Last updated 2 Mar 2024.
See my post tracing the voting laws of Canada and British Columbia at Disenfranchised: Having, losing, and regaining the vote, a quick look at the laws 1872-1948.
Canada Elections Act (voting) – Elections Canada
This is a summary page of the federal acts and amendments regarding elections in Canada from 1873-2018. Use this as a quick-reference to pinpoint when an act came into force and when it was subsequently amended, revised, replaced, or repealed. In other words, understanding an act requires tracing it from its original drafting through to all of its changes.
The Electoral Franchise Act, 1885 – Canadiana.ca
It took me quite a while to find a copy of the original text disenfranchising the Chinese. So far, this is the best copy I’ve found online. It was published a year after the Electoral Franchise Act, 1885, came into effect (assented 20 Jul 1885), and it attempts to analyze all the legal cases involving voting at the time. As a result, it’s 1 part Act and 9 parts analysis, with huge amounts of footnotes, all of which gives me much needed context.
If this is something that interests you, I suggest you download a copy for yourself. There are lots of goodies in this text, which J.A. MacDonald (yes, that one) called, “…the greatest triumph of my life,” and yes, he was referring to his vision of the future of Canada as an “Aryan race.” (In this Act, he also wipes out 50% of the human population – women – saying we have “…legal incapacity…” and grouping us with “infants, idiots, and lunatics.” Nice. His vision. Not mine.)
If you’re not familiar with how legal documents are written, the beginning section often includes definitions. In this case, the stinger is hidden in the definition of who qualifies as a “Person” able to vote.
From the Electoral Franchise Act, 1885, s.1 (2), a Person able to vote is defined as:
“Person” (c) means a male person, (d) including an Indian, (e) and excluding a person of Mongolian or Chinese race…” [emphasis added]
Hodgins, T (1886). The Canadian Franchise Act, with notes on the Imperial Acts relating to registration, and on the provincial franchise and election acts, with an appendix containing the provincial franchises of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island, pages 40-43. Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, Law Publishers. Accessed 4 Nov 2020 on Canadiana.ca.
So, legally, a Person was not an Indian, Mongolian, or Chinese.
To emphasize the illegality of registering an excluded Person, we have this from the Electoral Franchise Act, 1885, s.11:
WHO SHALL NOT VOTE AT ELECTIONS.
11. The following persons shall be disqualified and incompetent to vote at any election to which this Act applies… (c) Indians in Manitoba, British Columbia, Keewatin and the North-West Territories, (c) and any Indian on any reserve (d) elsewhere in Canada who is not in possession and occupation of a separate and distinct tract of land in such reserve, (e) and whose improvements on such separate tract are not of the value of at least one hundred and fifty dollars, and who is not otherwise possessed of the qualifications entitling him to be registered on the list of voters under this Act (f)
Hodgins, T (1886). The Canadian Franchise Act, with notes on the Imperial Acts relating to registration, and on the provincial franchise and election acts, with an appendix containing the provincial franchises of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island, pages 109-111. Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, Law Publishers. Accessed 4 Nov 2020 on Canadiana.ca.
The Act disqualifies all Indians [sic] living on reserve, as well as all who are not living on reserve but who have failed to make improvements of at least $150 ($4153 in 2020) on their land outside a reserve. (From my work on homestead files, I can tell you that improvements are: building houses and barns, erecting fences, digging wells, and breaking raw land into agricultural fields.)
Further, to reinforce the disenfranchisement of Excluded Persons, we have legislation from British Columbia (where the majority of the 11,400 Chinese in Canada lived in 1886): An Act relating to an Act to make Better Provision for the Qualification and Registration of Voters, 1875. 38 VIC. No. 2, B.C. Appendix.
No Chinaman or Indian shall have his name placed on the register of voters for any electoral district, or be entitled to vote at any election of a member to serve in the Legislative Assembly of this Province. Any collector of any electoral district or polling division thereof, who shall insert the name of any Chinaman or Indian in any such register, shall, upon conviction thereof before any Justice of the Peace, be liable to be punished by a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, or to be imprisoned for any period not exceeding one month.
Hodgins, T (1886). The Canadian Franchise Act, with notes on the Imperial Acts relating to registration, and on the provincial franchise and election acts, with an appendix containing the provincial franchises of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island, page 200. Toronto: Rowsell & Hutchison, Law Publishers. Accessed 4 Nov 2020 on Canadiana.ca.
Anyone who committed the crime of registering an Excluded Person was subject to a $50 fine (about $1342 in 2020) and a month in prison.