Author Archives: Todd

Tickets to Gung Haggis Fat Choy – if you are buying on the weekend

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Tickets to Gung Haggis Fat Choy
if you are buying on the weekend

For people wishing to come to Gung Haggis Fat Choy… there are still tickets available at the door.

The Firehall Arts Centre has now finished their part in handling advance sales. We thank them for graciously handling advance sales for us.
There will be tickets at the door.  But there are only about 30 seats left.

$60 for Regular seating – further from the stage.
All adult price seats include subscription to Ricepaper magazine (value $20)
Prices are $70 for Premium seating – closer seating + 2 bottles of wine on the table
Childrens price is 50% off.
All tickets subject to $2.50 handling charge.

Please call me in advance to reserve these seats – but they must be claimed by 5:30pm
After that we will release them to the people waiting in line for tickets.

My number is 604-240-7090
but please acknowledge we are very busy with preparations for the dinner.

Parking
– please see links on the left hand column of the website.  Free
parking in Chinatown Parkade – at Keefer and Columbia (Quebec) St.
Drive up to the 4th level – and walk directly to the Floata
Restaurant's parkade entrance.

NOTE:  We have changed the seating for the restaurant
We
have moved the staging to the corner stage of the restaurant and are
limiting audience size to 450 maximum.  This provides for better
viewing for everybody

A new site map with table numbers will be posted asap  – it will also be available at event reception on Sunday.

Famous and influential Canadians call on an All-Party resolution for Redress for Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act

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Famous and influential Canadians call on an All-Party resolution for Redress for Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act

An Open Letter to:

 
The
Honourable Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada,
Mr. Stephen Harper, Leader of the Opposition Party,
Mr. Jack Layton, Leader of the NDP, and
Mr. Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Quebecois
 
As
Canadians who believe in justice and human rights, we are calling on
you to start the process of redress and reconciliation for 62 years of
legislated racism under the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Acts.
 
Head
tax redress is clearly an election issue and may well influence the
results in some key swing ridings. The issue has galvanized the Chinese
Canadian community and youth across the country. Thanks to this
grassroots pressure, all three opposition parties have called for a
formal apology in the House of Commons and the Prime Minister has made
at least a personal apology.
 
This
is an issue of justice that concerns all Canadians. How we deal with it
will speak to the values we hold dear and the true meaning of belonging
and citizenship.
 
On
January 23, 2006, one of you will become the new Prime Minister of
Canada. It will be a great opportunity for the new Government to start
afresh with a proper process of reconciliation with the Chinese
Canadian community, beginning with a formal apology in Parliament, and
direct compensation to the few surviving head tax payers and widows. 
 
Then,
new Government must rescind the agreement in principle signed with a
group that head tax families reject as representing them, stop payment
on the $2.5 million ACE program funds identified therein, and reopen
good-faith negotiations with the representatives of head tax families
as to the nature and extent of redress.

The three opposition parties have committed in writing to this process of reconciliation. We expect them to honour their pledge.

 
We
ask for your assurance that under your leadership, the Government of
Canada will immediately undertake to begin the process of healing, by
recalling the House of Commons on Chinese New Year to pass an all party
Parliamentary resolution to apologize for this historical injustice.
 
Chinese New Year is January 29th – a good time for the resolution
and an auspicious time for a new beginning.


Endorsed by: 

June Callwood
Wayson Choy
Shirley Douglas
Senator Lillian Dyck
Michelle Lansberg
His Worship David Miller, Mayor of Toronto
James Pon (Chairman of the Foundation to Commemorate the Chinese Railroad Workers)
Judy Rebick, Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy, Ryerson University
Senator Nancy Ruth, and
Dr. Joseph Wong, Founding President of the Chinese Canadian National Council

Chinese Canadians Seek Lunar New Year Resolution on Head Tax Redress

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Chinese Canadians Seek Lunar New Year Resolution on Head Tax Redress
 
January
21, 2006 (Vancouver). Redress-seeking groups including the Chinese
Canadian National Council and the Association of Chinese Canadians for
Equality and Solidarity (ACCESS) support the open letter written by
Canadians for Redress to all 4 party leaders urging them to work
cooperatively in the new Parliament to resolve the longstanding head
tax redress issue.
 
Canadian for Redress made up of prominent Canadians are asking all four leaders to start the process of reconciliation by
jointly issuing an apology on behalf of the
Canadian
Government on or before Lunar New Year on January 29, 2006. This is to
be followed by an all-party Parliamentary acknowledgement when
Parliament is recalled.
 
Prime
Minister Paul Martin and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper are
expected in Vancouver on Sunday. “We are urging all Party leaders to
start the process of reconciliation so that we may finally close this
dark chapter in Canadian history,” Sid Tan, ACCESS President said.
“Lunar New Year is upon us: a time for family, reconciliation and hope.”
 
CCNC
is urging all Canadians and especially Chinese Canadians to participate
in this important vote. The polls open at 7am on January 23rd and close
at 7pm and Canadians can vote at their local polling station even if
they have not received their voter card. “Our community has spoken
loudly and forcefully on the Head Tax redress issue: now is the time to
participate in the vote,” Victor Wong, CCNC Executive Director said
today. “We urge all eligible Chinese Canadians to exercise their right
to vote on January 23rd. Our community of over 1 million account for as
much as 40% of constituents in some key ridings and all voters will
have a hand in determining the makeup of the new Parliament.”
 
CCNC
is a national human rights organization with 27 chapters across Canada.
We are joined in this grassroots-driven campaign for redress of the
Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act by redress-seeking groups including
the Ontario Coalition of Chinese Head Tax Payers and Families, B.C.
Coalition of Head Tax Payers, Spouses and Descendants, the Chinese
Canadian Redress Alliance, the ACCESS Association of Chinese Canadians
for Equality and Solidarity Society and the Metro Toronto Chinese and
South East Asian Legal Clinic.
 
– 30 –


For more information and media interviews, please contact:
Sid Tan, Vancouver, 604-433-6169 / 604-783-1853, sidtan@telus.net
Victor Wong, Vancouver, 647-285-2262, victorywong@yahoo.com

2006 Starts on Hight for Tiller's Folly!

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2006 Starts on Hight for Tiller's Folly!

One year… maybe… Tiller's Folly will play at Gung Haggis Fat Choy.
I have known Laurence Knight since 2002, when we met at a CAPACOA conference in Ottawa.  We hit it off immediately, and I have been a Tiller's Folly fan ever since.  TF has a penchant for BC history, and I have been encouring them to write a song about Chinese Canadian pioneers in BC.

Enjoy, Todd
parlour

2006 Starts on High for Tiller's Folly!

January 20, 2006

Greetings!
BRUCELIVE
The year 2006 is starting off on high for Tiller’s Folly’s
Bruce
Coughlan, Laurence Knight, Nolan Murray, and Eric
Reed.

“McCullough’s Wonder” a Bruce composition from A Fine Kettle
of Fish, the DVD/CD package, has been
earmarked as one of
the essential 75 Canadian folk songs by iTunes.

Tiller’s Folly’s A Fine Kettle
of Fish, DVD featuring a fall 2004
concert at Steveston’s historic Gulf of Georgia
Cannery, has
been signed to a five year cross Canada broadcast
agreement
with The Knowledge Network. It will be shown three
times in
March with the premier on March 2 at 8:30PM.

Buchan Bluegrass, the
band’s
fifth CD, is scheduled for release
in the United States this month with Burnside
Distribution
Corporation and in Scotland in March with Scotsound
Distribution.

“Tranquility” from the Off the Beaten Path CD – another Tiller’s
Folly project featuring Nolan at the helm – made it to
the
second round of the International Songwriting
Competition.
(Finalists to be announced at the end of January
2006.)

Last November the band had a successful showcase
at National
Association for Campus Activities West (a buying
conference for
Western US Colleges.) In February, Tiller’s Folly will
be
showcasing at the Folk Alliance in Austin, Texas.

Tours have already been booked throughout Canada
and the
United States, with a European tour in October.

As Tiller’s Folly heads toward its tenth anniversary,
2006
promises to be the most successful year yet! We
thank you for
all your support.

To see videos of the band, please visit Sonic
Bids and A Fine Kettle
of Fish. MP3s are also
available at Sonic Bids and our website.

With Robbie Burns Day quickly approaching, we've
made
“There'll Never Be Peace Until Jamie Comes Hame” our
song of
the month. To download the free MP3, please CLICK HERE. You'll also find
the lyrics and a brief explanation of the tune there.

Visit Our Website

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

TILLERSEPIA
Laurence Knight

Tiller's Folly
phone:
604-541-9798

Letter to Vancouver Sun: No Head Tax is Voluntary

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Letter to Vancouver Sun: No Head Tax is Voluntary

My friend Victor Wong also happens to be executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council. This is the group that helped to start organizing head tax payers and descendants in the 1980's to appeal to the federal government for redress for the 62 years of legislated racism against ethnic Chinese immigration to Canada from 1891 to 1947.  This systemic racism included not giving voting franchise to Canadians of Chinese ancestry born in Canada, such as my Grandmother who was born in 1910 in Victoria BC.  Victor writes a very good rebuttal to people who say that the Chinese pioneers paid the head tax voluntarily and didn't have to come to Canada.  I feel that his arguement is weak, because it ignores the fact that no other ethnic group had a head tax placed on them, and is and was, and still remains blatantly racist.
– Todd

Letter to Vancouver Sun:

 
After
the CPR was built and the Chinese labourers excluded from the Last
Spike photo, the Canadian Government moved swiftly to restrict Chinese
immigration by imposing the racist Head Tax. Some suggest that this tax
was “voluntary.” But no tax is voluntary: the GST, income tax, property
tax are modern day examples. In 1923, the Canadian Government imposed
the Chinese Exclusion Act to prohibit further Chinese immigration. Did
the Chinese “voluntarily” subject themselves to the Chinese Exclusion
Act?
 
The Head Tax and
Chinese Exclusion Act are unique pieces of legislation in that they
specifically target a racial group and with an expressed purpose to
restrict and then prohibit further Chinese immigration. The Canadian
Government collected $23 million in head tax levies, a sum with a
present value of over $2 billion today. These laws served to subject
the Chinese community to overt and systemic racism well beyond its
repeal in 1947: families were separated for generations, some remain
separated even today.
 
The Head Tax
redress issue is one of the few community-drive election issues. Over
and over again, our seniors have reminded us that the issue is not
about the money per se but more about human dignity. Our youth have
asked “Are we not doomed to repeat these or similar mistakes if we just
brush things off as a history lesson? Where is the education value in
providing no redress to the very people who endured the 62 years of
legislated racism?”
 
The
Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act were immoral laws, even in their
time as non-Chinese who spoke out against its racist nature. During
this election campaign all Parties have agreed to a Parliamentary
aknowledgement and apology, and the Conservatives, NDP and BLOC have
agreed to an inclusive process to finally resolve this longstanding
issue.  As one of my colleagues asked: “If the Head Tax and Chinese
Exclusion Act was morally wrong, then what is the morally right thing
to do?”
 
With the Lunar New Year upon us, this is the time for family, reconciliation and hope.

Victor Wong

Guess who is coming to Gung Haggis dinner? Author Grant Hayter-Menzies

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Guess who is coming to Gung Haggis dinner?  
Author Grant Hayter-Menzies

Lots of people discover Gung Haggis Fat Choy through various means: on a website, on a poster, through radio, on television, in a newspaper or maybe through a friend.  Here's a letter from somebody, very excited to becoming a Clan Gung Haggis initiate.

Dear Todd,

My partner (who's actually Scottish) and I (grandson of a Scot) will be having our first GHFC experience next weekend, and as I Googled today I found this lovely article in The Scotsman:

http://heritage.scotsman.com/traditions.cfm?id=75492006

… and I'm all the more excited!  Your philosophy of interculturalism is exactly like that espoused by the Chinese-American writer Princess Der Ling, about whom I have written the first biography (and for which am trying to find a publisher!).  A woman who showed the Empress Dowager Cixi how to do the two-step at the Summer Palace in 1903, and gave the Kwang-hsu emperor pointers on American slang, would have loved GungHaggisFatChoy. 

Les
and I look forward to meeting you, too!  We will be wearing T'ang
jackets with Glengarry caps (and our clan badges: his is McLaren, mine,
obviously, Menzies) – and I'll have that antique fan in hand…  I will look for you and introduce myself – I will have my autographed Mei Lanfang Beijing Opera fan in hand, so you can't miss me :o) 

All best to you – Xie xie!

Grant Hayter-Menzies

PS: I am an American but will be moving to Victoria to join Les next month, if I can just get my landing papers between now and 31 January… Les predicts it will occur right on Robbie Burns Day, and he (Celt that he is) seldom has the wrong premonition :o)

http://www.nwchina.org/menzies.html

All best – Grant
http://www.authorsden.com/grantmmenzies