Racism and the Constitution : The Constitutional Fate of British Columbia Anti-Asian Immigration Legislation, 1884-1909

The author explores the values and forces that influenced judicial and federal cabinet decisions regarding the constitutional validity of over one hundred British Columbia statutes discriminating against persons of the Japanese or Chinese race passed between 1872 and 1922. He argues that the interpretation of the division of powers in the British North America Act, 1867 was shaped by a racist ideology that viewed Asian immigrants as different from, and inferior to, European immigrants in all respects but one: their capacity for work. This study focuses on the nature of the federal disallowance power and the reasons why it was used to veto the BC Immigration Acts that had the effect of prohibiting Chinese, and later Japanese, immigration. In essence, the constitutional conflict over BC anti-Asian legislation was a struggle between European men, divided by class interests, over the definition of racial difference played out at the level of federal-provincial politics. Through a pattern of selective constitutional invalidation, the courts and the federal government rejected BC's policy of Asian exclusion in favour of a policy that fostered the exploitation of a segregated and marginalized Asian labour force