Talk:Chinese Canadian National Council

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[edit] Confusion on the CCNC website

I'd like to fill in more information about this organization, and I'd like to use their website as a source, but when I dig into it, they seem to be publishing some a) unsourced, and b) simply contradictory information. I'm not sure what to believe. Can anyone shed light?

• "Some say that for every foot of the (hell gate) Fraser Canyon, one Chinese worker died." (thousands? tens of thousands?)
• "It is estimated that 600 Chinese workers died while constructing the CPR."

(Retrieved from http://www.ccnc.ca/toronto/history/pgallery.html 2006-07-10.) --Ds13 17:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] From the Canadian Pacific Railway Wikipage

This posted here because also contrary to material on CCNC site:

Many thousands of navvies worked on the railway. Many were European immigrants. In British Columbia, the CPR also hired workers from China, nicknamed coolies. A navvy received between $1 and $2.50 per day, but had to pay for his own food, clothing, transportation to the job site, mail, and medical care. After two and a half months of back-breaking labour, they could net as little as $16. Chinese navvies in British Columbia made only between $0.75 and $1.25 a day, not including expenses, leaving barely anything to send home. They did the most dangerous construction jobs, such as working with explosives. The families of the Chinese who were killed received no compensation, or even notification of loss of life. Many of the men who lived did not have enough money to return to their families in China, and many spent years in lonely, sad and often poor condition. But those navvies were hard working and played a key role in building the western stretch of the railway; even some boys as young as 12 years old served as tea-boys.

And even it needs fixing, but it's a sight better than the CCNC's material. See also Talk:History of Chinese immigration to Canada for more on the payscale thing. An excerpt from the above just caught my eye:

The families of the Chinese who were killed received no compensation, or even notification of loss of life. Many of the men who lived did not have enough money to return to their families in China, and many spent years in lonely, sad and often poor condition.

But none of that was the fault of the CPR or white people, as implied and browbeaten all over the media and curriculum since the "anti-racism" revisionism of Canadian/BC history was launched by the CCNC, but of the Chinese contractors who brought them over and were responsible for getting them home; then abandoning them. Publishing false information is not a pretty thing, especially not when it's used to foment political campaigns and cultural/political division/recrimination, as has been the case IMO.Skookum1 07:21, 14 July 2006 (UTC)