Jabarkan Gerakan untuk redress dari Cukai kepala (Kanada) dalam bahasa melayu

Pada 1980an, banyak orang Cina dan kumpulan-kumpulan berlobi untuk refund cukai kepala, dan suatu apology, atau pengakuan rasmi, dari Kerajaan Kanada. Gerakan era moden redress dapat dikesan semula pada 1984, apabila Vancouver Member of Parliament Margaret Mitchell menimbulkan dalam Dewan Rakyat isu membayar balik Cukai Kepala Cina yang perkauman untuk dua dari constituentsnya. Selepas itu, beribu-ribu pembayar Cukai Kepala dan ahli keluarga mereka mencapai Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) and its member organizations across Canada to register their Head Tax certificates and ask CCNC to represent them to lobby the government for redress.

Since 1984, the CCNC has been seeking redress on behalf of the surviving Head Tax payers and their families who have suffered from decades of discrimination as a result of these racist laws passed by the Canadian Government. Over 4,000 Head Tax payers, spouses and descendants entrusted CCNC with representing them in seeking an apology and financial redress. The redress campaign included holding numerous community meetings, gathering support from other groups and prominent people, increasing the media profile, conducting research and published materials, making presentations at schools, etc. CCNC continued to meet with various Multiculturalism Ministers. In 1993, months before a federal election, then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made an offer of individual medallions, a museum wing and other collective measures involving several other redress-seeking communities. This was rejected outright by the Chinese, Italian and Ukrainian Canadian national groups.

After Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was elected in 1993, his Government openly refused to provide an apology or redress. The following few years saw little major activity although no one gave up on redress, and CCNC and its supporters continued to raise the issue whenever they could, including a submission to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Another phase of the redress campaign started in 1999 with the planning and implementation of the court action against the Government. The CCNC argued that the federal government should not be profiting from racism, and that it had a responsibility under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and under international human rights law. In addition, the 1988 official apology and compensation (supported by CCNC) for the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II set a precedent for redressing racially motivated policies. The Ontario court declared in 2001 that the Government of Canada had no obligation to redress the head tax levied on Chinese immigrants because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms had no retroactive application, and that the case of internment of Japanese Canadians was not a legal precedent for compensating past racist policies. Two appeals in 2002 and 2003 were unsuccessful, but the judge’s supportive words in the original 2001 decision helped to raise awareness and keep up the pressure.

As Prime Minister Paul Martin entered the scene in 2003, there was renewed hope amongst both long-time redress activists and new supporters. The urgency of the situation became the overriding factor as it became clear that there were perhaps only a few dozen surviving Head Tax payers left and maybe a few hundred spouses or widows.

In the years from 2003 to 2006, there were several national events that helped to revitalize the redress campaign. The highlights were the 2003 Last Spike Redress Campaign with the symbolic “last spike” of the Canadian Pacific Railway donated by Pierre Berton to CCNC. In 2004, in response to a submission by the Chinese Canadian Redress Alliance in Montreal, a timely Report by Doudou Diène, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, concluded that Canada should redress the head tax to Chinese Canadians

In the summer of 2005, Gim Wong – an 82-year-old son of two Head Tax payers and a World War II veteran – started his cross-country Ride for Redress on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. The year 2005 also saw the creation of the Ontario Coalition of Chinese Head Tax Payers and Families, which worked closely with CCNC and the B.C. Coalition that was so successful in the early 1990s.