The Chinese Immigration Act and Colonialism

In introducing the Chinese Immigration Act, the very next piece of legislation the House debated, Chapleau tied Chinese exclusion to European resettler colonialism:

It is a natural and well-founded desire of British subjects, of the white population of this Dominion, who come from either Britain or the other European States and settle in this country, that their country should be spoken of abroad as being inhabited by a vigorous, energetic, white race of people; I say it would be much more pleasant to have this said of the Province of British Columbia, than to have that Province even if it grew richer than it is, with two-thirds of its population composed of a race which is not similar to ours, and which cannot assimilate with ours.

--Timothy J. Stanley, ""The Aryan Character of the Future of British North America": Macdonald, Chinese Exclusion, and the Invention of Canadian White Supremacy," in Macdonald at 200: New Reflections and Legacies, ed. Patrice Dutil and Roger Hall (Toronto: Dundurn, 2014), 127.