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Saturday Jun 24, 2006 10:20:04 pm
Chinese immigrants heard the apology

"On behalf of the people and government of Canada, we offer a full apology to Chinese-Canadians for the head tax and express our deepest sorrow for the subsequent exclusion of Chinese immigrants... To give substantive meaning to today's apology the government of Canada will offer symbolic payments to living head tax payers and living spouses of deceased payers... We also recognize that our failure to truly acknowledge these historical injustices has prevented many in the community from seeing themselves as fully Canadian," said Harper at the House of Commons.

Kudos to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Chinese immigrants who paid a head tax to enter this country, their spouses and their descendants finally heard a long-awaited apology.

Harper recognized the contributions made by the thousands of Chinese in building the national railway, and affirmed that the government will also fund community projects

The head tax was imposed between 1885 and 1923. Afterwards, Chinese were banned entirely from entering the country until 1947. About 82,000 Chinese had paid the head tax, first set at $50 and later raised to $500, which was an enormous amount of money at the time.

Thousands of Chinese were brought to Canada in the late 1800s to work on the national railway. It was once the railway was completed that the head tax was introduced.

Chinese-Canadians, and their descendants, who were affected by this head tax policy have urged the federal government for decades for some form of redress and it was finally promised by the Conservatives during the throne speech in April.

Thursday Jun 8, 2006 07:21:23 am
Canadians welcome immigrants

AP-Ipsos polling found out that the public acceptance of immigrants in Canada, the USA and several European countries has grown over the last few years, despite the recent immigrant riots and immigrant quotas debate in some countries.

In this polling, about 1,000 adults in each of Australia, Britain , Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and USA were interviewed between May 1 2006 to May 22 2006. Canada has the most people who believe that immigrants are a good influence, while in USA, Australia and Spain, just over half said immigrants are good for their countries. In Britain, about 43% viewed immigrants as a good influence, which has risen by 11% in the past few years. The French, Germans and Italians also have grown more likely to view immigrants in positive light.


The polling also found:

- In Europe, there are more fear about immigrants being involved in crime than there are in the USA

- Many said immigrants work as hard or harder than people born in those countries.

- In most of the countries, people who made higher incomes and had more education were more likely accept immigrants.

Monday May 22, 2006 10:27:47 pm
Canadians are taking less vacations

According to a survey on vacationing habits conducted by the online travel agent Expedia.ca and the polling company Ipsos Reid, Canadians are taking less and less vacation days.

1,020 employed Canadians have responded to this survey. In 2005, the average number of vacation days taken by an employed Canadian was 21, while in 2006, the number has dropped to 19. Also, US workers enjoy an average of 14 vacation days each year, which is the least number of vacation days in 6 western nations covered in the survey.

About 24% of the Canadians do not plan to use all the vacations days for this year. The top reasons for forfeiting vacation days were "not scheduling in advance" (11%), "too busy at work" (9%) and "taking cash in lieu of days" (8%).

The survey also indicates that most Canadians considered caregivers and medical professionals as the most vacation-deprived jobs, while teachers and civil servants as the least vacation-deprived.

The other findings include:

- Quebecers are the most likely to vacation days, with just 4% of the workers forfeiting any vacation days, compared to 11% of workers outside of Quebec. They're also more likely to call in sick to take or extend a vacation (47% versus 23%).

- More than 20% of the employed British Columbians don't use all their vacation days every year and 10% take no vacation time at all.

- Workers who make less are also less likely to take vacation days; those with household income under $30,000 are more likely to take zero vacation days

- On average, men are working longer hours than women; 45% of employed men say they work more than 40 hours per week compared to 27% of women.

- For the 4th year, France has won the distinction for taking and receiving the most vacation days. Employed adults in France receive an average of 39 days of vacation each year.


The results of the Canadian survey, taken April 20 to April 27, is considered accurate to within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The international survey polled 2,327 adults in the United States, 1,905 in Great Britain, 2,197 in France, 2,094 in Germany, and 1,031 adults in Australia