Racism And Discrimination In Canada

Growing up in Canada, we were influenced by the media to think that Canada has a history we can take pride in and that everyone in Canada lives/d in an idyllic society. But sadly, our history with the mistreatment and discrimination towards women, members of the queer community and people of colour; our history is not something in which we can take pride in. Inequality has always been an uncomfortable subject for many people to address. But nevertheless, there is no debate that Canada has an enormous history of discrimination and hate-motivated violence towards the oppressed.
Past racism in Canada continues to affect Native people and minorities in Canada every day, and has contributed into the racism that people of colour face every day. During
In the 1820’s over 17,000 Chinese workers came to Canada to construct the Canadian Pacific Railway, over 1500 of them died in the process. The reaming Chinese workers in Canada stated sponsoring their families to Canada. This imposed the Chinese Head Tax, in 1885, it started at $50 per person, in 1900, it was then raised to $100 and in 1903 it was raised up to $500 per person. This resulted in over 81,000 Chinese immigrants being stripped of their hard earned money. The Canadian government ranked in over $23 million in Head Tax. In 1947, the Canadian government only allowed 50 Chinese immigrants to live in Canada. And as late as 1973, no one of Asian and/or African ancestry where able to stay on in overnight locations unless they were to work as servants. In 1867, the Indian act reserved land for the Indians in Canada (British North America). In 1876, these reserves were then taken from the Aboriginal people and the Indian Act began to have its corollaries other than just their rights to land. The Indians were unable to vote in Canada until as late as the 1960’s, they were not permitted to wear their cultural clothing unless they were in reserves. The concept of
First Nation and Metis children were taken away from their families and sent off to get their education at these schools. Children who practiced their native culture, often got pins pierced through their tongues, forced to eat their vomit or constantly be victims of sexual assault. During the 1970’s, these schools began to get shut down, and in the 1990s, the United Church, issued a formal apology. In 1998 the Canadian government gave $350 million towards helping families affected by these schools. During and after the holocaust and world war II, Jewish, queer etc. refugees were in need of places to live from the Nazi persecution in Europe. Though Jews were virtually safe from Hitler, they were often easy targets of discrimination in Canada, even posters that read “No Jews Allowed” were posted onto windows of public facilities. Anti-Semitism was very popular at the time, this influenced immigration policy and in 1907 Canada had one of its lowest immigration rates ever, even all immigration from India was banned during this time. In the past, the Canadian government and its racist political leaders and laws systematically destroyed the communities of people of colour, though these laws are no longer in place, in more recent years a small part of racism in Canadian politics still