Prime Minister John A. Macdonald wanted Canada to be a pure Aryan race country and he viewed the Chinese as a threat to his goal.

Macdonald’s white supremacist bent and views were fully exposed for posterity when he made the following comments in Canada’s House of Commons, which were duly recorded in Hansard (Records of Canada’s Parliament) on May 4, 1885, as he sought to justify an amendment taking the vote away from anyone “of Mongolian or Chinese race.” He stated that, if the Chinese (who had been in British Columbia as long as Europeans) were allowed to vote, “they might control the vote of that whole Province” and their “Chinese representatives” would foist “Asiatic principles,” “immoralities,” and “eccentricities” on the House “which are abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles.” He further claimed that “the Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics” and that “the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful; it cannot be, and never will be.”

He used these white supremacist words when supporting an amendment to the Electoral Franchise Act, an act that defined the federal polity of adult male property holders and that he called "my greatest achievement."

Published by the Ottawa Citizen, Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Authored by Timothy J. Stanley, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History and the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa

His white-supremacist views were shocking even by the standards of his time, writes Stanley

In 1885, John A. Macdonald told the House of Commons that, if the Chinese were not excluded from Canada, "the Aryan character of the future of British America should be destroyed -" This was the precise moment in the histories of Canada and the British Dominions when Macdonald personally introduced race as a defining legal principle of the state.

He did this not just in any piece of legislation, but in the Electoral Franchise Act, an act that defined the federal polity of adult male property holders and that he called "my greatest achievement."

Macdonald's comments came as he justified an amendment taking the vote away from any-one "of Mongolian or Chinese race."

He warned that, if the Chinese (who had been in British Columbia as long as Europeans) were allowed to vote, "they might control the vote of that whole Province" and their "Chinese representatives" would foist "Asiatic principles," "immoralities," and "eccentricities" on the House "which are abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles." He further claimed that "the Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics" and that "the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful; it cannot be, and never will be."

For Macdonald, Canada was to be the country that restored a pure Aryan race to its past glory, and the Chinese threatened this purity.

Lest it be thought that Macdonald was merely expressing the prejudices of the age, it should be noted that his were among the most extreme views of his era.

He was the only politician in the parliamentary debates to refer to Canada as "Aryan" and to justify legalized racism on the basis not of alleged cultural practices but on the grounds that "Chinese" and "Aryans" were separate species. Even B.C. representatives who had been calling for Chinese exclusion for years objected to the supposed cultural practices of the Chinese, not to their biology.

In contrast, the second prime minister of Canada, Alexander Mackenzie, had earlier refused discriminatory proposals on the grounds that they involved invidious distinctions that were "dangerous and contrary to the law of nations and the policy which controlled Canada."

Even members of Macdonald's own government would have been disturbed by his comments. His secretary of state and Quebec lieutenant, Joseph-Adolphe Chapleau, had been a member of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration that debunked common anti-Chinese prejudices. A careful reading of the Commons debates suggests that Macdonald's comments actually shocked members of the House. Indignation over the introduction of race as a defining characteristic of Canadianness was strong in the Senate. So strong that Senators, including many Macdonald appointees, de-bated whether they could get away with voting the legislation down, even though it had taken Macdonald two years to get it through the House of Commons. The Senate ultimately did defeat further anti-Chinese measures in 1886 and 1887.

The 1885 act fixed in law the idea that, at the highest levels in Canada, "race" could be the basis for voting rights. As the Opposition predicted, once the genie of race was out of the bottle, it had far-reaching effects. Ultimately race would define citizen-ship, immigration rights, access to jobs and services.

In typically haphazard Canadian fashion, by the late 1940s exclusions based on race had been extended piecemeal federally, provincially and municipally. These enactments caught up people from India, Japanese Canadians, First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, African and Jewish Canadians as well as Chinese Canadians.

Meanwhile, invidious distinctions of race justified practices as diverse as the residential schools and the denial of shelter to refugees of the Holocaust during the Second World War, as one official notoriously said, because, "None is too many." "Race" as a defining characteristic of political rights would only disappear in 1960 when so-called status Indians gained the right to vote.

John A. Macdonald's Aryan vision lives on today in contemporary imaginings of Canadian-ness.

As a recent Citizen editorial on the removal of an apparently Asian figure from the new $100 bill correctly noted, it lives on in the mistaken assumption that whiteness is neutral and that an Asian cannot rep-resent Canadians. We also see it in the repeated assumption that most often imagines Joe Canada as white, if not as Macdonald's "Aryan."

In his announcement last week that the Ottawa River Parkway was being renamed for Macdonald, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird expressed the hope that it would stimulate Canadians' interest in their histories.

Perhaps interest in the histories of all Canadians would lead Baird and the federal government to reconsider whether in a multiracial, multi-ethnic society like that of Canada today, we should be naming public monuments after white supremacists.

How does the "Alexander Mackenzie Parkway" sound?

Timothy J. Stanley's recent book, Contesting White Supremacy: School Segregation, Anti-Racism and the Making of Chinese Canadians (UBC Press, 2011), won a Clio award from the Canadian Historical Association.

From The Jade Peony , p. 17, by Wayson Choy

The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, often referred to as the Chinese Exclusion Act, effectively closed off Chinese immigration to Canada . Although immigration from most countries was controlled or restricted in some way, only the Chinese were so completely prohibited from immigrating.

Before 1923, Chinese immigration was already heavily controlled by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, which head tax on all immigrants from China . Established on July 1, 1923, the Act had banned Chinese immigrants from entering Canada except merchants, diplomats, and foreign students.

However, not only were Chinese from China banned, ethnic Chinese with British nationality were also restricted from entering Canada. Since Dominion Day coincided with the enforcement of the Chinese Immigration Act, Chinese-Canadians at the time referred to the anniversary of Confederation as “Humiliation Day” and refused to take any part in the celebration. To protest The Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese-Canadians closed their businesses and boycotted Dominion Day celebrations every July 1.

It was not until 1947 that Canada finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Because Canada signed the United Nations' Charter of Human Rights at the conclusion of the Second World War, the Canadian government had to repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act, which contravened the UN Charter. Chinese-Canadians were finally granted the right to vote in federal elections. However, it took another twenty years until the points system was adopted for selecting immigrants in 1967 that the Chinese could be admitted under the same criteria as any other applicants.

Correspondence between Daniel Paul and Jean Camirand, reference John A. Macdonald

From: Daniel Paul

Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 8:28 AM

To: History List

Subject: Prime Minister John A. Macdonald

Hi Folks:

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald wanted an 'Aryan' Canada

One gets to an age in life where very little of the horrific crimes and actions that humans commit and take against one another either shocks or surprises you. Thus, although deplorable, however, in view of the racist intent of the 1876 Indian Act, which was enacted by Canada’s Parliament to be used by the federal government as a tool to eventually realize the extermination of Canada’s First Nations, not surprising, the following words uttered by Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, which are white supremacist in the extreme, neither shock or surprise me, but they do disgust me.

Macdonald’s white supremacist bent and views were fully exposed for posterity when he made the following comments in Canada’s House of Commons, which were duly recorded in Hansard (Records of Canada’s Parliament) on May 4, 1885, as he sought to justify an amendment taking the vote away from anyone “of Mongolian or Chinese race.” He stated that, if the Chinese (who had been in British Columbia as long as Europeans) were allowed to vote, “they might control the vote of that whole Province” and their “Chinese representatives” would foist “Asiatic principles,” “immoralities,” and “eccentricities” on the House “which are abhorrent to the Aryan race and Aryan principles.” He further claimed that “the Aryan races will not wholesomely amalgamate with the Africans or the Asiatics” and that “the cross of those races, like the cross of the dog and the fox, is not successful; it cannot be, and never will be.”

To read the full story as told by Timothy J. Stanley, PhD, click on this URL:

All the best, Danny

Mi'kmaw Saqmawiey (Eldering) (Dr.) Daniel N. Paul, C.M., O.N.S., LLD, DLIT

From: Jean Camirand

To: Daniel Paul

Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 4:50 PM, Subject: RE: Prime Minister John A. Macdonald

Well, lets just call old John up and chastise him or sue him in a court of law..... Not going to happen, after all, he is DEAD! Please, please, let's stop living hundreds of years in the past. Let us deal with the issues at hand today. Old John had nothing to do with the poor water conditions of today, nor the lack of roads, electricity, schooling, etc.... it is time to stop the complaints and start to present sound solutions, and the solution is not just throw more money our way.... unless we can also state most explicitly where the money will go and the accountability to ensure it.

From: Daniel Paul

Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2014 8:54 AM

To: Art Henry

Subject: Re: Prime Minister John A. Macdonald

Please distribute to your list, thanks!

A short response to Jean Camirand’s comment.

Until the lion has his historian, the hunter will always be the hero’ (unknown.)

I am a Registered Indian, a member of the Millbrook Mi’kmaw community. When I was born in 1938, Registered Indians had the same legal status in this country as drunks and insane persons. As such we were treated as third class citizens at best. During our early school years we were taught by nuns that our ancestors came from an inferior barbarous race and that we should strive to adopt the white way which was the right way.

Our civilized ancestors were wrongly demonized to no end by the early colonial European invaders as bloodthirsty heathen savages by the use of horrific propaganda. This savage image was honed over the past centuries by the production by white supremacist Caucasians of so-called history books, novels, movies, comic strips, etc., which has reinforced the image of uncivilized “savages” in the minds of succeeding generations of Canadians.

Only during recent years has some of the historical lies that were taught to Canadian children as historical truth been repudiated. I for one, Mr. Camirand, have no intention of letting the lies of the past about our People live on as the truth. I will continue to dig into the past and expose the truth as it comes available and I hope with all my heart and soul that many more of our people, now and in the future, will continue to do so. Silence is not golden when it comes to eradicating racism, it is a dereliction of duty to our children and the memory of our victimized departed ancestors not to speak out!

All the best, Danny

JAMES DASCHUK

Contributed to The Globe and Mail, Published Friday, Jul. 19 2013

Twenty years ago, Saskatoon scholar Laurie Barron cautioned that stories of sexual and physical abuse at Indian residential schools should be taken with a grain of salt; he thought they were just too horrific to be believed in their entirety. But national leader Phil Fontaine’s public admission of his abuse, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and the haunting testimony presented recently to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada have brought the horrors of the residential school system to the forefront of our consciousness. We are often shocked, but we really shouldn’t be surprised.

Nor should we be surprised by the revelations in Dr. Ian Mosby’s article about the medical experimentation on malnourished aboriginal people in northern Canada and in residential schools. Rather than feed the hungry among its wards (even adult "Registered Indians" were not full citizens until 1960), government-employed physicians used pangs of hunger to further their research into malnutrition, in a plot reminiscent of the Tuskegee experiment on African-Americans with syphilis, whose conditions were monitored rather than treated.

Researching my own book forced me to reconsider many of my long-held beliefs about Canadian history. A professor of mine at Trent University once explained that Canadian expansion into the West was much less violent than that of the United States’, because in that country, "the person with the fastest horse got the most land." By contrast, in the Dominion’s march west, the land was prepared for settlement by government officials before the flood of immigrants.

What we didn’t know at the time was that a key aspect of preparing the land was the subjugation and forced removal of indigenous communities from their traditional territories, essentially clearing the plains of aboriginal people to make way for railway construction and settlement. Despite guarantees of food aid in times of famine in Treaty No. 6, Canadian officials used food, or rather denied food, as a means to ethnically cleanse a vast region from Regina to the Alberta border as the Canadian Pacific Railway took shape.

For years, government officials withheld food from aboriginal people until they moved to their appointed reserves, forcing them to trade freedom for rations. Once on reserves, food placed in ration houses was withheld for so long that much of it rotted while the people it was intended to feed fell into a decades-long cycle of malnutrition, suppressed immunity and sickness from tuberculosis and other diseases. Thousands died.

Sir John A. Macdonald, acting as both prime minister and minister of Indian affairs during the darkest days of the famine, even boasted that the indigenous population was kept on the "verge of actual starvation," in an attempt to deflect criticism that he was squandering public funds. Within a generation, aboriginal bison hunters went from being the "tallest in the world," due to the quality of their nutrition, to a population so sick, they were believed to be racially more susceptible to disease. With this belief that aboriginal people were inherently unwell, their marginalization from mainstream Canada was, in a sense, complete.

For more than a century, Canadians have been accustomed to reports of terrible housing conditions on reserves, unsafe drinking water, dismal educational outcomes and, at least in Western Canada, prison populations disproportionally stacked with aboriginal inmates. Aboriginal leaders and young people such as those who embraced the Idle No More movement have been calling for Canadians to fundamentally acknowledge the injustices and atrocities of the past and fix the problems that keep indigenous Canadians from living the same quality of life as their non-aboriginal neighbours.

As the skeletons in our collective closet are exposed to the light, through the work of Dr. Mosby and others, perhaps we will come to understand the uncomfortable truths that modern Canada is founded upon – ethnic cleansing and genocide – and push our leaders and ourselves to make a nation we can be proud to call home.

Dr. James Daschuk is the author of Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, an assistant professor in the faculty of kinesiology and health studies at the University of Regina and a researcher with the Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit.

The first three URLs deal with the Northwest Rebellion - the fourth reveals the details of the largest "legal" mass execution in the United States, thirty eight Sioux were executed simultaneously under the Administration of President Lincoln!

Chief Poundmaker: http://www.danielnpaul.com/ChiefPoundmaker.html

Louis Riel: http://www.danielnpaul.com/LouisRiel.html

Chief Wandering Spirit: http://www.danielnpaul.com/ChiefWanderingSpirit.html

President Abraham Lincoln's Administration permits the Mass execution of 38 Sioux: http://www.danielnpaul.com/PresidentAbrahamLincoln-SlaveryAbolished.html