The Head Tax and the Temporary Foreign 
Worker Program

Warning: political content

Back in the nineteenth century, my 
home province, British Columbia, 
prohibited Chinese migrants from 
voting. The province also passed 
several laws intended to bar Chinese 
immigrants. Each time, the federal 
government disallowed the province's 
immigration laws, not because federal 
politicians opposed the laws in 
principle, but because they were 
protecting their jurisdiction and 
because low-cost Chinese labour was 
essential to the Canadian Pacific 
Railway project. 

As soon as the railway was completed, 
the federal government passed it's own 
anti-Chinese immigration legislation 
requiring Chinese migrants to pay a 
$50 head tax in order to enter the 
country. The tax was raised in 1903 to 
$500. Not surprisingly, aside from the 
Chinese, wealthy white people were the 
key opponents of the new law -- 
because they still wanted to be able 
to hire low-cost Chinese workers and 
house servants.

Canadians like to think that all 
that's behind us and that we have a 
tolerant, multicultural, and 
cosmopolitan society.

But that's not true.

Canada still discriminates viciously 
against immigrant workers from 
impoverished countries. We have a 
'temporary foreign worker' program. 

Temporary foreign workers are 
permitted to come to Canada and work 
for a specified period of time (often 
two years or less). Many are in what 
is called a "low-wage stream." The 
government and the businesses that 
rely on these workers contend that 
these are jobs that Canadians do not 
want. Of course, it would be more 
accurate to say that these are jobs 
that Canadians do not want at the 
wages offered.

Employers argue that they cannot pay 
more and remain competitive. Yet they 
can't pay more because of the free 
trade agreements our government has 
entered into with low-wage trading 
partners and those with hidden 
subsidies.

For me, the temporary foreign worker 
program is *the* issue in Canadian 
politics. I won't vote for any party 
that supports it. 

If you work in Canada, you should have 
the right to become a citizen of 
Canada. Full stop. You shouldn't be 
exploited because you're from a poor 
nation and probably have brown 
skin[1].

Those wealthy Canadians who opposed 
the head tax because they wanted to 
continue employing Chinese people at 
low wages would have loved the TFW 
program.

And that tells me everything I need to 
know about it. We haven't really 
changed much at all.

[1] See https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/foreign-workers/agricultural/seasonal-agricultural.html