Asian Heritage Month

Jan. 1, 1788

The first Chinese to settle in Canada were 50 artisans who accompanied Captain John Meares in 1788 to help build a trading post and encourage trade in sea otter pelts between Guangzhou, China and Nootka Sound.

Jan. 1, 1858

In 1858, Chinese immigrants began arriving from San Francisco as gold prospectors in the Fraser River valley, and Barkerville, BC, became the first Chinese community in Canada. By 1860, the Chinese population of Vancouver Island and BC was estimated to be 7,000.

Jan. 1, 1877

The first known immigrant from Japan, Manzo Nagano, settled in Victoria, BC. The first wave of Japanese immigrants, called Issei (first generation), arrived between 1877 and 1928. By 1914, 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry had settled permanently in Canada.

Jan. 1, 1885

Some 15,000 Chinese labourers completed the British Columbia section of the CPR, with more than 600 perishing from dynamite accidents, landslides, rockslides, cave-ins, cases of scurvy because of inadequate food, other maladies, fatigue, drowning, and a lack of medical aid. The death count of Chinese workers over the entire construction period has been estimated to be between 600 and 2,200 workers. Largely because of the trans-Canada railway, Chinese communities developed across the nation.

Jan. 1, 1885

Chinese migrants were obligated to pay a $50 "entry" or "head" tax before being admitted into Canada. The Chinese were the only ethnic group required to pay a tax to enter Canada. By 1903, the head tax was increased to $500; the number of Chinese who paid the fee in the first fiscal year dropped from 4719 to 8.

Jan. 1, 1885

The original draft of the Act gave federal voting rights to some women, but under the final legislation, only men could vote. The Act gives some Reserve First Nations with property qualifications the right to vote but bars Chinese Canadians.

Jan. 1, 1897

The first Sikhs came to Canada at the turn of the 20th century. Some came to Canada as part of the Hong Kong military contingent en route to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897) and the coronation of Edward VII (1902) and returned to Canada to establish themselves in British Columbia. More than 5,000 South Asians, more than 90 percent of them Sikhs, came to Canada before their immigration was banned in 1908.

Jan. 1, 1902

The federal government appointed a Royal Commission on Chinese and Japanese Immigration, which concluded that the Asians were "unfit for full citizenship ... obnoxious to a free community and dangerous to the state."

Jan. 1, 1907

An order-in-council banned immigration from India and South Asian countries. The population of South Asians in Canada would drop to roughly 2,000, the majority being Sikh. Though wives and children of legal Sikh residents were allowed entry to the country in the 1920s, it would not be until the late 1940s that the policies were changed to allow for full South Asian immigration to Canada.

May 23, 1914

In 1914, 376 people from India aboard the immigrant ship Komagata Maru languished in Vancouver Harbour while Canadian authorities debated what to do with them. Two months later, on 23 July, Canada’s new navy escorted the ship from Canadian waters in action for the first time. 

Jan. 1, 1923

An amendment to the 1908 Hayashi-Lemieux agreement reduced the number of male Japanese immigrants to 150 annually. In 1928, the Gentlemen’s Agreement was amended further to include women and children in the count of 150.

March 1, 1941

Everyone of Japanese descent over 16 years old was required by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to register.

Dec. 7, 1941

Immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, 38 Japanese Canadians were arrested as subversives. Twelve weeks after the attack, the federal government used the War Measures Act to order the removal of all Japanese Canadians residing within 160 km of the Pacific Coast. About 21,000 Japanese Canadians in BC, more than 75 percent of whom were Canadian citizens, were fingerprinted, issued identification cards and removed from their homes. More than 8,000 were moved to a temporary detention camp (where women and children were held in a livestock building) at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver.

Jan. 1, 1943

Between 1943 and 1946, the federal government sold all Japanese Canadian-owned property - homes, farms, fishing boats, businesses and personal property - and deducted from the proceeds any social assistance received by the owner while confined and unemployed in a detention camp.

March 14, 1944

Ontario was the first province to respond to social change when it passed the Racial Discrimination Act of 1944. This landmark legislation effectively prohibited the publication and display of any symbol, sign, or notice that expressed ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination. It was followed by other sweeping legislation.

Jan. 1, 1946

In 1946, after the war was over, the government attempted to deport 10,000 Japanese Canadians to Japan but was stopped by a massive public protest from all parts of Canada. Nevertheless, 4,000 Japanese Canadians, more than half of whom were Canadian citizens, were deported to Japan.

Jan. 1, 1947

The Citizenship Act extended the right to vote federally and provincially to Chinese Canadian and South Asian Canadian men and women. However, ignored Indigenous peoples and Japanese Canadians.

Oct. 1, 1967

Prior to 1967, the immigration system relied largely on immigration officers' judgment to determine who should be eligible to enter Canada. Deputy Minister of Immigration Tom Kent established a points system, which assigned points in nine categories, to determine eligibility.

April 30, 1975

The Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to Communist forces. In the years that followed, many refugees risked their lives to escape the turbulent political context, human rights violations and rapidly deteriorating living conditions in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. By 1985, Canada had admitted more than 98,000 refugees from these countries.

Since 2015, 30 April has been designated Journey to Freedom Day in commemoration of the perilous journey undertaken by Vietnamese refugees.

Jan. 1, 1978

In 1978, Canada enacted a new Immigration Act that affirmed Canada's commitment to the resettlement of refugees from oppression. Refugees would no longer be admitted to Canada as an exception to immigration regulations. Admission of refugees was now part of Canadian immigration law and regulations.

Nov. 1, 1978

In 1978, Canada accepted 604 refugees from the freighter Hai Hong. The situation of the "boat" people and of Lao, Khmer and Vietnamese "land people" who fled to Thailand grew increasingly severe, and in response, Canada took in 59,970 refugee and designated-class immigrants during the next two years.

Jan. 1, 1980

The first major refugee resettlement program under the new immigration legislation of 1978 came during the early 1980s when Canada led the Western world in its welcome to Southeast Asian refugees and particularly those from Vietnam, often referred to as the "boat people." Many had escaped Vietnam in tiny boats and found themselves confined to refugee camps in Thailand or Hong Kong, awaiting permanent homes.

April 4, 1985

In the Singh Case, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that a refugee has the right not to "be removed from Canada to a country where his life or his freedom would be threatened."

Aug. 11, 1986

Canadian fishing boats rescued over 150 Sri Lankan refugees off St. Shott’s, NL. The refugees were left in international waters by a smuggler. Without water, food or fuel, the refugees drifted for three days before being spotted. The rescue sparked a debate over how Canada approaches refugees, with some accusing the group of making false claims. In response to a string of similar events, the Mulroney government initiated a reform of the refugee system in 1988.

Oct. 6, 1986

The United Nations awards the people of Canada the Nansen Refugee Award "in recognition of their essential and constant contribution to the cause of refugees within their country and around the world.” Between 1979 and 1981, Canada had accepted more than 60,000 refugees from Vietnam, Cambodge and Laos, many of whom were sponsored by Canadian families and private organizations. It was the first and only time the award was presented to an entire nation.

Sept. 22, 1988

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney acknowledged the wartime wrongs committed against Japanese Canadians and announced compensation for each individual who had been expelled from the coast, was born before 1 April 1949 and was alive at the time of the signing of the agreement. The compensation also provided a community fund to rebuild the infrastructure of the destroyed communities, pardons for those wrongfully convicted of disobeying orders under the War Measures Act, Canadian citizenship for those wrongfully deported to Japan and their descendants and funding for a Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

Nov. 8, 1988

Author Michael Ondaatje was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada. The Sri Lankan-born highly acclaimed author emigrated from Sri Lanka and came to Canada through England in 1962. He became a Canadian citizen in 1965. Perhaps his most well-known work, The English Patient (1992) was awarded the Governor General's Award for fiction in 1992, and earned Ondaatje a share of the prestigious Booker Prize, the first ever awarded to a Canadian. A 1996 film version of the novel won nine Academy Awards.

Sept. 17, 1998

Vivienne Poy became the first Canadian of Asian descent appointed to the Senate. A historian, entrepreneur, and fashion designer, Poy sponsored the Famous Five monument in Calgary and was instrumental in designation May as Asian Heritage Month.

Oct. 7, 1999

Adrienne Clarkson took office as Canada’s governor general. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s appointment of Clarkson marked several "firsts" in the selection of Canada's governor general: she was the first without a military background and the first non-white Canadian to be appointed to the vice-regal position.

Jan. 1, 2005

Filmmaker Deepa Mehta released the final film of her elements trilogy with 2005’s Water. The story of socially marginalized widows who are ostracized in conservative parts of India went through a series of delays as violent protesters threatened Mehta's life and destroyed film sets in the holy city of Varanasi, where "widow houses" can still be found.

Jan. 20, 2005

Norman Kwong succeeded Lois Hole as Alberta's 16th lieutenant governor, the first Chinese Canadian to hold the position in Alberta.

June 22, 2006

Under much community pressure, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an apology to the Chinese community for the implementation of the head tax, which had been originally introduced in 1885. An official directive made in Parliament ordered compensation for the head tax of approximately $20,000 to be paid to survivors or their spouses.

April 23, 2015

The Parliament of Canada passed the Journey to Freedom Day Act, establishing 30 April as a national day of commemoration of the exodus of Vietnamese refugees and their acceptance in Canada after the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War.

May 18, 2016

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau formally apologized for the Komagata Maru incident before the House of Commons. In 1914, a chartered ship carrying Punjabis who sought a better life in Canada was denied entry at the Port of Vancouver. A dramatic challenge to Canada’s former practice of excluding immigrants from India ensued. The passengers were finally turned away after a long legal ordeal, only to face a deadly conflict with police upon their return to India.