The formal apology to Chinese-Canadians by the B.C. government for the way their ancestors were treated is still in the works.
But most people are a bit vague on the details. There was a head tax and some racist immigration policies, but those were federal issues for which the government of Canada apologized eight years ago.
Some of the details are filled out in an exhaustive list of retroactively offensive business conducted in the legislature from the 1870s to the 1930s. The B.C. New Democrats released it Wednesday to prompt the B.C. Liberals to take the apology seriously. But the government recently posted the entire list on a website devoted to the apology (embracebc.ca)
So the politicians are still playing the angles on what is supposed to be a bipartisan issue.
Apart from that, the list itself is a thought-provoking body of work.
Some samples:
• In 1872, the voter-qualification law was amended so that it didn’t apply to Chinese or Indians. It was later amended again to explicitly state no Chinese or Indian could have their name on the voters’ list. Any official who entered such a name would be fined. Registration of vital statistics was changed likewise.
• In 1876, the legislature debated “steps towards preventing the country from being flooded with a Mongolian population, ruinous to the best interests of B.C., particularly her labouring classes.”
The idea of a $10 tax on any man “who wears long hair in the shape of a tail or queue” was ruled out of order on a technicality. It was later passed as a law, but disallowed by the federal government.
• In 1878, it was resolved that Chinese should not be employed in the public works of B.C. and a clause should be inserted in all government contracts for such work. The next year, the legislature moved to outline “the baneful effect of the presence of Chinese in our midst” and demand Ottawa do something about it.
Through the 1880s and 1890s, it was a popular move for any MLA to rail against the “increasing evils” of the Chinese problem. All sorts of racist laws or motions were passed, barring Chinese from working in coal mines, testifying in court, occupying homes for the aged or cutting hemlock. Many of the laws were disallowed by Ottawa.
• In 1900, a committee expressed surprise at finding 25 Chinese patients in a New Westminster asylum for the insane. It recommended they be sent to China for treatment by their own government.
MLAs started refining their theme in the early 1900s. There were continual moves to require people to seek various government permissions “in a language of Europe.”
The essential thrust was made clear in a paper from 1912, in which the house concurred with “the desire to preserve B.C. as a white man’s domain.”
MLAs continued keeping a hawk eye on the dangers represented by Chinese people through the 1920s and well into the 1930s.
Those are just a scant sample from the mountain of racist business conducted in the legislature over those years. It’s a mountain that’s been climbed previously by historians such as Patricia Roy. But compiling it again is a refresher course in what the apology involves.
NDP Leader Adrian Dix was already familiar with the record. But even he was surprised at the “virulence” of the tone reflected in the paperwork, the scope of the sentiment and the weight it still carries.
The B.C. Liberals are being extra sensitive about the apology after it blew up in their faces last year. Leaked documents showed it was being considered in purely political terms as a “quick win.”
Exposure of that crass approach cost Premier Christy Clark’s deputy chief of staff, Kim Haakstad, her job. Other aspects prompted a police investigation under a special prosecutor that is still underway.
The government is now in the midst of a round of consultations on what shape the apology should take. After that, Teresa Wat, minister for multiculturalism, will make some decisions.
The federal one included nominal compensation to a few survivors of that era. Any provincial compensation looks unlikely at this point. But a legislature representing the prevailing views of the day, and which spent the better part of 50 years attacking an ethnic group, has a lot to answer for, in some form.
