Chinese Canadian Toronto History: Head Tax to 2006 Apology

Chinese Torontonians date from the late 1870s, when Sam Ching ran a laundry on Adelaide Street East. Federal law then taxed Chinese entry from 1885 and nearly stopped it from July 1, 1923 until the Act was repealed in 1947. Rules based on skills replaced national-origin barriers in 1967, and the Government of Canada apologized for the head tax on June 22, 2006.

Railway workers and the first Torontonians

Most early Chinese immigrants to Canada arrived in British Columbia. Canadian Heritage, in its timeline of significant events, records that more than 17,000 Chinese immigrants came between 1881 and 1884 to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Toronto was far from the construction camps, and the first Chinese residents here worked in small businesses instead.

The City of Toronto Archives says the 1878 city directory lists Sam Ching, one of the earliest known Chinese workers in the city, who ran a laundry at 9 Adelaide Street East. The Toronto Chinatown Business Improvement Area also dates its first Chinese business to a laundry there in the late 1870s. The numbers were tiny. A YMCA bulletin of 1882 reported that nine of the 16 Chinese residents of Toronto attended Bible classes on Queen Street West, and the Chinatown BIA says only 10 Chinese lived in the city in 1881. The two counts differ by a year and by the way people were counted.

Laundries and the head tax

Laundry work needed little capital and little English, and Chinese-run laundries spread through the city. In 1902 the City’s Property Committee proposed a $50 licence fee for all laundries. Chinese owners objected, and council adopted a fee of $5 to $20 after an amendment by Alderman William Peyton Hubbard, the Archives reports. By 1908 there were so many that the city directory began to list them separately.

Federal law, meanwhile, made it harder for families to come. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 imposed a $50 head tax on Chinese people entering Canada, according to Canadian Heritage. The tax rose to $100 in 1900 and to $500 in 1903. The same timeline notes that the Electoral Franchise Act of 1885 disenfranchised immigrants of Chinese origin. A tax of $500 was a very large sum for a laundry worker, and the sources used here give no record of how it affected individual Toronto families.

Building community institutions

Despite the barriers, the community organized. The Archives lists the following groups:

1905: the Chinese Freemasons back Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, and their hall hosts a celebration of the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.
1910: the Toronto Chinese Christian Association is founded; it becomes the Young Men’s Christian Institute in 1919.
1911: the Lung Kong Brotherhood is formed for mutual aid, and buys 24 Elizabeth Street in 1922.
1928: the Chinese Church of Christ is founded.
1933: the Chinese United Dramatic Society builds a 250-seat hall on Elizabeth Street.
1937: the Chinese Patriotic League of Ontario is founded to support China’s war effort.

Many of these were on Elizabeth Street, where a Chinatown formed from 1909. That district is described in detail in the article on Chinatown in Toronto. From 1911 to 1941, the Archives says, Toronto had the third-largest Chinese community in Canada, after Vancouver and Victoria.

The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923

Parliament passed a new Chinese Immigration Act on July 1, 1923, under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 says it replaced the earlier laws, including the head tax, and admitted only four groups: diplomats and government representatives, Canadian-born children who had left for study or other purposes, merchants as defined by the minister, and university or college students. Chinese people already in Canada, including those born here or naturalized, had to register and carry photo identification. The museum estimates that about 15 Chinese immigrants were admitted between 1923 and 1946.

The date was July 1, Dominion Day. The Chinese community called it Humiliation Day and, the museum says, refused to take part in the celebrations for many years.

With almost no new immigration possible, the community that already lived in Toronto carried on through the Depression and the Second World War. For a picture of how laundries and restaurants fared in those years, see the Chinatown article.

Repeal in 1947 and a larger community

Canadian Heritage states that the 1923 Act was repealed in 1947. The Archives gives the same year. The Pier 21 page on the Act says 1946, so sources differ by a year, and 1947 is used here because two government sources agree on it. Canadian Heritage adds that the section of the Dominion Elections Act that barred people from voting on grounds of race was repealed in 1948.

The Archives gives about 3,000 Chinese in Toronto in 1951 and about 6,700 in 1961. Growth came first through family reunification and then through a new system. On August 16, 1967, Ottawa issued regulations scoring independent applicants out of 100 points, with 50 needed to enter. Pier 21 notes that immigration from Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa rose significantly after that. The wider policy story is in the article on postwar immigration to Toronto.

Chinatown moves west and then out

The Elizabeth Street district lost much of its land to the new City Hall. In 1955, according to the Archives, the city expropriated shops and restaurants where about 500 people worked, and City Hall opened in 1965 (see the article on Toronto City Hall). The Save Chinatown Committee formed in 1967 to protect what remained. The Chinatown BIA, which uses March 1968 for a preservation committee led by Jean Lumb, says the demolition cut the area by about two thirds.

Meanwhile, the Archives says, a new Chinatown formed around Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street in 1967 after the immigration laws loosened. The Toronto Chinatown BIA, set up in 2007, now covers Spadina Avenue from College to Sullivan Street and Dundas Street West from Augusta Avenue to Beverley Street. As the community grew, it also spread to the suburbs. The Archives records that the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto opened its first phase in Scarborough in 1998 (see Scarborough history).

Later waves and the numbers

The Archives gives 335,200 Chinese in the Toronto census metropolitan area in 1996, about 8 per cent of the population, and 486,300 in 2006, about 9.6 per cent. Statistics Canada reported in 2022 that about 1.7 million people in Canada identified as Chinese in the 2021 census, or 4.7 per cent of the population, and that Toronto had the largest Chinese population of any urban centre. China was the most common birthplace for the group at 47.8 per cent, followed by Hong Kong at 12.8 per cent, and 28.4 per cent of the group was born in Canada. These figures show a community that came through several waves, including many from Hong Kong, and that now has a large Canadian-born generation.

The sources used here do not break down arrivals by decade or by region of origin, so a detailed account of each wave would need the census tables themselves. For the city’s wider story of immigration, see the immigration history of Toronto.

The 2006 apology

On June 22, 2006, the Government of Canada apologized in the House of Commons to people of Chinese origin who paid the head tax, according to Canadian Heritage. The sources read for this article do not give the number of people who paid the tax or the amount of any redress, so those figures are left out. The head tax, the 1923 Act and the vote restrictions together lasted from 1885 into the late 1940s, a span that covers most of the history of the community in Toronto before the 1967 rules.

Frequently asked questions

When did Chinese people first settle in Toronto?

The City of Toronto Archives says the 1878 city directory lists Sam Ching, who ran a laundry at 9 Adelaide Street East. A YMCA bulletin of 1882 counted 16 Chinese residents.

How much was the Chinese head tax?

It was $50 from 1885, $100 from 1900 and $500 from 1903, according to Canadian Heritage.

What did the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act do?

It took effect on July 1, 1923 and allowed in only diplomats, Canadian-born children returning from abroad, merchants and students. It also forced Chinese people in Canada to register. Canadian Heritage says it was repealed in 1947.

Where were Toronto’s Chinatowns?

The first grew on Elizabeth Street from 1909, and a new one formed around Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street in 1967. Later suburban centres include sites in Scarborough.

When did Canada apologize for the head tax?

On June 22, 2006, in the House of Commons, according to Canadian Heritage.

Sources

Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada, Asian Heritage Month: significant events (accessed October 2026)
Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, “Chinese Immigration Act, 1923” (accessed October 2026)
Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, “Immigration Regulations, Order-in-Council PC 1967-1616, 1967”
City of Toronto Archives, research guide to Chinese history in Toronto (accessed October 2026)
Toronto Chinatown Business Improvement Area, “About us” (accessed October 2026)
Statistics Canada, The Daily, “The Canadian census: A rich portrait of the country’s religious and ethnocultural diversity” (October 26, 2022)

Last verified: November 2026

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APA: History of Toronto. (2026, November 1). Chinese Canadian Toronto History: From Laundries to 2006 Apology. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/chinese-canadian-toronto-history

MLA: “Chinese Canadian Toronto History: From Laundries to 2006 Apology.” History of Toronto, 1 Nov 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/chinese-canadian-toronto-history. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “Chinese Canadian Toronto History: From Laundries to 2006 Apology.” Last modified November 1, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/chinese-canadian-toronto-history.

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