Ottawa will begin to redress the head tax once applied to Chinese immigrants with payments to survivors in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said.

Speaking at a dinner hosted by a Chinese immigrant group, Harper said Tuesday it's important that this happen now while some of those who paid the tax to enter Canada are still alive to receive the symbolic $20,000 payments.

Harper called the tax "a moral blemish on our country's soul."

Harper recognized contributions that the Chinese community has made, including building of the CP Railway.

He said Canada as it exists today wouldn't be possible without the efforts of the Chinese community.

"You are part of our family," he said.

Harper formally apologized to Chinese-Canadians for the tax in Parliament on June 22, calling it a "grave injustice."

Vancouver's Community Care and Advancement Association president Johnny Fong, thanked Harper Tuesday for the government's apology.

"Your apology at the House of Commons this year has brought tremendous relief to so many in the community,'' Fong told Harper.

The prime minister said the government's decision was long overdue.

"Apologizing for the head tax was simply the right thing to do," he said.

The Association of Chinese Canadians for Equality, however, said Tuesday that Ottawa has been slow to address the issue.

"He only addressed point-six per cent of the head tax families -- less than one per cent -- of the head tax families that have survivors," the association's Sid Tan told The Canadian Press at a protest outside the dinner for Harper.

"What he has done is rewarded the government for dragging its feet for over 20 years. Shame on them for that."

It is believed there are about 400 surviving head-tax payers or their widows from an estimated 81,000 immigrants who paid the tax between 1885 and 1923 when the federal government tried to restrict Chinese immigration.

The tax, which was set at $50 when it was imposed in 1885, rose to $500 in 1903 -- then the equivalent of two years' wages.

Collection of the tax ended when the Exclusion Act came into effect in 1923, effectively barring immigration from China until it was repealed in 1947.

With files from The Canadian Press