以下是'''加拿大華人歷史'''。

==最初的歷史==

第一批來加拿大的中國人是在1788年（乾隆52年）登陸英屬北美（今天的加拿大）的西岸。這些從澳門來的中國木工跟隨一個名叫James Meares的英國海軍隊長到英屬哥倫比亞的溫哥華。

然後，這批中國木工之後的行蹤卻未載史冊，下落不明。

==19世紀中的中國移民==

第二次大規模的中國移民是在鴉片戰爭後。當時的中國移民從廣東省台山縣，來避開國内的貧窮和政治不穩定狀況。來加拿大的廣東人大多數都是從香港進入加拿大。中國人在1858年（咸豐8年）開始在英屬哥倫比亞（英文：British Columbia，又譯為卑詩）殖民地出現。當時，卑詩省的菲沙河谷（Fraser Valley）有個淘金潮。這個淘金潮吸引了很多中國人和舊金山（三藩市）的華人來卑詩。

華人還在興建加拿大太平洋鐵路作出偉大的貢獻。卑詩在1871年（同治10年）同意加入加拿大聯邦的條件是聯邦政府在10年内建成一條連接加拿大東西部的鐵路。1880年（光緒6年），鐵路公司在廣東省聘請了5,000名工人，亦在加州聘請了7,000名華人。雖然鐵路華工只是負責大約300英里的工程，但這300英里却是加拿大太平洋鐵路中最艱巨的一段，因爲這段鐵路要穿過险峻的落磯山脈，白人大都不願意去冒險。所以，廉價的華工是最好的人選。到1881年（光緒7年）底，最初的5,000名華工當中，仅有約1,500人生還。

==鐵路後的華人歷史==

加拿大太平洋鐵路在1885年（光緒11年）完成之後，加拿大不再需要華人劳工。所以在同年，加拿大政府開始向進入加拿大的華人收取$50的人頭稅。因爲$50的人頭稅沒有有效地阻止華人進入加拿大，聯邦政府在1900年（光緒26年）將人頭稅增加到$100，而在1904年 （光緒30年）收取$500（這個數目是等於2003年的$8000）。

因爲$500的人頭稅沒有徹底地阻止華人進入加拿大，加拿大政府在1923年（民國12年）7月1日通過《'''1923年華人移民法案'''》（又稱爲'''排華法'''）。除了商人，外交官員，留學生，和特別個案以外，排華法的條款禁止了華人進入加拿大境内。還有，在排華法生效前進入了加拿大的華人要同他們的地區當局報到，以及他們每次出國的時候，他們最多可以逗留在加拿大境外兩年。

thumb|right|300px|人頭稅的收據。這張收據是在1918年8月2日，由加拿大內務部的發出的。在1918年，華人有繳交500加元才能進入加拿大。

直至到戰後，加拿大的華人社區仍是一個單身男子社會，因爲當時的中國家庭难以筹措那麽多錢送他們的女兒去加拿大。而且，由于當時大多數華人大都不能够說流利的英語，他們躲避在唐人街。鉴于當時的反華情緒變得太過激烈，加拿大的華人開始了向東定居。由於當時的加拿大已經有很多條例禁止華人從事多個行業，華人只可以做白人不願意從事的工作，例如洗衣店和三文魚加工。卑詩省在1872年（同治11年）通過了「卑詩省選民資格法案」（但在1875年（光緒2年）才執行），剝奪華人的省選投票權。因爲聯邦大選的選民名單是從省選的名單來的，卑詩省的華人完全没有選舉權。面對各種反華情緒，在加華商創辦了'''中華會館'''。第一間中華會館于1885年（光緒11年）在維多利亞開館，而溫哥華的是在1895年（光緒21年）。住在這兩個地區的華人必須成爲中華會館會員。中華會館的工作包括在法律糾紛中代表華人會員的利益和運送去世會員的遺體返回中國。

This is the history of '''Chinese immigration to Canada'''.

==Early history==
The first recorded visits by the: Chinese to North America can be dated to 1788, with the employment of 30-50 Chinese shipwrights at Nootka Sound in what is now British Columbia, who built the first European-type vessel in the Pacific Northwest, named the ''North West America''.

==The Gold Rushes==

The Chinese first appeared in large numbers in the Mainland Colony. Although the first wave arrived from California, news of the rush eventually attracted many Chinese from China itself.

In the goldfields, Chinese mining techniques and knowledge turned out to be better in many ways to those of others, including hydraulic techniques, the use of "rockers", and a technique whereby blankets were used as filter for alluvial sand and then burned, with the gold melting into lumps in the fire. In the Fraser Canyon, Chinese miners stayed on long after all others had left for the Cariboo Gold Rush or other goldfields elsewhere in BC or the United States and continued both hydraulic mining and farming, owned the majority of land in the Fraser and Thompson Canyons for many years afterwards.  At Barkerville, in the Cariboo, over half the town's population of up to 2 was estimated to be Chinese, and several other towns including Richfield, Stanley, Van Winkle, Quesnellemouthe (modern Quesnel), Antler, Quesnelle Forks and Lillooet had significant Chinatowns (Lillooet's lasting until the 1930s) and there was no shortage of successful Chinese miners.<ref>Mark S. Wade, ''The Cariboo Road'', publ. The Haunted Bookshop, Victoria BC, 1979, 239pp. ASIN: B0000EEN1W</ref><ref>Robin Skelton, ''They Call It Cariboo'', Sono Nis Press (December 1980), 237pp. ISBN-10: 0919462847, ISBN-13: 978-0919462847.</ref>

==Immigration for the railway==
Chinese railway workers made the main labour force to the building of the section of the Craigellachie in the Prime Minister, Sir Victoria, by insisting the project cut costs by employing Chinese to build the railway, and summarized the situation this way to Parliament in 1882: "It is simply a question of alternatives: either you must have this labour or you can't have the railway."<ref>Pierre Berton, ''The Last Spike'', Penguin, ISBN 0-14-011763-6, pp249-250</ref>.

In 1880, Andrew Onderdonk, an American who was the Canadian Pacific Railway construction contractor in British Columbia, originally enlisted Chinese labourers from California. When most of these deserted the railway workings for the goldfields, signed several agreements with Chinese contractors in China's Guangdong province, Taiwan and also via Chinese companies in Victoria. Through those contracts more than 5000 labourers were sent from China by ship. Onderdonk also recruited over 7000 Chinese railway workers from California. These two groups of workers were the main force for the building of the railway. Some of them fell ill during construction or died while planting explosives or in other construction accidents, but many deserted the rail workings for the province's various goldfields. By the end of 1881, the first group of Chinese labourers, which was previously numbered at 5000, had less than 1500 remaining as a large number had deserted for the goldfields away from the rail line Onderdonk needed more workers, so he directly contracted Chinese businessmen in Victoria, California and China to send many more workers to Canada. 

Onderdonk engaged these Chinese labour contractors who paid Chinese workers only $1 a day while white, black and native workers were paid three times that amount. Chinese railway workers were engaged for 500 kilometres of the Canadian Pacific Railway considered by some  to be the most dangerous section of the railway, notably the area that goes through the Yale and the other railway towns. Chinese railway workers also established transient Chinatowns along the rail line, with housing at the largest consisting of log-houses half dug into the ground, which was a common housing style for natives as well as other frontier settlers (because of the insulating effect of the ground in an area of extreme temperatures).

==Chinese in Canada after the completion of the CPR==
After the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, many Chinese were left with no work.  The government of Canada passed ''The Chinese Immigration Act, 1885'' levying a "Head Tax" of $50 on any Chinese coming to Canada. After the 1885 legislation failed to deter Chinese immigration to Canada, the government of Canada passed ''The Chinese Immigration Act, 1900'' to increase the tax to $100, and ''The Chinese Immigration Act, 1904'' further increased the landing fees to $500, equivalent to $8000 in 2003.<ref>Inflation data (Consumer Price Index) since 1914 provided by Statistics Canada can be found e.g. at the [http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/inflation_calc.html Bank of Canada inflation calculator]</ref> - as compared to the Right of Landing Fee, or Right of Permanent Residence Fee, of merely $975 per person paid by new immigrants in 1995-2005, and further reduced to $490 in 2006.<ref>[http://www.cic.gc.ca/EnGlish/applications/fees.html CIC Fee Schedule], accessed 2006-12-02</ref>

''Dominion Day as "Humiliation Day" and refused to celebrate Dominion Day until after the act was repealed in 1947..

From the completion of the CPR to the end of the Exclusion Era (1923-1947), Chinese in Canada lived in mainly a "bachelor's of the backpack society" since most Chinese families could not pay the expensive head tax to send their daughters to Canada.  As with many other groups of immigrants, Chinese initially found it hard to adjust and assimilate into life in Canada. As a result, they formed ethnic ghettos known as "Chinatowns" where they could live alongside fellow Chinese immigrants<ref>CBC television reporter, Eve Savory: "The National Magazine", June 27, 1997</ref>.  Chinese settlers began moving eastward after the completion of the CPR although Chinese numbers in BC continued to grow and, until the 1960s, there were no significant populations of Chinese in any other province.  With legislation banning Chinese from many professions, Chinese entered professions that non-Chinese Canadians did not want to do like laundry shops or salmon processing. These Chinese opened grocery stores and restaurants that served the whole population, not just Chinese, and Chinese cooks became the mainstay in the restaurant and hotel industries as well as in private service.  Chinese success at market gardening led to a continuing prominent role in the produce industry in British Columbia. 

Chinese merchants formed the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, with the first branch in Victoria in 1885 and the second one in Vancouver in 1895. The Association was mandatory for all Chinese in the area to join and it did everything from representing members in legal disputes to sending the remains of a members who died back to their ancestral homelands in China.  After legislation in 1896 that stripped Chinese of voting rights in municipal elections in B.C., the Chinese in B.C. became completely disenfranchised.  The electors list in federal elections came from the provincial electors list, and the provincial ones came from the municipal one.  

After Canada entered World War II on September 10, 1939, Chinese communities greatly contributed to Canada's war effort, mainly in an attempt to persuade Canada to intervene against Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War, which had started in 1937 (although Canada did not declare war on Japan until the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941). The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association requested its members to purchase Canadian and Chinese war bonds and to boycott Japanese goods. Also, many Chinese enlisted in the Canadian forces. But Ottawa and the B.C. government were unwilling to send Chinese-Canadian recruits into action, since they did not want Chinese to ask for enfranchisement after the war. However, with 100,000 British troops captured in British Malaya in February 1942, Ottawa decided to send Chinese-Canadian forces in as spies to train the local guerrillas to resist the Japanese Imperial Forces in 1944. However, these spies were little more than a token gesture, as the outcome of World War II had been more or less decided by that time.

==Strife during the post-war period==

The experiences of the North in the Nationalist).

In 1959, the Department of Immigration discovered an abuse of immigration papers by Chinese immigrants; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were brought in to investigate. It turned out that some Chinese had been entering Canada by purchasing real or fake birth certificates of Chinese Canadian children bought and sold in Hong Kong. These children carrying false identity papers were referred to as "paper sons". In response, Douglas Jung (the first Chinese MP in Canadian history) introduced a private member's bill in 1962 called the "'Chinese Adjustment Program". The bill granted amnesty for paper sons or daughters ''if they confessed to the government''. As a result about 12,000 paper sons came forward, until the amnesty period ended in October 1973.

Independent Chinese immigration in Canada came after Canada eliminated race and the "place of origin" section from its immigration policy in 1967. From 1947 to the early 1970s, Chinese immigrants to Canada came mostly from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Southeast Asia. Chinese from the mainland who were eligible in the family reunification program had to visit the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong, since Canada and the PRC did not have diplomatic relations until 1970. Institutional racism was completely eliminated in 1971 with the implementation of the multicultural policy. After the implementation of the policy, Chinese finally felt that they were no longer institutionally discriminated in the mainstream of Canadian society.

Despite the new multicultural policy, it would be naïve to say <!--needs citation as it is a value judgement, a POV statement--> that social discrimination against ethnic Chinese ended. Like other groups of recent immigrants, Chinese are perceived as incapable of blending into mainstream Canadian society. They are accused of associating only with the local Chinese communities and make very little effort to blend into mainstream Canada. For example, in 1995 the deputy mayor of Markham, Ontario Carole Bell expressed that the overwhelming Chinese presence in the city was causing other residents to move out of Markham. Also, the local communities in Toronto and Vancouver have accused the Chinese immigrants for hyperinflating property prices during the 1980s.