Media Advisory: For
Immediate Release – May 5, 2006
“Don't Exclude Us Again” say Sons and Daughters of Chinese Head Tax Payers:
ACCESS Convenes Community Meeting for Just and Honourable Redress
Vancouver BC – The Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality and
SolidaritySociety (ACCESS) will convene a community meeting today on
Chinese head-tax/exclusion redress.
Among the speakers will be Victor Yukmun Wong, executive director of
the Chinese Canadian National Council and veteran redress advocate, and
George Jung, convenor of the BC
Coalition of Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants. Elected
representatives of the Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats have
been invited.
Where: SUCCESS Choi Hall
28 West Pender Street, Vancouver
When: 2:00PM May 6, 2006
On April 21, 2006 in a public meeting in Richmond on redress for the
Chinese head-tax and exclusion, Parliamentary Secretary to the
Prime Minister Jason Kenney stated the government would make an
announcement sometime inmid-May on the longstanding injustice of
62-years of
oppressive legislation from 1885 � 1947 targeted at the Chinese in Canada.
Organized in 1990, the BC Coalition of Head Tax Payers, Spouses and
Descendants is a grassroots group reactivated in early October. Its
basis of unity then was to oppose a Conservative Private Members Bill
(C-333) and the subsequent Liberal government's Agreement in Principle
with the National Congress of Chinese Canadians. It's current basis of
unity is meaningful and significant redress immediately for surviving
head-tax payers and spouses and appropriate redress to families by July
1, 2007.
CCNC is a national human rights organization with 27 chapters across
Canada. Established in 1979, it has campaigned since 1984 with other
redress-seeking groups including the BC Coalition of Head Tax Payers,
Spouses and Descendants (BC Coalition), Association of Chinese
Canadians for Equality and Solidarity (ACCESS), Ontario Coalition of
Chinese Head Tax Payers and Families (Ontario Coalition), and Chinese
Canadian Redress Alliance (CCRA) for Chinese head-tax and exclusion
redress.
ACCESS is a not-for-profit anti-racism, human rights and social justice
society as well as a community television corporation. It is an
affiliate of the Chinese Canadian National Council and a member of the
National Anti-Racism Council of Canada and STATUS Coalition. ACCESS
works with other equality seeking organizations to fight racism and
discrimination, to advance the rights of citizens and migrants living
in Canada and to press the federal government to redress the
Chinese head-tax/exclusion.
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Contact:
Sid Tan – 604-433-6169/604-783-1853
Victor Wong –
647-285-2262