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Lecture 3 Summary– Political Culture of Race and Racism
Close to Home: Racism in Canada – Its History and Contemporary Forms
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John Boyko, Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism
Lisa Marie Jakubowski, Immigration and the Legalization of Racism in Canada
James W. Russell, Class and Race Formation in North America
“It is not advantageous to the country that the Chinese should come and settle in Canada,
producing a mongrel race.” – Sir John A. Macdonald (PM 1867-73, 1878-91)
“I have very little hope of any good coming to this country from Asiatic immigration of any
kind.” – Sir Wilfrid Laurier (PM 1896-1911)
“The Conservative Party stands for a white Canada . . .” – Sir Robert Borden (PM 1911-20)
“. . . that Canada should remain a white man’s country is believed to be desirable not only for
economic and social reasons but highly necessary on political and national grounds.” – William
Lyon Mackenzie King (PM 1921-26, 1926-30, 1935-48) [Quotes, Boyko, pp. 17, 42, 46, 50]
1. A Colonial Settler-State
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Canada and the history of European empires. Systematic colonization begins with
the French – New France. And is intensified by the British, particularly after their
victory in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), with key battles in New France in 1759.
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New France had a semi-feudal structure, with peasants bound to landed estates. It
also had slaves, about 4000 of them – majority of them indigenous peoples
Britain became the dominant imperial power of the age of emerging capitalism:
Ireland, India, the Americas, China, parts of Africa . . . But in North America, unlike in
India, it established a settler state in which the bulk of labour would be done by
poor immigrants.
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Settler colonization is thus distinguished from colonial occupation in which the
native population becomes the basis for production and exploitation. In countries
like US, Canada, Australia the indigenous population was marginalized (at least after
the fur trade era). There are, however, hybrid forms with significant settlement and
exploitation of native labour, e.g. South Africa. NEXT LECTURE: indigenous peoples
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Moreover, British North America was meant to be a white settler colony. The
preferred immigrants might have been largely scorned for their poverty and
ethnicity – indeed the “whiteness” of some may even have been in doubt, e.g. the
Irish – but they were at least to have been familiar to the British Empire and its
language and customs. Here we return to the topic of class racism – the idea that
the labouring poor could be “othered,” i.e. treated as members of a barely human or
sub-human race.
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Before proceeding, let us also address the myth that, unlike the US, Canada never
knew slavery.
2. Slavery and Anti-Black Racism in Canada
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Indigenous and black slaves in New France. Slavery and slave trade were legal in Britain
at the time. The first African slave to settle in Canada, a six year-old boy, arrived in 1628.
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Slaves were used to build Halifax, which became a center of the maritime slave trade.
Slave labour also contributed to building Loyalist communities at Prescott, Niagara,
Belleville and elsewhere. Slavery had largely disappeared by time of British abolition of
slavery in 1833. But anti-black racism certainly had not.
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QUOTES from Boyko, pp. 152-7
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WW1 – First black volunteers rejected; eventually segregated units
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Canada’s courts uphold segregation: 1919, 1924, 1939
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Viola Desmond: sat in “whites only” section of movie theatre in New Glasgow, NS in
1947 and was prosecuted. Won her case before Supreme Court. Anti-discrimination
legislation followed over next two decades.
3. Anti-Chinese Racism in Canada
 HBC decides to “settle” British Columbia in 1850s – whites only. Gold rush of 1857 plus
Taiping Rebellion and first Chinese immigration. Chinese workers in the mining industry
and domestic servants.
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Racist laws: Vancouver Franchise Act (1859) – vote only for British subjects
BC joins Confederation in 1871 and passes Qualification of Voters Act
Racist taxes: Victoria – Chinese workers had to buy $10 license every three months
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Mass immigration to build the railways – 170,000 by 1885 – underpaid, dangerous work.
Confronted by widespread racism from white labour.
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Macdonald (1885) passes head tax ($50) and Franchise Act which makes it illegal for
anyone of Chinese descent to vote. The head tax was increased repeatedly until by 1903
it was $500.
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1908: BC racially segregates its schools and Ottawa passes Chinese Immigration Act.
1923: Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect until 1947. In that
same year Chinese Canadians regained the right to vote in Canadian federal elections. It
wasn't until 1967 that the final elements of the Chinese Exclusion Act were completely
eliminated.
4. Jews and Japanese Canadians
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Canadian history of anti-semitism. Toronto: Balmy Beach Swastika Club (1933); Christie
Pits riot. Clubs and golf courses into the 1980s.
July 1939: The St. Louis refused at Halifax by deputy immigration minister, Frederick
Blair. Two hundred later died at the hands of the Nazis in Europe.
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1954: PM St. Laurent refuses to appoint Louis Raminsky as governor of Bank of Canada
(he finally received the appointment in 1961)
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“It is fortunate that the use of the bomb should have been upon the Japanese rather
than the white races of Europe.” – PM Mackenzie King, August 6, 1945
December 7, 1941: attack on Pearl Harbour – Japanese-Canadians fired from jobs,
houses attacked
Escott Reid, jnr. External affairs minister, on cabinet meetings: “They were speaking of
the Japanese in the way that the Nazis would have spoken about Jewish Germans”
Internment of Japanese Canadians and mass deportations. Number of Japanese
Canadians in BC fell From 23,000+ in 1941 to 7000+ ten years later
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5. Immigration Policy
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A theme throughout this lecture, but it will be the focus of a full lecture on its own.
6. Ongoing questions
 Is it just about the past?
 Has the dominant culture changed?
 Is immigration policy now “race” neutral?
 Is Canada genuinely multicultural?
 Where do indigenous peoples fit in this story?