Canada
The Parliament of Canada passed the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 to bar all Chinese from coming to Canada with the exception of diplomats, students, and those granted special permission by the Minister of Immigration. Chinese immigration to Canada had already been heavily regulated by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 which required Chinese immigrants to pay a fifty dollar fee to enter the country (the fee was increased to one hundred dollars in 1900 and to five hundred dollars in 1903). Groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League, which had formed in Vancouver, British Columbia on 12 August 1907 under the auspices of the Trades and Labour Council, pressured Parliament to halt Asian immigration. The Exclusion League's stated aim was "to keep Oriental immigrants out of British Columbia."
The Canadian government also attempted to restrict immigration from India by passing an order-in-council on January 8, 1908, that prohibited immigration of persons who "in the opinion of the Minister of the Interior" did not "come from the country of their birth or citizenship by a continuous journey and or through tickets purchased before leaving their country of their birth or nationality." In practice this applied only to ships that began their voyage in India, as the great distance usually necessitated a stopover in Japan or Hawaii. These regulations came at a time when Canada was accepting massive numbers of immigrants (over 400,000 in 1913 alone – a figure that remains unsurpassed to this day), almost all of whom came from Europe. This piece of legislation has been called the "continuous journey regulation".
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Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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