Not a single Japanese Canadian was charged with any wrongdoing. Still, some people have been uncomfortable judging the acts of our predecessors from the perspective of hindsight. When Japanese Canadians campaigned for compensation on 29 June 1984, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said, "I do not see how I can apologize for some historic event to which we... were not a party. We can regret that it happened." He went on to ask where such claims for compensation would end. Indeed, other communities in Canada also sought redress and apology from the government for its racially motivated policies of the past: Ukrainian Canadians interned during the First World War; and Chinese Canadians who paid the head tax, among others.

September 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signs the agreement to compensate the Japanese-Canadians for the expropriation of their property and their internment during World War II.

But as expressed in the April 1947 issue of Saturday Night magazine, "It is the first step which costs; an injustice once performed is fatally easy to repeat." On 22 September 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney rose in the House of Commons to apologize on behalf of the Canadian government for the wrongs it committed against Japanese Canadians during wartime. The apology came with symbolic redress payments to individuals and to community funds.

But the most enduring accomplishment of the Japanese campaign for redress was the abolition of the War Measures Act, which had provided the legal basis for the removal of the Japanese from their homes. Ultimately, the redress campaign was a strong reminder of the poisonous effects of racism in Canada.

See also Internment in Canada; Interned in Canada: An Interview with Pat Adachi; Hide Hyodo Shimizu; Obasan (novel); Joy Kogawa; David Suzuki; Masumi Mitsui; Racial Segregation of Asian Canadians.

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Japanese Canadian Internment: Prisoners in their own Country

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(courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-057250) By the start of the Second World War, Japanese people had long suffered the sting of racism in Canada. Ever since the first Japanese person, a man named Manzo Nagano, stepped ashore in New Westminster in 1877, White settlers in British Columbia tried to exclude people whom they considered to be "undesirables."

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CBC archive video showing Japanese Canadians who are forced to sell major assets and relocate to internment camps in B.C.'s Interior.

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Time 0:02:32
Transcript:

On 23 May 1914, Komagata Maru arrived at Vancouver with 376 passengers from India seeking to immigrate to Canada. All but 20 passengers were denied entry to Canada based on two immigration rules. One required immigrants to come by continuous journey from their country of origin; the other demanded Asian immigrants have $200 instead of the normal $25 required of immigrants. Two months later, after many delays and a failed appeal, the ship and its passengers departed under escort of a Canadian warship.

This was not an isolated incident. The previous year, the Canadian government had refused 39 passengers from the ship Panama Maru under those same two rules - but the passengers challenged their refusal in court and won admission. The government responded by rewriting the rules even more tightly. By the time Komagata Maru arrived, the continuous journey and money regulations were back in place.

Besides these regulations, the Canadian government planned further steps to exclude racialized immigrants. The immigration branch even considered transporting East Indian immigrants in Canada to British Honduras (now Belize). This plan failed, the superintendent of immigration wrote, only "on account of local difficulties with the Hindus themselves."[1]

The Komagata Maru incident is only the best-known piece of a much larger puzzle of racist and nativist acts and policies.

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Time 0:02:32 On 23 May 1914, Komagata Maru arrived at Vancouver with 376 passengers from India seeking to immigrate to Canada. All but 20 passengers were denied entry to Canada based on two immigration rules. One required immigrants to come by continuous journey from their country of origin; the other demanded Asian immigrants have $200 instead of the normal $25 required of immigrants.