Unb Prof Says Postings on Head Tax 'Political'

9 juin 2014- Telegraph Journal UNB PROF SAYS POSTINGS ON HEAD TAX ‘POLITICAL’ VERITY STEVENSON TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL A University of New Brunswick professor has come under fire for his reaction to a Vancouver city council motion to study past Chinese head tax laws. Three blog posts and several emails to Vancouver councillors from sociology professor Ricardo Duchesne prompted Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang to send a written letter to Eddie Campbell, the university’s president. Jang raised concerns with the posts and emails. “They go beyond fair comment and abuse the privilege of academic freedom by their pejorative nature that is based on poor scholarship,”he wrote in the letter to Campbell. The first posting by Duchesne on a blog called “Council of European Canadians”attributed the motion proposed by Coun. Raymond Louie – who the author pointed out is of Chinese descent – to an abuse of“white guilt,”a term for a collective guilt felt by white people for racism – in the past and present – and colonialism. He cited Prime Minster Stephen Harper’s 2006 apology for the head tax and subsequent promise to afford financial repairs to families whose relatives had to pay up to $500 to enter the country. He also noted that B.C. Premier Christy Clark had issued an apology for 160 historical provincial laws that were discriminatory and racist towards Chinese-Canadians and Chinese immigrants,including a head tax and denying them the right to vote. Clark’s apology did not include a promise of finance compensation as did Harper’s. The head tax was imposed in 1885 at $50,raised to $100 in 1900 and to $500 in 1903 as a means to stifle Chinese immigration because of fear that local wages would diminish. It was finally abolished in 1947, except in Newfoundland, which abolished its head tax when it joined Confederation in 1949. “We did this motion because here in Vancouver it’s the year of reconciliation. We proclaimed it … because we should be meeting our issues head-on in a spirit of acknowledgment and respect,”said Jang in an interview Sunday.“It’s really a research piece,”he added,saying the motion had been approved unanimously by council and was a study of the laws and how to compensate for their detrimental effects on Chinese immigrants. But for Duchesne, Canada has said enough apologies. “Let’s not always point out the negative side of our history, let’s not talk about the head tax anymore, let’s stop this apologizing,”he said Sunday. He sent a series of emails to Vancouver city officials from both his University of New Brunswick email and personal address with links to articles“challenging Chinese efforts to exploit and profit from White Guilt and from the sufferings of prior generations of Chinese in Canada,” he said in an email from his UNB address. Jang, a psychiatry professor at the University of British Columbia, called out the use of Duchesne’s professional signature in opinionated emails. “Speaking as an academic, all his rantings,or his discussions,are based on poor scholarship, poor research and they’re very biased”he said. “Controversial books, I have no problem with, as long as they’re well-researched and they go through peer-review. Fair comment is one thing, but the blog posts are an entirely different matter.” He responded a few times to Duchesne’s criticism, but “after that, I said, ‘I’ve had enough, it’s not worth dealing with this guy and a lot of people called me,’” Jang said, explaining that local media had caught wind and covered Duchesne’s remarks. “When you’re using the university’s name, that’s serious.” Jang emailed and couriered his letter to Campbell last week, but says he hasn’t heard a response. Nor has Duchesne heard from the university president. “I do want to provoke,” he said, adding that his background was composed of multiple ethnicities, including French and African. He emigrated to Canada from Puerto Rico. “In my articles, I intend to bring home a position. I don’t do that in peer-reviewed academic articles. These are intended to be political,” he said of his blog posts, adding that he hadn’t received a complaint by a student to date. Duchesne also said he did not cite his UNB credentials on the blog. .

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