Head tax (Canada)

The Chinese head tax was a fixed fee charged to each Chinese person entering Canada. The head tax was first levied after the Canadian parliament passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 and was meant to discourage Chinese people from entering Canada after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The tax was abolished by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, which stopped all Chinese immigration except for business people, clergy, educators, students, and other categories.

Through the early 1900s, some 15,000 labourers were brought from China to do construction work on the Canadian Pacific Railway, though they were only paid a third or a half less than their coworkers. This immigration into British Columbia (BC) was large enough— some 3,000 Chinese, when the 1871 census counted only 33,586 in the province— to arouse concern. The provincial legislature passed a strict law to virtually prevent Chinese immigration in 1878. However, this was immediately struck down by the courts as ultra vires [beyond the powers of] the provincial legislative assembly, as it impinged upon federal jurisdiction over immigration into Canada.

Responding to anti-immigration sentiment in British Columbia, the federal parliament passed in 1885 the Chinese Immigration Act, which stipulated that all Chinese entering Canada must first pay a $50 fee, later referred to as a head tax. This was amended in 1887, 1892, and 1900, with the fee increasing to its maximum of $500 in 1904. Not all Chinese arrivals had to pay the head tax, however; some were presumed to return to China after from Canada because of their transitory occupation or background (students, teachers, missionaries, merchants, members of the diplomatic corps) and were therefore exempt from paying this fee.

Canadian missionary George Leslie Mackay spoke out against the tax in 1894 and motivated the Presbyterian Church in Canada to adopt a resolution opposing the tax.

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