2017 Legislative Session: Sixth Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
official report of
Debates of the Legislative Assembly
(hansard)
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 43, Number 5
ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)
CONTENTS | |
Page | |
Orders of the Day | |
Committee of the Whole House | 14219 |
Bill 2 — Adoption Amendment Act, 2017 (continued) | |
M. Mark | |
Hon. M. Polak | |
Report and Third Reading of Bills | 14227 |
Bill 2 — Adoption Amendment Act, 2017 | |
Second Reading of Bills | 14227 |
Bill 3 — Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act | |
Hon. T. Wat | |
B. Ralston | |
D. Bing | |
J. Darcy | |
Hon. N. Yamamoto | |
G. Holman | |
Hon. S. Anton | |
S. Robinson | |
R. Lee | |
C. James | |
R. Sultan | |
B. Routley | |
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017
The House met at 1:32 p.m.
[Madame Speaker in the chair.]
Orders of the Day
Hon. M. Polak: I call continued committee stage debate on Bill 2.
Committee of the Whole House
BILL 2 — ADOPTION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017
(continued)
The House in Committee of the Whole on Bill 2; R. Lee in the chair.
The committee met at 1:34 p.m.
On section 4 (continued).
M. Mark: Before we took our recess, before we broke, I had asked the question about the difference in section 25(a) and (b) — why the distinction was made for a caregiver or prospective adoptive parent. Did we conclude the response — I can’t remember — before we took our break? Why was it in there?
You were saying about the caregiver being under the CFCSA, and then I think we left it at that.
Hon. M. Polak: Yeah, what we went over was…. First of all, in the existing act there is already a differential between the prospective adoptive parent and a caregiver. A caregiver is defined in this legislation, but also, a caregiver would be a foster parent who’s under an agreement with respect to section 94 of the CFCSA.
In addition to that, with respect to a prospective adoptive parent, this gives the legal authority to enter into an agreement with that adoptive parent, such that would outline the various responsibilities. We want to ensure that those who enter into these roles are clear on what their roles are, and the agreements afford us the ability to do that.
M. Mark: Thank you, Minister. Can you expand on that? I’m curious. For example, if a family moves into a role where they think they’re the caregiver but then they’re transitioning, when do they know that they’re transitioning to be an adoptive parent? Perhaps there’s a situation where you’re placing a child in an adoptive-placement home, but they think they’re the caregiver.
I think that before we broke, I was just wanting to get some more clarity on how that distinction would be made clear to caregivers. I’ve heard of situations where families thought that they were the adoptive parent, but then they later on learned that they were the caregiver. The child ended up going to another adoptive home because the placement wasn’t appropriate or wasn’t approved.
I’ve seen cases where this has really disappointed families and caused confusion, so if you can elaborate a little bit.
Hon. M. Polak: The safeguard, in terms of a caregiver understanding that that is their role, is the agreement that they sign under section 94 of CFCSA. In terms of transition, which happens frequently, if they then, as foster parents, decide that they wish to seek an adoptive placement, they would make an application under the Adoption Act. Then all the usual processes would unfold, in terms of examining them as to a placement.
M. Mark: So in the instance where, let’s say, a caregiver has a child and they’re moving towards becoming the adoptive parent and the biological parent of the child who’s in the care of the caregiver has another child…. It changes the circumstances a little bit around the placement moving forward of the child who’s in the caregiver status — right? — if they’re becoming the prospective adoptive parent. I’m just thinking of instances like that where another variable might take place, where moving from caregiver status to adoptive status might make sense but now a new child has changed the whole variable. What would the minister do in circumstances like that?
Hon. M. Polak: Yeah, a circumstance like that just highlights the importance of making sure that roles and responsibilities are really clear. In a case like that, the ministry would always try to ensure that if the second child was also going to be in the care of the ministry, they sought to have the children placed together. Again, all individual cases have to be examined on their merits, and you look for the best interests of the child. But that principle of trying to keep the siblings together would be there, and they would seek an adoptive placement that would have both siblings together.
M. Mark: Thank you for that explanation. I am thinking about an adoptive parent who might feel perhaps let down if they’re thinking that they’re moving forward with an adoption of sibling A to find out that sibling B came in as a new variable, and what if the director had a different plan for the new baby and the sibling to go in a different group under a new caregiver status. So thanks for clarifying.
If there’s anything you want to add, I have one more question on this section, and then we’ll move on.
I’m going to go back to section 24.1(2) — it’s still under this part — which establishes who must be notified of a court application to revoke consent of a child. We talked earlier about when the adoption takes place under sec-
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tion 7, that the director must make reasonable efforts to place with a band.
We appreciate those words “must make reasonable,” but the proposed amendments in the act under section 24.1(2) identify:
“If an application is made under subsection (1), the following persons must be served notice of the court application: (a) each parent of the child affected by the application; (b) the child, if 12 years of age or older; (c) the director, if the director is the guardian of the child and is not the applicant; (d) the administrator, if the administrator is the guardian of the child and is not the applicant; (e) the Public Guardian and Trustee; (f) any other person on whom the court considers it appropriate to serve notice.”
I’m going to go back to some of the remarks I made earlier with respect to First Nations and indigenous and Métis children and to ask for that consideration, to make it clear that the First Nation must be notified or the Métis Nation must be notified.
We’ve heard in these chambers that the recommendations that have been brought forward from Grand Chief Ed John in his last report in November, that the representative’s numerous reports around making revisions — those broad, systemic revisions to the Adoption Act — aren’t going to be made at this time. But adding that extra clause to make sure there’s a provision that the First Nations or the aboriginal community or the Métis Nation is notified would give some checks and balances here, I would believe, to the indigenous community that all efforts were made to notify the child and their family and their nation before a child is moved out of the province.
Can the minister share her thoughts on this request?
Hon. M. Polak: As always, the challenge is to try and walk through these things without sounding overly complicated, so I’ll do my best.
Let’s start with…. We need to remember what notice is being given here. It’s notice of an application. Well, what application? It’s for the termination of guardianship by a court order. It doesn’t happen very often that everything goes sideways, but it can. In that case, these people listed, these entities listed, are those who consented to the adoption in the first place and, at that stage, would have legal standing to object to it.
The place for discussion of the adoption and the plan for adoption with the First Nation, with the Métis Nation would be at the time of beginning the planning for that placement under section 7 of the Adoption Act, whereas this and the attendant notice is for those who have consented to the adoption in the first place. So they have legal standing to do so.
I’d also note that even under section 7, we still have to respect the wishes of a child over 12 years of age — or a parent or guardian, in that case. At the beginning of the process, if the child of 12 years of age or over or the parent or guardian objects to the ministry engaging with the Métis Nation or with the First Nation of their child’s culture, then in fact that would not occur, because they have the right to object to that discussion.
Again, it’s important to remember that this is about the point at which guardianship is going to be terminated — there’s an application for that — in the rare occasion when everything goes sideways in the process and that difficult decision needs to be made.
M. Mark: You’re referring to, Minister, section 7 of the Adoption Act.
Hon. M. Polak: Yes.
M. Mark: Okay, so is that section…? This section here, under the Adoption Act, says, under 24.1(2), that the following people “must” be notified. In section 7, the language is that they “must make reasonable efforts.” That’s not in line. To me, “reasonable efforts” is not the same as “must.” Reasonable, to me, means that you should try, versus you “must,” which requires that you’ve exhausted other avenues. There’s a higher threshold, I believe, under section 24.1. I just wonder if they’re in line, or whether or not section 7 needs to be revised — I don’t have it in front of me; forgive me — to uphold 24.1.
Then, if or why that consideration wasn’t made to make it explicit for the First Nation to be notified under section 7…. You mentioned that you “must make reasonable efforts” to notify them. I guess where I’m going is trying to understand that there’s some balance here, under when they’re first coming into care and being placed for adoption — that you notify — and then to terminate the adoption before they go out of province — that there should be an equal balance of notification at both stages.
Hon. M. Polak: The difference is because of the difference in circumstances. In the case of section 24.1(2) and the enumerated notifications, here you’re talking about responding to a legal court process, so there is no requirement to make best efforts or reasonable efforts to provide notice. You must provide notice unless exempted by the court.
In the case of section 7, here we are talking about a requirement in law to make those reasonable efforts at the planning stage of an adoption. Now, having said that, a court looking at section 7 and looking at the legislation…. Courts still take very seriously the obligation placed in law to make reasonable efforts.
If it said an agency “may” conduct discussions with First Nations as to a placement, that’s a bit of a different ball game. But “must make reasonable efforts” means they must show that they have made that effort and have attempted, in those discussions.
I would also just add that even in my experience around the province, the sophistication and ability and capacity to engage in those discussions can vary quite
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widely between First Nations. So it’s understandable that that flexibility would be there.
As contrasted with 24.1(2) and the enumerated individuals, there is a legal obligation to ensure that notice is provided unless exempted by the court.
M. Mark: Just to recap and understand, for the last 20 years, what has been the practice for these 130 children with respect to this clause that’s being added? What has been the practice for the last 20 years for those 130 children that were adopted out of province?
Hon. M. Polak: This provision would not have applied, because this only takes place when you’re terminating the guardianship as a result of the adoption not going through. So the fact that their adoptions went through and were finalized…. This provision wouldn’t have come into play.
M. Mark: Generally speaking, under section 4 — and it relates to my questions earlier around consultation with a number of stakeholders — what was the government’s consultation with the federal government, specifically as it pertains to INAC, Indian and Northern Affairs? What was their feedback from reviewing the draft legislation? Was there consultation with their department?
Hon. M. Polak: The federal government plays no role in terms of adoption of First Nations children, and so there were no discussions with Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.
M. Mark: With respect to making amendments to have children out of B.C. adopted in other provinces within Canada, is there — and I’m not a lawyer — a duty to consult with the federal government around just the inter alia jurisdictional issues that were raised in the Supreme Court that brought us here to think about making these revisions to the act?
Hon. M. Polak: There still would be no call to engage with the federal government, because adoption is solely the jurisdiction of the provinces.
I should also just point out that there’s really only one section of these amendments that deals with the adoption of children out of province. The rest of the amendments are about adoption generally, be it in the province or out of the province. So it should be read with that frame. You’re not necessarily speaking about children outside of the province. But again, adoptions are solely the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories.
M. Mark: Have there been, or will there be, any designated services or staff to carry forward the planning and all the work that is going to take place for those 25 children that are waiting for placement in the country?
It was mentioned from the minister earlier that there are 25 families. We understand that there are 600 children that are eligible for adoption. Who knows how many of those children are proposed to be placed out of province? It would be helpful to get some understanding from the minister if there were designated services set aside to carry out all of this home study work, liaising with the other provinces throughout the country.
Where are those 25 kids are going to go? Is there a budget for travel? I just would like some more information on the staffing.
Hon. M. Polak: The amendments here don’t cause the ministry to change anything that they are already undertaking, so it does not represent an additional cost or an additional staffing burden. These are all along the lines of what the ministry already does.
I think the member asked about how many of the 25 would be going out of country. There are two that we’re aware of that would be going out of country, and they would be going to the U.S.
M. Mark: Well, that’s interesting. We’ll see what the States think. There are so many changes going on down south, with going over the border, so I imagine that legal counsel has been sought around the international adoption of a child from B.C. to the States. Not that we need to speak about specifics, but it goes back to some of the questions we’d asked yesterday around international adoptions. We were under the impression yesterday that those 25 kids that were being placed for adoption were within Canada.
Hon. M. Polak: Both Canada and the United States have signed off on the Hague convention, and we follow the protocols that are contained within that.
M. Mark: With the 25 children, are they all being placed with family?
Hon. M. Polak: Yes. They are all being placed with family.
Section 4 approved.
On section 5.
M. Mark: We’re moving on to section 5, relating to sections 73, 70, 71…. There is a whole bunch of 70s that this section pertains to. It removes a number of restrictions on a director to not use or disclose information for any purpose except the purpose for which it was provided. That’s just a summary of my understanding of this clause.
Can the minister explain why these restrictions are being removed for a director?
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Hon. M. Polak: There are two types of challenges that this amendment is seeking to remedy. The first, ironically, goes to some of the discussions we’ve been having earlier. The current restriction makes it very difficult for those engaged in the planning for an adoption to, in fact, engage with aboriginal communities — for example, in trying to plan for the continuing support for that child post-adoption and provide appropriate responses under freedom-of-information requests. So it’s to ensure that that can happen readily.
I’ll read an example that was provided. This gets to the second piece of it. There is a certain artificial type of distinction here that can arise with respect to how information was gathered and for what purpose. I’ll read it, because otherwise I won’t get it right.
An adoption worker contacts a child protection worker to collaborate on some case planning for a child. The adoption worker asks for information about the child’s gym classes at school, and is given the information. Later, the child protection worker calls the adoption worker of her own accord — that’s the difference, right; the adoption worker didn’t ask for the information — and advises the adoption worker that the child is also part of the school swim club. The adoption worker can disclose the information about the swim club to the prospective adoptive parents because it was provided by the child protection worker of their own accord, but may not give them the information about the gym class because it was collected as a result of the adoption worker officially asking for the information.
So you end up with these absurd situations where we’re not accomplishing what we’re actually trying to accomplish — which is full, complete and comprehensive planning for the child and supports for them, and continued activities that maybe they have enjoyed, for example. But again, also the ability to share necessary information when trying to plan with aboriginal communities.
M. Mark: With respect to the court ruling and where we are today, what has been the practice for the last 20 years with respect to information-sharing, role clarity, confidentiality and respecting privacy? There’s cause for some concern that, if we’re making these amendments now, those protections weren’t in place in the past. I’d be curious to know. What was the practice over the last 20 years to protect people’s privacy, and how was that information used to inform those decisions for those 130 kids that got adopted out of this province?
Hon. M. Polak: I think in this case it’s probably helpful to understand how the provision arose in the first place.
It was put in place in 2006 as a consequential amendment to the Community Living Authority Act. However, through experience it has shown that it’s not a good fit with the Adoption Act and, in fact, has resulted in challenges with respect to sharing information in an appropriate way, instead creating these artificial distinctions based on how information was collected. Rather, the amendment we’re now proposing would place that handling of information under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act provisions, and would be consistent across the piece.
Also, I would add, to the member’s first part of the question, it has no relationship to the recent court ruling. It’s simply, while we are amending the act, taking care of something that experience has shown has been problematic for the ministry.
M. Mark: With all due respect, we had talked earlier about not making some of the systemic revisions to this act without consultation hitting some other points, so to make this provision to the act for privacy and not make, for example, the amendment to the custom registry adoption that has been requested over the years is just a little bit confusing to me.
My question is: how broad is this amendment going to go? Could it have farther-reaching consequences than making information easier to share?
Information is one of those tricky things. How do we contain it? How do we control it? Is the training going to be available to staff so they know the difference between what you can share and what you can’t — what you collected during a child protection investigation, over to adoption, with the school, with the band? It could be very, very far-reaching, so how is that going to be contained?
Hon. M. Polak: With a quick review of the sections that are mentioned here in the proposed amendment…. This would be restricted to information gathered by the director during the process of adoption planning. It doesn’t spread more broadly than that.
With respect to “Why not add others…?” Well, we can see with our eyes that this is a fairly simple amendment to legislation. The other that we have been talking about would be rather extensive and would require, in turn, some pretty extensive consultations as well.
M. Mark: Can the minister explain: what is the purpose of removing the restriction on section 70(1) yet maintaining it for section 70(2)? Is it FOIPPA-related? Can we just get some clarity?
Hon. M. Polak: Actually, choosing those two — there are a few here that are listed — gives a pretty good contrast and the ability to talk about it.
The amendment would remove the restriction on information gathered to this end under 70(1). So here’s what 70(1) says:
“A director has the right to any information that (a) is in the custody or control of a public body as defined in the Freedom of
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Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and (b) is necessary to enable a director or an adoption agency to locate a person for the purposes of this Act or is necessary for the health or safety of an adopted person.”
We would want the director to be able to share that information. We wouldn’t want to have to restrict that to the purposes for which it was gathered. That enhances, really, the safety in terms of placement and being able to determine what’s the best case.
Now, 70(2) — we’re saying this cannot be disclosed for a different purpose, right? Section 70(2) is the one that’s added. “A public body that has custody or control of information to which a director is entitled under subsection (1) must disclose that information to the director on request.”
The difference between the two is about how the information was gathered. That goes to when we talked about the artificial distinction. If the information is going to be of value to the planning process for that adoption and ensure that people all have the right information, we want to make sure that it’s standardized and able to be shared appropriately. This narrows the restriction down to those areas where that needs to be more tightly governed but allows for greater sharing of that information where it’s appropriate.
M. Mark: Can the minister give me an example of how this provision is going to strengthen that protection of information?
Thank you for distinguishing between 70(1) and 70(2). But can I have just an illustration of what this looks like?
Hon. M. Polak: I’ll go at this maybe a different way. This isn’t about strengthening or weakening. It’s about making sure that the appropriate information gathered in the appropriate way is able to be shared.
In looking at provisions under sections 70, 70.1 and 71, the restriction contained in the existing legislation led to these artificial distinctions, where the director could share some information because it was gathered as a call from a child protection worker, unsolicited. But information that the adoption worker had, or that the director had sought, could not be shared because it had been sought for a particular purpose.
It allows for the sharing of that information, but then when we look at 70(2) and 71, recognizes that in those instances, the existing restrictions should apply. So it’s not about strengthening or weakening. It’s about making sure that the right provisions are the ones that are restricted and that there is openness where the information really should be shared.
M. Mark: Thank you, Minister, for clarifying. In Grand Chief Ed John’s report, recommendation No. 12 reads that: “MCFD take the following specific actions, including legislative amendments to improve court proceedings relating to child welfare, thus improving access to justice for indigenous children and youth, families and communities.”
Skipping to the second bullet, it says:
“The issue of ‘privacy’ has been used by MCFD officials as a reason to deny First Nations and Métis communities access to information, and as such, the CFCSA should be amended to clarify, confirm and ensure appropriate First Nations and Métis community leadership have access to information on their children who are in care under CCO and other child care orders.”
My question for the minister is: does this provision in the act ensure that there will be greater information-sharing under the recommendation 12 that Grand Chief Ed John made about sharing information with First Nations and Métis communities?
Hon. M. Polak: Ed John’s recommendation No. 12 is referencing provisions under CFCSA. This is the Adoption Act. It doesn’t apply there. But I would say that in the spirit of that recommendation, the answer would be yes in terms of adding to or enhancing the ability of staff involved in adoption planning to share information with aboriginal communities.
M. Mark: Were First Nations and Métis communities consulted on how this information-sharing would change, how things are going to change, moving forward, once this act is passed?
Hon. M. Polak: Not to our knowledge. Again, this adds to it, but it really doesn’t respond directly to recommendation 12, which is about provisions under CFCSA. Again, this is really more of a technical amendment in order to address what experience has shown to be unreasonable limitations on being able to share information with aboriginal communities.
M. Mark: With respect to the definition that was provided earlier, are First Nations or Métis communities considered public bodies?
Hon. M. Polak: Sorry, we had to find where the definition of “public body” actually occurs. For the edification of all listening to us — intently, I’m sure — it’s in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
No, a First Nation would not be considered a public body.
M. Mark: In the British Columbia news release of March 2, it stated that proposed amendments to the Adoption Act under Bill 2 confirm and clarify established adoption policy in B.C. to connect children and youth to foster homes. Later, in a paragraph, it says: “Changes also adjust restrictions on the sharing of personal information obtained under the Adoption Act to allow, for example, information-sharing with indigenous communities to support aboriginal children post-adoption. This amendment is in line with the recommendations from Grand Chief Ed John’s report on indigenous child welfare.”
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Can the minister cite which recommendation has been implemented from Grand Chief Ed John’s report to be in line with the amendments to this act?
Hon. M. Polak: Just going back to previous comments. It doesn’t relate directly because recommendation 12 is referencing CFCSA. Nevertheless, this is a piece of ensuring that information can be provided in a more appropriate way and opens up the ability for the director to share information that was previously precluded from that director sharing with aboriginal communities. So it doesn’t satisfy the entire recommendation, but it is one piece.
M. Mark: With respect to the minister, why was it added, then, to the press release — as the second bullet in the press release to the public — that these amendments were being made and that part of it was to be in line with Grand Chief Ed John’s report?
I’ve consulted with the First Nations leadership, and that’s not their understanding. I just want to get the understanding of the intent of stating that, from the government. I’ll reserve to ask another question in a moment.
Hon. M. Polak: I’m sure the member would appreciate that I haven’t been involved in drafting the press release, as I’ve been pressed into service today.
I can say this. With many of the recommendations in Ed John’s report…. Even being the Minister of Environment, I took great interest in reading his report when he issued it. There’s no question, though, that the amendment here, albeit a small part of it, is certainly in line with recommendation 12. It just doesn’t satisfy the whole thing because you’d have to amend the CFCSA to do that.
M. Mark: Essentially, just for the viewers at home, can we have confidence that the amendments to this section of the Adoption Act will allow for greater information-sharing with indigenous communities in this province, or Métis communities, with respect to adoptions? Because you were saying the grander scheme of this amendment is for overall adoptions, but also for children being adopted out of this province.
Hon. M. Polak: Yes.
M. Mark: Can the minister explain specifically how the government will do that?
Hon. M. Polak: First, just to emphasize that this, of course, goes far more broadly than out-of-province adoptions. The provision wouldn’t be restricted to dealing with children from an aboriginal or indigenous background.
In terms of that, the making of a cultural plan during an adoption, the initial consultation with a First Nation or the Métis Nation around adoption planning and the extent that this allows for greater freedom for the director to share information with those aboriginal communities — with the Métis Nation, for example — certainly makes for a much better opportunity for that aboriginal community — for the First Nation, for the Métis Nation — to be engaged in a much more meaningful way. If they’re missing half the information because the director can’t share it, it doesn’t help with making those kinds of cultural plans or, indeed, asking the right questions during the planning for an adoption.
M. Mark: I just want it to be clear. I’m not solely asking the questions for the sake of First Nations. I think with culture…. If a child has any cultural considerations to be made — we’re talking about permanency and adoption — should that religious group — if we’re talking about a Jewish child, for example — be consulted?
[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
I’m just wondering. The inclusiveness, if we’re talking about sharing information with a public body…. If we think of an advocacy group who knows the family very well but the minister is restricted in sharing information with them and the Jewish family agency or the friendship centre has the most contact and the understanding about the child’s needs, one would think that the director could share or exchange information with them.
I’m just trying to understand how that cultural component can be addressed with these proposed amendments.
Hon. M. Polak: Of course, the provision here doesn’t specifically deal with that. It’s silent on that. It’s talking about which information gathered under which sections ought to be protected from disclosure based on for what purpose it was provided. So the member is correct.
Whether or not this was about an aboriginal child, there is a need to engage in that kind of planning with the circle of people around that child in particular, if there are cultural considerations. One of the purposes for bringing this amendment forward is to ensure that the information is shared, that it is appropriate and helpful and isn’t artificially restricted simply because of the way in which it was gathered.
M. Mark: In the interest of time, I believe we’ll move along.
I just wanted to ask, perhaps, if some changes can be made to policy so that it’s explicit to making every effort to make it clear to staff within the ministry, the directors of adoption and guardianship, who they can share information with and not be limited to just the public body but these other bodies that would have valid information to share.
Hon. M. Polak: I understand from the director that there are currently no restrictions with respect to who
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the director might think is appropriate to be able to engage with. For example, if the child perhaps had been attending Jewish day school and perhaps the director wanted to be in touch with that school or with the local Jewish community centre to determine what kind of programming needs to continue to keep consistency for that child, certainly the director could be engaging back and forth with them.
The intent of this amendment is to ensure that the information that is available to the director is appropriately able to be shared with those organizations in that discussion.
M. Mark: I’m so grateful, as well, that the director of adoption is here.
My question to the minister is on whether there is a training plan that will be rolled out post the amendments to this act. There are some real technical pieces that we’ve had our chance to get our heads around over the last little while. We’ve had a number of brains discussing and consulting. I’m just curious about the training plan that’s going to be rolled out for workers to be able to carry out their duties within the law and within the best interests of children.
Hon. M. Polak: I am advised that already, as part of the core training of these folks who work in this area, they are given very explicit instruction, because this is such a thorny area to work one’s way through. In fact, the belief is that the amendment here will actually simplify what they already understand to be their obligations under the act. So training, communicating that information, should not be too difficult a matter.
I’m shocked to find that they wouldn’t all be glued to their television sets right now watching us make the changes to understand it, but I’m sure they’re not. I am advised that actually for them, this will result in a simplification of the work they do and so should not be too difficult for them to communicate under the ordinary processes.
Section 5 approved.
On section 6.
M. Mark: Section 77.2 is what we’re looking at right now. It establishes that a director or administrator may make an agreement authorizing a prospective adoptive parent in addition to a caregiver, with whom they already can, to carry out any of the rights and responsibilities of the director or the administrator with respect to care, custody or guardianship.
Can the minister explain why this change is being made?
Hon. M. Polak: This is in response to the recent court decision. As part of the decision, the Supreme Court found that in agreements put in place with prospective adoptive parents, that provision was lacking. So this provides the authority for those agreements with prospective adoptive parents by amending it to not just simply say “the caregiver” but to say “the caregiver or the prospective adoptive parent.”
M. Mark: Can the minister explain why the words “care, custody or guardianship” were all added? My understanding is that all three of those terms have different meanings. Again, if we’re trying to strengthen the act or make things clearer, why were “care, custody or guardianship” added to this section?
Hon. M. Polak: That language is already in the existing section in the existing act, so those haven’t been added. The only change that is made here — two changes; they are the same change made twice — is where “a caregiver” was used in the existing legislation. The amendment would change that to read “a caregiver or a prospective adoptive parent.”
M. Mark: Earlier on we were talking about role clarity, the difference between a caregiver’s role, carrying out the CFCSA, and that of an adoptive caregiver who’s going to be carrying forward under the Adoption Act. Can the minister explain how this bill achieves that role clarity, making amendments to this section 77.2?
Hon. M. Polak: This section is silent on the roles, responsibilities, etc. This section is primarily to authorize the director to enter into agreements.
The existing legislation only provides that authorization to enter into an agreement with a caregiver. As a result of the judge’s decision, we are now adding the explicit authorization to enter into those agreements with a prospective adoptive parent as well.
M. Mark: Part of what I’m seeing in the changes is “a caregiver,” “an adoptive parent” for “the caregiver,” “the prospective parent….” I recognize that we’re not all lawyers in this discussion, but what was the intent of making those changes from “a” to “the”?
Hon. M. Polak: It remains the same in the existing act. The first mention of caregiver is “a caregiver,” and it will continue to be. In the second part of the section, it says “the caregiver,” and it will continue to be “the caregiver.”
Section 6 approved.
On section 7.
M. Mark: My understanding is that section 102 retroactively absolves any guardian of a child who placed the child for adoption with a person who was not a resident of B.C. of blame for contravening section 5(2). It sets out
[ Page 14226 ]
that “A person has no right of action and must not commence or maintain proceedings” such as claiming damages or compensation from the government or a person.
So can the minister confirm that all of this section…? Does this section essentially protect the government from legal challenges on the 130 children that were adopted before these proposed amendments?
Hon. M. Polak: Only on the basis that the adopted children were placed outside the province. All the other requirements on the director or other people acting in accordance with their duties under the act…. If they did not act in accordance with other provisions in the matter of that adoption of one of those out-of-province adoptions, they could still be liable under that. But they could not be liable strictly on the basis that they adopted a child out of province when it wasn’t allowed in the statute.
M. Mark: Does the retroactive exemption from contravening section 5(2) and section 73 have any consequences for any active disputes around child placement or information disclosures?
Hon. M. Polak: Outside of the recent court ruling, we’re not aware of any other court cases based on that provision.
M. Mark: From the remarks earlier, if, for example, in the last 20 years there was a child that claimed to be abused in an adoptive home outside of B.C., placed under the director of adoption here in B.C., could that child — or, let’s say, now an adult — bring forward any legal action to this government?
Hon. M. Polak: They could bring an action on a basis that was different than the authorization to place out of province. They wouldn’t be able to bring an action solely on the basis that there wasn’t authorization to place out of province. But, for example, an adoptive child could bring an action in the case that a home study is required to be done and they point out that in their case a home study was not done. Therefore, they could bring an action on that basis.
M. Mark: Are there any actions currently being taken with the government relating to any decisions that we’re discussing right now around out-of-province adoptions under the former practice?
Hon. M. Polak: There are no actions, other than the one reference with respect to the 130 children.
M. Mark: Section 103 retroactively absolves the director who, on or after January 16, 2006, disclosed or used information provided under section 70(4) or 70.1. It sets out that a person has “no right of action and must not commence or maintain proceedings,” such as claiming damages or compensation from the government or a person.
So 2006 was a time of great upheaval in the Ministry of Children and Family Development, related to adoptions and placements of indigenous children — in particular, following the Sherry and Jamie Charlie tragedies. Changes were made at that time to ministry policy and legislation, in response to those and other very difficult cases.
This section appears to be giving retroactive immunity for decisions being made from 2006 to now. My question for the minister is to clarify that. That is my interpretation of how I see the amendments. My question for the minister: is this granting retroactive immunity? Why do we go back to 2006?
Hon. M. Polak: Of course, one of the reasons that this amendment is being brought forward, and one of the concerns and challenges that staff have had to deal with, is the inconsistency between their practice and the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. While this would provide immunity from prosecution with respect to disclosures that were made and that now would be allowed under this amendment, they still could be subject to prosecution if the disclosures they made contravened the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It’s still consistent with those provisions. As we looked at in the previous section, there is specificity around what areas of the act may be slightly different than that.
M. Mark: Are there any mechanisms for dispute resolution? I don’t think all measures have to go before the courts, and this isn’t about retroactively going before the courts to resolve any complaints. But the example that I’d given of this upheaval or these challenging times, going back to 2006 when these amendments were made…. Are there dispute resolution mechanisms for people to resolve any complaints of a decision that was made — children being sent out of the province between now and then — for family members or caregivers or what have you to come forward to the director?
Hon. M. Polak: With regard to any disputes around whether or not a child should have been adopted out of province, this still goes back to how a person could bring an action or on what basis. They couldn’t, under the amendment, bring an action solely on the basis that the province was not authorized to make that adoption placement. They could still bring an action on any number of other bases, in fact.
When it comes to the disclosure of information and what dispute resolution there may be, that would be aside from the specific areas that are being amended. If
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the person has a concern that information was disclosed improperly, then they have the same dispute resolution mechanism that anyone else in B.C. would have, which would be to lodge a complaint with the freedom-of-information and privacy commissioner.
Section 7 approved.
On section 8.
M. Mark: No more questions, Chair.
I’d like to thank the minister and her staff. This is my first opportunity at committee, so thank you so much for your patience and, yeah, for indulging me. This is, of course, an important issue, one that you know I’m very passionate about. As you can appreciate, we would have hoped that we could have gone that much further with making amendments. We know that it takes a lot of work.
In some respects, I feel that government was forced to bring these changes forward because of the courts. We know that it’s going to add clarity, which is great, but there have been years of opportunity when changes could have been made by recommendations that have been brought forward by the Representative for Children and Youth and with numerous requests and advocacy from the First Nations, including the Métis Nation.
We support the bill but with regret, because it could have done so much more for children in this province. It could have done so much more to address First Nations and indigenous and Métis children in this province.
Thank you so much again for the opportunity.
Section 8 approved.
Title approved.
Hon. M. Polak: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.
Motion approved.
The committee rose at 2:54 p.m.
The House resumed; Madame Speaker in the chair.
Report and
Third Reading of Bills
BILL 2 — ADOPTION
AMENDMENT ACT, 2017
Bill 2, Adoption Amendment Act, 2017, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.
Hon. M. Polak: I call second reading debate on Bill 3.
Second Reading of Bills
BILL 3 — DISCRIMINATORY PROVISIONS
(HISTORICAL WRONGS) REPEAL ACT
Hon. T. Wat: I move that Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act, be now read a second time.
[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
I’m pleased to be introducing this important piece of legislation to help close the dark and painful chapter in British Columbia’s collective history. This legislation fulfils government’s commitment to review discriminatory legislation as part of its pledge to address historical wrongs committed by past provincial governments against Chinese Canadians.
The commitment was threefold: to review legislation to ensure that there were no discriminatory laws in British Columbia; to confirm that any acts identified as discriminatory were repealed; and to ensure that, going forward, British Columbia’s laws are in no way discriminatory.
This proposed legislation is the result of extensive public consultations held over a three-month period. More than 1,300 people attended a series of seven forums throughout the province between November 2013 and January 2014. In addition to meeting people in person at the forums, government also received many written submissions.
The province made sure that the consultation process was as inclusive as possible. We reached out to members of the opposition and to community leaders and other organizations, inviting them to participate.
We heard so many powerful stories from those who have been directly and indirectly affected and impacted by racism and discrimination. Some of the stories of blatant racism — of the Chinese head tax; of men being separated from their families and dying alone, thousands of miles from their loved ones — were truly heartbreaking. These stories needed to be told, and they needed to be heard. From early pioneers and their descendants to community leaders and other stakeholders, their valuable input guided our efforts. For that, we are grateful.
Thanks to the consultation process, we were able to determine the next steps in the effort to right historical wrongs in our province. This included a profound moment in B.C.’s history. I’m referring to the May 2014 formal apology, delivered by the Premier on behalf of the entire Legislative Assembly, for historical wrongs committed by past provincial governments against B.C.’s Chinese-Canadian community. The apology was not about undoing the actions of the past. Rather, it was about acknowledging them, apologizing for them and learning from them.
At the same time the apology was delivered in this House, government tabled the Chinese Historical Wrongs
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Consultation Final Report and Recommendations. This report was guided by the consultation process and contains recommendations for legacy initiative projects that both commemorate the apology in the Legislature and celebrate the contribution of Chinese Canadians to the history, culture and economic prosperity of our province.
Each of the recommendations outlined in the report received unanimous support from all members of the House. This brings us to why we are here today.
One of the recommendations was for government to undertake a review of discriminatory legislation identified during the consultation process. This was to ensure that it has been repealed and to review legislation procedures to demonstrate that British Columbia does not have, nor will it ever produce again, racist legislation.
As one of our Chinese legacy projects, government committed to reviewing the legislation to identify discriminatory provisions. The proposed bill delivers on that commitment. This bill is based largely on work done by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of International Trade and Multiculturalism staff. They examined 1,957 pieces of legislation enacted between 1871 and 1982. I’m sure everyone can appreciate just how monumental a task that was, particularly since the initial legislation review originally included only 188 pieces of legislation.
To ensure there were no other provisions that were discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity or place of origin, government significantly expanded the scope of the review. Much of the historical legislation was available in hard-copy, bound volumes and therefore could not be reviewed on line. This was not an easy job, but it certainly was an important one.
As a new stand-alone act, the proposed legislation will repeal discriminatory provisions found in 19 historical private acts enacted as recently as in 1930. The discriminatory provisions found in these acts are shocking in this day and age but, unfortunately, were not uncommon at that time.
There are multiple instances of employment discrimination where companies were prohibited from hiring Chinese, Japanese or Asiatic workers or only allowed to employ white labour.
An example of one of these acts is an act to incorporate the Vancouver Electric Light Co., brought into force in 1886. This act incorporated a company known as the Vancouver Electric Light Co., granting it powers to carry out business in Vancouver. The act also set out the company’s corporate powers, such as borrowing money and appointing directors. The discriminatory provision in this act restricts the company from employing persons of Chinese descent and makes the company liable for penalties for employing people of Chinese descent.
It is shocking to see these hurtful words in print, and it’s time for them to disappear from the record. It’s also a reminder of how far we have come as a province and as a country, Although the discriminatory provisions in the 19 historical private acts have fallen into disuse and would most likely be struck down by a court if challenged on the basis of human rights legislation, they still represent a dark time in B.C. history.
This proposed legislation will reinforce the fact that all British Columbians, regardless of ethnicity, have a high degree of constitutional and legislated human rights protection. All British Columbians have the right to work, to raise their families, to go to school and to contribute to society without fear of persecution or punishment. All British Columbians are equal. Further, people should take comfort in knowing that the 19 private acts in question pertain to the specific companies named in each act and were not applied generally in British Columbia.
Repealing the discriminatory provisions contained within each piece of legislation is an important step toward closing this painful chapter in our province’s collective history. Repealing them through the proposed bill will not only encourage healing; it will clearly reflect British Columbia’s refusal to accept any form of racism. And it will solidify our reputation as a place of diversity and acceptance, a place where people of all cultures are welcome and embraced.
I hope that everyone here today joins me in support of Bill 3, a bill that acknowledges the tremendous contribution made by all ethnic groups to the social and economic development of this province and serves as part of the symbolic effort to address historical wrongs and ensure they never happen again.
I would like to now move second reading.
B. Ralston: I rise to address the bill before us. I note, with hearty agreement, the words of the minister that this bill continues the process of reconciliation, beginning with the apology that took place after a process in 2013 and 2014 — the apology that was debated here, in a motion, on May 15, 2014.
The apology and the motion probably are worth reading again into the record just to focus the discussion, because these acts are a part of the legislative legacy that preoccupied legislatures, and this Legislature in British Columbia, for almost three-quarters of a century. The last bill in this group took place in 1930, but the legislation that’s been reviewed has been reviewed right up until the proclamation of the Charter of Rights in 1982.
It is indeed a reflection of a dark time in British Columbia history, and it’s striking when we look at the legislation. I will give some examples, as the minister has done, of the very stark, very open, very matter-of-fact discrimination that’s embodied in legislation that was passed by this House.
Now, the apology took place, along with the passing of the motion and the full debate of this House — a very memorable and historic day in the history of the
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B.C. Legislature and, indeed, in the history of British Columbia. I’m going to simply read the motion again. It goes as follows.
“Be it resolved that this Legislature apologizes for more than a hundred laws, regulations, and policies that were imposed by past provincial governments that discriminated against people of Chinese descent since 1871, when British Columbia joined Confederation, to 1947. These laws and policies denied British Columbia’s Chinese communities’ basic human rights, including but not limited to, the right to vote, hold public office, or own property; imposed labour, educational and employment restrictions; subjected them to health and housing segregation, and prevented them from fully participating in society. The House deeply regrets that these Canadians were discriminated against simply because they were of Chinese descent. All members of this House acknowledge that we all aspire to be a fair and just society where people of all nations and cultures are welcomed, accepted and respected.
“Be it further resolved that the House acknowledge that the Chinese Canadian community endured untold hardships and persevered with grace and dignity. We acknowledge that despite being subjected to discriminatory laws, policies and practices, the Chinese community has made, and continues to make, substantial contributions to the culture, history and economic prosperity in our province.”
As the minister has mentioned, there was a consultation process leading up to the debate of that motion and the apology that was offered by the Premier on behalf of the Legislature of British Columbia on that day. That took place in 2013 and 2014.
As the minister has said, there was a geographic element to it. The commission travelled throughout the province. I attended some of those sessions in Kelowna and Prince George and Vancouver and, like many members, was moved by the testimony and the recollections of the impact of that legacy of discriminatory policy upon individual lives in our province in a very hurtful and a regrettable way over many, many decades.
The apology that flowed was rooted in the actions of the B.C. Legislature. So while we sometimes, and rightly, pride ourselves on our democratic tradition, one aspect of the democratic tradition in this era between 1872 and 1947 was blatantly discriminatory laws passed by this Legislature in, arguably, what people then would have described as a parliamentary democracy.
The importance of the legislation itself is very germane to the apology. As my colleague the member for Vancouver-Kingsway said in his speech in 2014, in order to know what we were apologizing for, it was necessary to research the laws that were passed. It’s not simply laws and bills. Some of the bills were introduced and not passed. There were motions that were passed, and the motions are not the subject of this bill that’s before the House. There was a plethora, a veritable cascade, of legislation by legislators in this place to pass laws that were blatantly and openly discriminatory in that era.
The work, which has been taken up by the recommendation of the Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations, was initiated by the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, with the assistance of the very capable staff of the B.C. Legislative Library. That began the process.
The ministry staff, both in the Ministry of International Trade and Multiculturalism and in the Ministry of Justice, have continued that work. Given the staff resources that have been put into it and the very diligent application, over a lengthy period of time, more legislation has been uncovered. As the minister has stated, the legislation, from a pre-digital time, had to be searched manually. That was a lengthy and labour-intensive process, as one well could imagine.
I do want to note, just for the record, the staff at the Ministry of International Trade — Lynne Tang and Dean Sekyer; the staff at the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General — Kristin Hodgins and Erin Faulkner. There are also legacy council members who assisted and advised along the way: George Ing, Dr. Henry Yu and David Choi. On our side, I would want to mention our researcher, of prodigious energy and enthusiasm, Jasmyn Singh, who assisted members on this side in our preparation for the debate back in 2014. [Applause.]
Yes, there’s applause there, and I think there should be applause, perhaps, for all the staff that have been involved in this matter. It is one thing for those of us here in this chamber to profess general support for the principle of discovering what exactly those laws were. It’s quite another thing to undertake the necessary work to uncover them and catalogue them.
There are a number of categories, which I’ll discuss briefly as well, because some of the legislation was repealed or struck down and, therefore, doesn’t fall into the category of the bills that we’re going to deal with in this particular piece of legislation.
Perhaps I could just turn to what the member for Vancouver-Kingsway uncovered. He said, in a piece that he wrote for the journal, Georgia Straight:
“What is striking is the sheer volume of racist, discriminatory legislation against Chinese Canadians and Japanese Canadians and South Asians — 89 separate bills and 49 resolutions of the B.C. Legislature passed from 1872 to 1928; seven reports and two resolutions from the Committee of Supply authorizing expenditure. This does not include the numerous motions, questions and efforts by private members to propose further laws.
“The intent was to fulfil the vision of a ‘white man’s province’” — that’s a direct quote from Sir Richard MacBride, a former Premier of British Columbia — “and this pursuit was only tempered by the desire of industry to have access to cheap and vulnerable labour, a view completely unchallenged in the Legislature until the arrival of the CCF in the 1930s.
“What did this avalanche of legislative activity address? Of the 89 discriminatory bills, 58 addressed labour and employment; 12, economic and social rights; ten, voting rights; nine, immigration issues; and one, vital statistics. Of the 49 motions, 16 dealt with immigration; 12, labour and employment; eight, the Chinese head tax; six, economic rights and taxes; five, health; and two, voting rights….
“Under the BNA Act” — I’m continuing to quote the article — “the federal government and the Lieutenant-Governor have the
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power to disallow provincial legislation, a power that has fallen into disuse. Using this power, between 1872 and 1921, Ottawa disallowed 24 anti-Chinese bills, including all of the British Columbia–voted statutes on immigration. The purpose of the federal action was not to protect human rights. Rather, it was to safeguard federal jurisdiction and ensure ready access to cheap labour.”
Nonetheless, I think the member for Vancouver-Kingsway and anyone else participating in the debate would recognize that it was striking that the federal government would use that very blunt instrument to block and strike down legislation from the province of British Columbia. It wasn’t simply an isolated incident. This was a regular drumbeat from the British Columbia Legislature during this time of legislation of that tone, requiring intervention by the federal government.
Taking those documents as the genesis of the interest in the review of the legislation…. One can’t apologize for the legislative record if one is not aware of what it is. It’s important to know what the legislative record was, what actions were taken, what the reality is and the constituent elements of the actions that are being apologized for. The Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations said:
“While it is understood that over 160 pieces of discriminatory legislation have been repealed, a thorough review of the legislation described in the consultation should be undertaken to ensure nothing has been overlooked. A further objective of this legacy initiative would be to ensure that new legislation does not contain racism.
“Recommendation: Review of the legislation. It is recommended that the government undertake a review of the legislation identified in the consultation to ensure it has been repealed and to review legislative procedures to demonstrate that British Columbia does not have, nor will it ever produce, racist legislation again.”
Taking that recommendation from the committee, the ministry staff set out to begin that process. It is striking that there are a number of categories. I want to briefly review the categories, because the initial legislation that was discovered was reviewed and then more was discovered, as well, during the process.
Provided to me in the helpful briefing by the ministry staff were a number of categories. The first is what is described as “legislation that has been confirmed to be repealed or in respect of incorporated companies which have since been dissolved.” There are a number of statutes, a wide-ranging series of pieces of legislation, but I can give some examples.
Most significantly, voting. In the Provincial Voters Act Amendment, 1895, the provision was to prohibit those of Chinese origin from voting. The explanation here offered by the staff is: “Chinese provision ultimately repealed by SBC 1947, Chapter 28, section 14. The provision in this act became non-discriminatory when Chinese people were given the right to vote in provincial elections.” That’s a significant amendment, obviously, and led to that change in the legislation.
There are a number — and these are some of the ones that we will deal with in the act itself — that were no longer enforced because the corporation…. They were what are called private acts. Parliamentary Practice in British Columbia defines a “private bill” in the following way. I’m reading from part 2, “Private Bills”:
“Ordinarily, the first object of a public bill is to alter the general law or to enact new proposals of general application, whereas a private bill may be enacted for the benefit or particular interest of a particular person or group of persons or a specific corporate entity.
“It follows, therefore, that public bills and private bills are further distinguishable in that the former enacts measures of public policy while the latter are petitioned for by parties whose particular interests are involved.”
The bills that we’re dealing with in this piece of legislation are private bills, typically enacted to benefit a specific corporation. The provisions in those bills typically — and I’ll give some examples later, as the minister has given one already — are prohibitions against hiring those Canadians of Chinese or Japanese origin from working on the construction of the entity that’s referred to, whether it’s a railway, a mining operation or a utility company.
Other legislation that was also dealt with was some labour and employment legislation: the Factories Act Amendment, 1919, ultimately repealed in 1965; Women and Girls’ Protection Act, which was ultimately repealed in 1968. Some legislation — that’s that broad category. Typically, some of the legislation was because the companies concerned were dissolved, and some of it was repealed by new legislation many years ago.
The next category that is referred to is legislation that was struck down by a court. In the immigration…. There was an act passed, the Chinese Regulation Act, in 1884, and it was struck down by the court in Regina v. Wing Chong in 1885. The reference is 1 B.C.R. 150.
Then there is another broad category of legislation. One can sense, by reviewing these categories, the work that was done to find and catalogue all the various pieces of legislation.
The next category provided here is legislation that was not brought into force, never received royal assent or was disallowed by the federal government. These are some of the pieces of legislation I referred to earlier, where the federal government used its now fallen power to disallow legislation, which it no longer does. These are that category of disallowance actions by the federal government, which took place over many years.
There is also legislation, finally, that may be still in effect, as no records could be found to verify the status of the legislation, and that is some of the acts that are before us. The other category was discriminatory provisions that were not in effect in the…. Again, there are 204 of those.
The effort, beginning with some acts, to categorize and to look at all of the legislation historically has yielded a great deal of, I think, what will be of interest to historians. But for our purposes here, it demonstrates the thoroughness of the effort, the sincerity of the effort and I think and I hope — I’m sure the minister agrees — the finality of the effort in the sense that having done this work, all legisla-
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tion, one would hope, has been discovered and categorized, and the residual is being dealt with in this bill.
The acts that are contained in the bill, I think, are worth at least referring to slightly in the sense of getting a sense of just what is involved in these particular acts and, from the language, gauging a sense of the temper of the times, of the attitudes that prevailed.
I’ll begin with one of them, which is the Quesnelle Lake Dam Co. It’s a private bill. The owners of the company, Jon Adair Jr. and Joseph Hunter, petitioned to erect a dam near the outlet of Quesnel Lake in the Cariboo in order to pen back the waters of the lake so that thereby the mining of the bed of the south fork of the Quesnel River may be rendered practicable.
The bill was passed by the Legislature. In that, in section 12, there is a provision in the bill that reads as follows: “The association shall not employ any person in the mining of these lands by this Act demised unless he shall be the holder of a Free Miner’s Certificate; and it shall be unlawful for the association to sell, or in any way dispose of any of their rights as acquired by this Act to Chinese. Any violation of this Act shall subject the association to the forfeiture of the lease.”
I don’t think the language could be balder. In doing this work that the act authorizes the principals to do, if they hired anyone who was deemed to be of Chinese origin, the lease would be forfeited back to the Crown. In other words, they would lose all their legislative rights. So a very strong prohibition and a very bald prohibition. It gives a sense of the unapologetic nature of the racism of the time.
There’s another statute, An Act to Incorporate the Vancouver Gas Company, dating from 1886. There’s a petition by the principals. They want to incorporate the Vancouver Gas Co.
“The company may be incorporated for the purpose of constructing, maintaining gas works and supplying gas to consumers at the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway at Coal Harbour and English Bay, New Westminster district, and for doing all acts and things requisite or convenient for the purposes of foresaid.”
So as part of that act to set up the Vancouver Gas Co., the prohibition in the act reads as follows, section 16:
“This act is passed upon the express understanding that no Chinese, either directly or indirectly, shall be employed in or about or concerning any works or service authorized under this act or required by the company to be done or performed. In the event of any Chinese being employed by the company, the company shall be liable upon summary conviction before any two justices of the peace, or functionary having the power of two justices of the peace, upon the oath or affirmation of one or more credible witness or witnesses, to a penalty not exceeding $25 or less than $10 for every Chinese employed.”
Then it goes on to give a number of other remedies of seizing goods or property in the event a fine is not paid.
The definition of Chinese in section 18 is as follows:
“The term Chinese wherever used in this act shall mean any native of the Chinese empire and its dependencies not born to British parents and shall include any person of the Chinese race.”
Again, very sweeping; utterly, completely and totally racist in this particular act setting up a gas company in Vancouver back in 1886.
[R. Lee in the chair.]
One more, perhaps, because they’re all rather drearily similar, unfortunately. I’ll move to the final one, which is one that I think my colleague from New Westminster will want to address for historic reasons, but I think it’s the most recent, in the sense that the bill was assented to in March of 1930.
This is a bill entitled An Act respecting the Corporation of the City of New Westminster. What New Westminster wanted to do was to assist a company called Westminster Paper Co., which was building some works in New Westminster. They were going to offer a guarantee to the paper company so that they could sell their debentures. That would strengthen the market, presumably, for those debentures.
In schedule A of the bill, the company agrees, in section 3: “The company covenants and agrees with the city that only white labour shall be employed in, about or upon the lands in the city now owned or hereafter to be acquired by the company, or in or about any building, machinery, plant or equipment which the company may construct, maintain or operate in the city.” A very sweeping prohibition against hiring any Canadian deemed to be of Chinese origin, in New Westminster in 1930.
While some of us are younger, some of us are getting older, and 1930 isn’t that far back in history. It’s certainly not the medieval era, and it is within living memory of some of the oldest inhabitants of New Westminster, perhaps.
I think it’s significant that that provision, again, illustrates the temper, the tone, of the times in British Columbia, back as recently as then. Of course, these provisions, significant provisions, were not repealed, with the right to vote, until 1947, until after the Second World War, in the case of Canadians of Chinese origin; in the case of First Nations, citizens of Canada, not until 1960.
The legacy and the effort to understand how the Legislature of British Columbia behaved, presumably with the support of many of its citizens…. It’s rare in the political process — although it does happen, as we know — that people in the Legislature do things that have no public support. It is a measure of the opprobrium, the sense of entitlement and the sense of the right to discriminate that was felt by members of the Legislature on what they deemed to be the interests of those they represented in that time.
The historical apology, the motion that was passed in 2014, is a step on the road to reconciliation. But one would note — and we discussed this here in the Legislature only just recently, just two days ago — where there appeared to be a rising tide of racism, perhaps emboldened by some of the actions taking place in our neighbour to the south. It’s difficult to speculate on the
[ Page 14232 ]
mindset of some people who would utter or act upon those kinds of beliefs, but certainly, the threat of racism and discrimination is not far away.
In fact, a recent document issued by the Vancity Credit Union said that of members of visible minorities — Canadians here in this province, in the Lower Mainland and other parts of the province — 82 percent have experienced acts of discrimination that they personally identified and that were very unmistakably understood to be acts of discrimination.
Certainly, we aspire to a multicultural society. Certainly, we aspire to be a tolerant society, and in many ways, we are, and many individuals are. But the burden of the past is not totally dispelled, and the actions of others in the future are not, sometimes, all that far below the surface.
So this legislation is an important adjunct to the work that was done in 2014. I know the committee continues. There is other work to do in the process of reconciliation.
In respect of the acts of reconciliation, there’s further work to be done. That is absolutely required.
We will look forward to collectively…. I think this is a moment when, in the Legislature…. Despite, perhaps, the genesis of this program of reconciliation back in 2013, prior to the election, I think it’s important to set that aside and to take a more benign view of what the government and the Legislature collectively has done, in 2014, and continues to do in this area.
Certainly, I think that’s what citizens would expect of us. That’s what citizens have a right to demand of us. And in this process, I think that’s what we are endeavouring to do in a sincere way on both sides of the House.
I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the House for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I regard it as one of the privileges of holding this office that one is able to participate in what are important historic actions by the Legislature of British Columbia — to apologize for and reconcile with some of the more sordid legislative past of this place.
With that, I conclude my remarks.
D. Bing: Three years ago this House unanimously passed Motion 19, a bipartisan motion that was an apology for past discriminatory practices against Chinese Canadians. It was a privilege for me to speak on Motion 19 three years ago, and I am pleased to have the honour today of responding to Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act, which is one of the final chapters of this process.
The subject is of deep personal meaning to me, because some of the people the provincial government has been apologizing to were my family members. Although my grandfathers came to Canada in 1906 and 1908 to live, I have other family who came even earlier to help build the CPR railway. Today they might be called temporary foreign workers.
Three years ago I said that the day of the official apology was a happy day for Chinese Canadians, for all British Columbians and for all people who believe in human rights. I said that the apology was a significant moment in the history of the province, one that had been over 100 years in the making and was long overdue. As I said at the time, it is never the wrong time to do the right thing.
The motion itself was a bipartisan motion. It reads as follows:
“Be it resolved that this Legislature apologizes for more than a hundred laws, regulations, and policies that were imposed by past provincial governments that discriminated against people of Chinese descent since 1871, when British Columbia joined Confederation, to 1947. These laws and policies denied British Columbia’s Chinese communities’ basic human rights, including but not limited to, the right to vote, hold public office, or own property; imposed labour, educational and employment restrictions; subjected them to health and housing segregation, and prevented them from fully participating in society. The House deeply regrets that these Canadians were discriminated against simply because they were of Chinese descent. All members of this House acknowledge that we all aspire to be a fair and just society where people of all nations and cultures are welcomed, accepted and respected.
“Be it further resolved that the House acknowledge that the Chinese Canadian community endured untold hardships and persevered with grace and dignity. We acknowledge that despite being subjected to discriminatory laws, policies and practices, the Chinese community has made, and continues to make, substantial contributions to the culture, history and economic prosperity in our province.”
Like Bill 19, Bill 3 is another historical moment for British Columbia. The B.C. government made a commitment to review legislation identified as discriminatory as part of the recommendations in the Chinese historical wrongs final report. The legislation review report shows that the vast majority of B.C. laws are free from discrimination and confirms that new B.C. laws must conform to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The report also identifies 19 historical private acts that contain discriminatory provisions. This historical private legislation, discovered during the legislative review, is reflective of a painful time in B.C.’s collective history. While these provisions could not be currently used to legally discriminate against British Columbians, the new Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act, announced today, will repeal the discriminatory sections to right this historical wrong.
It is important to know that the current legislation for human rights in British Columbia protects all British Columbians against legislated discrimination. For example, the human rights code is a provincial piece of legislation which provides protection and remedies for people who have experienced discrimination in the areas of employment and services and facilities that are customarily available to the public, including the purchase of property and rental accommodation.
The Canadians Human Rights Act was enacted federally in 1977 and applies to the federal government, its
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ministries, chartered banks and federally regulated organizations like the RCMP. This act also provides protection from discrimination to citizens of all provinces and territories, including British Columbia.
Finally, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in Canada in 1982 to protect all Canadians from discrimination. Unlike the B.C. human rights code and the Canadian Human Rights Act, which are limited in the jurisdictions to which they apply, the Charter applies to all provinces, territories and the federal government. The Charter guarantees specific civil liberties and operates to limit the powers of the government and entities to which it applies from enacting legislation or laws that may infringe upon those guaranteed civil rights.
Further, a rule or law enacted by a government body can be challenged through the courts if it is believed that the law or rule infringes one of the civil liberties or rights protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If a court finds that there has been an infringement of a protected right, the court will declare the law or rule to be of no force and effect.
In 2014, the B.C. government announced funding of $1 million to support the Chinese legacy projects recommended in the Chinese historical wrongs final report. Legacy projects commemorate the apology in the Legislature on May 15, 2014, and celebrate the contributions of Chinese Canadians to the history, culture and economic prosperity of our province. They are the result and inspiration of the Chinese historical wrongs consultation process and report and will ensure that historical wrongs are acknowledged and remain part of our collective history.
Legacy project themes include public education and general awareness, celebrating heritage values, celebrating Chinese-Canadian achievement in British Columbia, and public awareness to ensure that legislated discriminatory practices never happen again in B.C.
Some highlights of the progress include provincially recognizing 21 places of historical significance to the Chinese-Canadian community under the Heritage Conservation Act.
Contributing $100,000 of legacy funding to the Royal B.C. Museum gold rush exhibit, featuring Chinese mining pioneers.
Launching an on-line resource on the anniversary of the apology for historical wrongs, providing information about Chinese legacy projects and their progress.
Updating B.C.’s education curriculum to include historical wrongs against Chinese Canadians and First Nations as well as specific incidents like the Komagata Maru and the internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II, fulfilling an important commitment with the new curriculum supplement for grades 5 and 10 students, Bamboo Shoots: Chinese Canadian Legacies in B.C.
Providing $20,000 to the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of B.C. to help complete All Our Fathers’ Relations, a film about a rarely told chapter of B.C.’s history: early Chinese and First Nations relations.
Launching a new digital inventory of Chinese artifacts held in local museums across B.C., in partnership with the University of Victoria, to help showcase the significance of Chinese Canadians to our society.
And recently unveiling commemorative monuments in two communities — Kelowna and Cumberland — to express the positive contribution of Chinese Canadians to B.C.’s history, culture and prosperity.
There are two remaining legacy projects expected to be completed in 2017. They include a celebration book intended to profile the positive contribution of Chinese Canadians to B.C.’s social, economic and cultural history; an inventory of Chinese clan association buildings across the province and feasibility studies to identify options regarding affordable housing.
In closing, I support Bill 3 because it represents one of the final steps in the reconciliation process started three years ago with the formal apology to Chinese Canadians.
I would like to thank all of the individuals, all of the citizens that attended the dialogues and consultations and that were part of the discussion for their meaningful contribution. My thanks to all members of the House for recognizing that the historic apology was not about politics. It was about doing the right thing and addressing a historical wrong that was a stain on our collective history. We cannot undo the past, but by acknowledging it, together we can ensure that we and our children learn from these mistakes and never make them again.
J. Darcy: I welcome the opportunity to rise and speak on Bill 3, which repeals discriminatory provisions and historical wrongs reflected in legislation in the history of British Columbia, targeting Chinese Canadians.
I want to begin today by speaking from my own community and telling a story of a conversation I had with children in a classroom — interestingly, in Richard McBride School, which was referenced by the member for Surrey-Whalley just recently. It was a conversation I had around the time that we debated the Chinese apology and unanimously approved it in 2014.
As so many of the members of this Legislature do, we visit classrooms, and we’re invited to try and explain to children — in this case, grade 5 children in a classroom — what it means to be an MLA. It was my first time doing that, and it’s always a bit of a challenge to try and explain to grade 5 children what we do in a way that they actually can understand. I touched on a couple of topics and was searching my way, and then I decided to talk to them about a bill that we were discussing in the Legislature at that time, which was the apology to Chinese Canadians.
This was as diverse a group of students as you would find anywhere in British Columbia, and when I talked about an apology for racist wrongs against Chinese Canadians, the
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kids in the classroom kind of stared at me — many of them. Many of those children were from families of Chinese descent, and they just stared at me. They didn’t really, many of them, understand what I was talking about.
I asked them: “Do you know what racism is? Can anybody tell me what racism is?” Interestingly, even though most of the kids in the classroom were of Asian descent, many of them of Chinese-Canadian descent, it was a young boy whose father was African-American who said: “I know what it is. My father told me that he was treated differently because of the colour of his skin.” The kids kind of stared, and they nodded. So I tried to engage them some more. “What do you do if you’ve done something wrong?” I asked them. All the hands went up. Then they had something to say. They all said: “Well, you apologize.” I said: “That’s right. And then what do you do next?”
“Well,” one girl said very solemnly, “You never, ever do it again.” A grade 5 girl. “How do you know if you shouldn’t do it again?” Another girl said: “Well, I’d go and talk to the person I hurt and understand how it was that I hurt them.”
I thought that was incredibly profound. It kind of remains with me till this day, because, really, this entire process has been about fully appreciating the history of racism and discrimination in such a way that we never do it again. It’s by listening to and hearing from and acting on what we hear from the communities that have been targeted by discrimination and by taking action going forward.
I want to just continue by talking about my community of New Westminster, about how the racist laws and discrimination that were acted upon and promulgated in this House also permeated our entire society, our entire province.
In fact, three of the 19 historical private acts containing discriminatory provisions that still require repeal and will be repealed by this bill came from New Westminster and affected New Westminster. It was the origin of those bills.
Now, in 2009, the New Westminster city council embarked on a process of reconciliation with our Chinese-Canadian community that was both about understanding our history in our city as well as talking about what we needed to do going forward so that we never, ever commit these wrongs again.
The New Westminster Chinese Canadians settled as early as 1867, back when we were the capital of British Columbia. By the turn of the century, there were about 1,680 persons of Chinese descent in our community, but as early as 1874, you can begin to see, on the record books of our city, bylaws, regulations and motions that were every bit as racist and discriminatory towards Chinese Canadians as anything that was passed in this House. In fact, many of them urged this Legislature and urged the federal government to act on what they were recommending, including the three particular bills that would be rescinded by the bill we’re discussing today.
It included a Chinese road tax from 1878 and a bylaw in 1879 restricting the number of Chinese and others who could reside in one house. In 1884, a motion passed: all contracts led by this council for street-making shall have a clause in them “prohibiting the employment of Chinese labour of any kind.” Another bylaw prohibits processions with Chinese banners and music.
Another calls on the CPR, with respect to the extension of the railway in our community: every possible precaution be taken “to exclude Chinese labour being in any capacity employed or in any way connected.” Then it went on to say: “Cheap Mongolian labour has already been too heavily felt by the whole population of British Columbia”. These motions go on and on.
Other of the New Westminster motions talk about leprosy. One of them says that the chairman of the board of health should be authorized to have a building erected for the youths of Chinese patients with smallpox on the same lot but with a good fence dividing it from hospitals used by whites. Later on, there are motions about a Chinese hospital — a specific hospital for the Chinese community — but later there were severe restrictions placed on it.
There were graves — cemeteries for whites, for Caucasians, for European settlers. But indigenous graves with no individual grave markings for First Nations people, for Chinese Canadians — and a different cemetery for white people. And it continues.
I have to say, as someone who has spent most of her adult life in the trade union movement, I also…. Our city, when they were doing this research came across one that was from a union that had come forward. It said that there was an Oriental working in Neilson’s foundry on city work. Subsequently, there was an investigation where the owner of the company, the founder of the company, was very quick to say that, yes, he was indeed employing Orientals but that he would certainly dispense with their use.
I’m very proud that our city council undertook, several years ago now, to dig up that history so that the people of our community could understand it fully and then could embark in our own community, in a local way, on a process of reconciliation and that our community, our city, was the first municipality in Canada to issue an apology to Chinese Canadians in our own community.
Let me turn now to the three bills that will be the three acts, the private acts, that will be repealed by this bill that we’re discussing today.
One of them — this goes back to 1886 — is an act incorporating the New Westminster and Port Moody Telephone Co. It says specifically, in section 10:
“This Act is passed upon the express understanding that no Chinese, either directly or indirectly, shall be employed in or about, or concerning any work or services authorized by this Act, or required by the Company to be done or performed. In
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the event of any Chinese being employed by the Company, the Company shall be liable, upon summary conviction, before any two Justices of the Peace….”
It goes on to say what the penalty is, and if that penalty is not paid or if the action of employing Chinese Canadians continues, the penalties will increase, and the owners will ultimately be subject to imprisonment and successive penalties.
It also goes on to define what the term “Chinese” means. It says in section 12: “The term ‘Chinese,’ wherever used in this Act, shall mean any native of the Chinese Empire or its dependencies, not born of British parents, and shall include any person of the Chinese race.”
Interestingly, disgracefully, it also says that the onus of proving that you’re not Chinese falls upon that person. If someone has declared that there is a Chinese person working for this particular company, for this particular entity, then they will be deemed to be Chinese, so the onus of proof is on a person of Chinese descent, effectively, to prove that they’re not of Chinese origin.
In 1890, the Electrical Light and Motor Power Act of New Westminster repeats many of the same phrases. “This act is passed upon the express understanding that no Chinese, either directly or indirectly, shall be employed in or about, or concerning any work,” blah, blah, blah — you know, the same words repeated all through these similar acts.
This was an act to incorporate the New Westminster Electric and Power Co. Again, the same process is followed about swearing before a justice of the peace, about penalties of $25, which was a huge amount back then, but then a successive escalation of penalties, including imprisonment, for violating that law that excluded Chinese labour from being employed.
As the member for Surrey-Whalley has already highlighted, these bills continued, not just in this Legislature but also in the city of New Westminster. The most recent one that would be repealed by Bill 3 today, was passed in 1930. It’s the Westminster Paper Co. “The company covenants and agrees with the city that only white labour shall be employed in, about or upon the lands of the city now owned or hereafter to be owned by the company,” and so on, repeating the same language as appears in other bills.
I am honoured to be in this House and have the opportunity to rise and speak in support of this bill. I also want to underline, as other members of this House have in their comments, that the apology, as we said in 2014 when that was discussed, and the actions that we’re taking here today, in speaking unanimously in support of this bill…. It’s only the beginning. It really is only the beginning.
True reconciliation is about a whole lot of things. We’re certainly learning that from First Nations in British Columbia and First Nations in Canada. It’s about a whole lot of things. It’s not just about repealing discriminatory laws. It’s not just about apologies.
It’s about employment policies. It’s about having employment programs where, indeed, if we bring people from other countries, we shouldn’t be treating them as cheap labour. Instead, when they come here, if they are working here and paying taxes here, being employed in British Columbia should be a path to citizenship.
Really, we need to be talking about embracing a wide range of policies that really do show in practice, in reality, that we have learned the lessons from our history, not to be repeated again. Learning the lessons from our history is about looking at every single issue. It’s about looking with that lens at every single public policy decision that we make or debate in this Legislature. Is it discriminatory? When we’re looking at the public services we provide to British Columbians, are all British Columbians able to access those services fully and equally?
In health care, are the services that we’re providing, whether they are in acute care or whether they’re in residential care or in home support, culturally sensitive? Are people able to be cared for by people who are able to communicate with them in their own languages?
In the case of housing…. This has been a very hot topic and a very controversial issue in our province in recent months, absolutely. You’ve heard members on this side of the House speak to the importance of us tackling speculators, whether they are foreign-born or Canadian-born or wherever they are from, but that tackling foreign buyers, even if they’re people who live and work and pay taxes here in British Columbia, in fact, can lead to some of the same racist attitudes and same racist reactions as we’ve seen through our history.
I would also emphasize, as far as public policy, the importance of having a human rights commission — which we once had in this province and which other provinces do — both in order to deal with disputes that arise, to adjudicate them, but also to be a very valuable public resource. It is able to do education of the public and continuing education for people, no matter where they live, no matter where they work, no matter where they go to school.
Certainly, we can never rest content and think that by issuing an apology or by passing this law, which I’m sure that we will be passing with unanimous consent, that we can rest easy. We must remain vigilant. I think events of recent months have certainly revealed that to all of us in this chamber.
We have seen bigots and racists of various sorts emboldened in Canada, in the United States and around the world. And especially more emboldened in recent months by having a President elected in the United States who…. People appear to be coming out of the woodwork and appear to feel emboldened and justified. Many of the things that they might have said quietly before, now they’re saying publicly.
We certainly saw that in New Westminster. I’ve spoken about that in this House, where posters that targeted Jews
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and Muslims were put up on a United Church. We’ve seen similar things happening in Abbotsford. We’ve seen a Jewish community centre, just earlier week, the target of a bomb threat. We see our friends and our neighbours, members of the LGBTQ community — transgendered people, in particular — who are the targets of hatred and bigotry.
We have the continuing legacy of residential schools affecting First Nations. We have missing and murdered women whose families are still seeking justice. As part of the recent wave we’ve seen in our province, some of these racist posters and flyers that have been distributed have been in the Chinese community — in particular, in Richmond, targeting members of the Chinese community.
We can never be complacent. True reconciliation is critically, critically important. It’s about education. It’s about what our children learn in the classrooms. It’s about the importance of them learning about the historic, enormous contributions of Chinese Canadians and learning, as well, about the racist history.
Speaking of education, I want to just conclude with an example related to education in my own community.
We’re very, very pleased that we will soon be seeing the construction of a new Westminster Secondary School after a very, very long wait. This is certainly something that parents in my community, that our school district, myself as the MLA and my predecessors have pressed very hard for over many, many years. But as the hon. Speaker is probably aware and members of this House are aware, there have been some very difficult issues to wrestle with concerning the construction of a new high school.
Our school district has been working closely with the government to address these issues, because the graveyard that I referred to earlier, the graveyard that was a separate graveyard — unmarked graves for Chinese Canadians, for people of South Asian descent, for First Nations and for the poor and indigent in our community — lies underneath our existing high school.
The approach that is being taken by our school district, working with the Ministry of Education on this, has been very much to reach out to the Chinese community, to engage them in the conversations about what needs to happen going forward.
In the spirit of true conciliation, it means that where the new school is constructed will not be on the same location. There have been assurances given that that new school will be constructed on a different part of the property — it is a very sizeable piece of property at the present time — and that where remains are found, they will be memorialized so that everyone who passes through there, every student who walks on those school grounds, will learn about the historic racist treatment of Chinese Canadians.
A critical part of reconciliation is also that children in New Westminster schools, from this day forward, will learn about that history in order to ensure that history does not repeat itself.
In conclusion, I want to thank all of my colleagues on both sides of the House who have spoken on this very, very important issue today. I want to acknowledge the role of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who certainly has played a leadership role in this province and in this Legislature in working with the Legislative Library in order to produce — I remember it was not long after I arrived in this place — two enormous binders that were a valuable, valuable resource for taking this issue forward and for bringing young people together, also, in public forums in order to learn about the history.
As recent events confirm, history can repeat itself. Words do matter. Policies do matter. Our actions in this House do matter. In this world of blaming, of finger-pointing, of racist targeting of people based on ethnic origin, race and religion, we must be constantly vigilant. We must be courageous, we must speak and act as members of this House, and yes, we must also legislate, as we will be doing in the next few days — both sides of this House, speaking with one voice — so that the history of racism and discrimination in the province of British Columbia against Chinese-Canadian people and against all people is never repeated.
Hon. J. Rustad: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
Introductions by Members
Hon. J. Rustad: It’s an honour today to be meeting with and hosting the Chief of the Sumas First Nation, Dalton Silver. He’s here in the audience today. We had some productive meetings around reconciliation between his nation and our province. With him is Scott Smith, with Gowling, who’s a lawyer working on Sumas’s behalf. Would the House please make them welcome.
Debate Continued
Hon. N. Yamamoto: I rise in the House today to support Bill 3, Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act. This act marks another historical moment in British Columbia.
I would like to start by sharing a story, my father’s story, to demonstrate that it was not too long ago when discrimination changed lives forever. While we may not wish to relive the past, it is to everyone’s benefit, certainly, to learn from it.
My father, Mas Yamamoto, was born in British Columbia and attended Point Grey junior secondary school. He enjoyed school. He was really active in the cadets. But one day in 1941, he and a few others of Japanese descent were told that they were now no longer allowed
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to be a cadet. He remembers vividly, when asking why that was so, the response from his principal was: “We are at war with your people, and precautions must be taken.” Your people. He was Canadian. He was born in a fishing village along the Fraser River in an area that’s now called Steveston.
Shortly after that, he and his family — his mother and his five siblings; his father had passed away just before the war — were forced to live in an animal barn at the PNE grounds. There was no privacy. Families were separated. The men and young men were placed in another facility. It was dirty. It was smelly. It was unhygienic. About three months later, his family was shipped to an internment camp in the interior of B.C. They were sent to Lemon Creek in the Kootenays. He was only 14 years old at the time.
Although the federal government issued this internment, under the War Measures Act, it was done at the urging of the British Columbia government at the time. Members of the Canadian military and the RCMP actually did not agree with it, but the B.C. government of the day pushed the federal government to do this.
My father and his family lived and worked in Lemon Creek, in harsh conditions, until the end of the war. After the war, 1945, the families that were relocated from the west coast were actually still not allowed to move back to the coast. They were only permitted to live east of the Rockies, and many Japanese Canadians were sent back to war-torn Japan. But my father’s family was able to stay in the Okanagan.
The war ended when he was 17 years old. He couldn’t finish high school. He worked in orchards for several years in the Okanagan, and eventually, in 1949, legislation was changed to allow him and his family to move back to the coast.
He worked in New Westminster, at Essondale — which has now had a name change to Riverview — for a few years, as an aide. Then he moved up to Tuktoyaktuk, the DEW line, the distant early warning line, where he actually then completed his grades 10, 11 and 12, and they had grade 13 back then.
He did receive a letter from the department of education in Victoria telling him to slow down. He was completing his high school education a bit too fast by correspondence. But my father wrote back and said he was 30 years old, at this time. He had three children, he was married, and he didn’t have the time. So he finished his high school, he saved some money by living up in the DEW line, and he came back to Vancouver.
If we go back just a few years before that happened, it wasn’t until 1949, when my father was 22, that Canadians of Japanese descent were actually allowed to vote. It’s a privilege and a right that we as Canadians and those of Japanese descent enjoy today, to fully participate in the democratic process.
I look back — and this will tell my age — but it was just a mere 11 years before I was born that people of Asian descent were finally given the right to vote, and not until 1960 when First Nations were given that right.
My father worked hard. He earned his PhD, in the department of pharmacology at UBC, in biochemistry. He and others of Asian descent have certainly added value to British Columbia for their entire lives.
Sixty years passed since the time he was interned. He found a good job and was raising a family. In 2009, he watched as I was honoured to be elected as the first Canadian of Japanese descent in the B.C. Legislative Assembly.
In 2012, with the help of others, I introduced a motion, which was supported by all members of the Legislature, to formally apologize to Canadians of Japanese descent in British Columbia for the wrongs and the internment committed during World War II. That year, actually, 2012, marked the 70th anniversary of the internment order.
It was an emotional day for many, including my father, who was here that day. By then, he was in his 80s when we issued this apology, but it did resonate with him and others of his generation. It meant something to him and to all of us that carry similar family histories.
In 2014, a couple of years later, a formal apology was issued to the Chinese-Canadian community for historical wrongs committed against them.
Although these occurrences of racism seem archaic, it wasn’t long ago that they were implemented. In fact, it wasn’t long ago when it was acceptable to see advertisements and posters boasting of restaurants that did not hire Asian cooks. And the iconic Lions Gate Bridge — there was a bylaw that prohibited and restricted anybody of Asian descent from actually being employed to work on the building of the bridge.
These apologies are meaningful. They acknowledge the wrongs, but more importantly, they have shed light on the huge contribution these groups have made to the province of B.C.
We’ve worked to create the Chinese legacy projects, and just this past year, we have asked the people in the province to nominate places of historical importance to Japanese Canadians. British Columbia’s strength is our diversity. British Columbia is a beautiful, multicultural province that I am proud to call home.
Now it’s 2017, and staff from the Ministry of Justice have reviewed nearly 2,000 pieces of legislation enacted from 1871 to 1982 to find and remove discriminatory provisions based on ethnicity. Although we’ve had the Canadian Human Rights Act in place since 1977 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which was enacted in 1982, this is just another step towards eliminating racism and discrimination. In fact, 19 private acts restricting people of Asian descent from working for private businesses were uncovered.
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We have updated curriculum in schools to include important moments in B.C.’s history, including wrongs against Chinese Canadians, First Nations, the Komagata Maru and the internment of Japanese Canadians. I’m really grateful, extremely grateful, to the Minister of International Trade and Multiculturalism for introducing this bill and to the staff in the Ministry of Justice who spent hundreds of hours of work diligently looking for instances of discriminatory legislation.
I would like to conclude with something that my father has said. I’ve actually repeated it before in this House, but it will always resonate with me. He said to me: “We should always remember wherever we came from, but I hope that some day people will forget about being Indo-Canadian, Chinese Canadian, Japanese Canadian, German Canadian. There’s a time when we have to say, above all: ‘We are Canadian.’”
G. Holman: I’m very pleased to stand today to speak to this legislation. I want to commend the government for bringing this forward. Our caucus has declared support for this bill well ahead of the first reading in the Legislature.
Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act, is based on and fulfils recommendations from the Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations to ensure a full repeal of discriminatory legislation promulgated by the provincial Legislature after B.C. joined Confederation.
As other members have spoken about this, in particular the member for Surrey-Whalley, who, as our lead speaker on this side of the House, has remarked, and before him, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who, of course, has done a lot of work on the issue…. I want to speak to that a little bit later. They’re commending government for basing this legislation on a thorough review because, really, you can’t apologize for something unless you’ve done a thorough documentation of exactly what that is.
The report recommended that, and government has followed through on that, as mentioned by the member just in the previous speech — over 2,000 pieces of legislation between 1871 and 1982. Very commendable, very thorough, and we want, on this side of the House, to congratulate government for doing this.
I did want to just speak very briefly to some of the history and some of the involvement of members on this side of the House. In particular, the members for Vancouver-Kingsway and Surrey-Whalley and, also, Jenny Kwan, who now, of course, is a federal MP, have done excellent work and in some ways initiated this process of the very thorough review of legislation to ensure that we were trying to deal with all of the discriminatory aspects of the legislation that was in place. I do feel that they should be mentioned here and honoured here for the work that they’ve done.
In 2014, the members for Vancouver-Kingsway and Surrey-Whalley and Jenny Kwan prepared and presented, on behalf of the official opposition, an extensive compendium of discriminatory legislative measures and actions — statutes, motions, reports — that expressed provincial legislators’ racist attitudes and exclusionary vision for British Columbia. The official opposition at the time urged that this legislative record inform a full apology and reconciliation for historical wrongs against the Chinese-Canadian community and other racial minorities.
The extent of discrimination, when you look at the history, is extremely disconcerting, particularly in British Columbia. As the member for Vancouver-Kingsway stated at the time, back in 2014, no other jurisdiction in the country was even close to B.C. in terms of the kinds of things we were doing to make lives miserable for the Chinese, Japanese and South Asians. The drive for the federal acts like the head tax came from what was happening in B.C. That’s where the pressure was coming from.
Think about this: 24 of the anti-immigration bills put forward by B.C. were disallowed by the federal government using the power of disallowance, which has not been used for decades now. It is amazing that B.C. was passing laws they knew were going to be quashed by Ottawa. The member for Vancouver-Kingsway characterized that as sort of a legislative riot by the British Columbia Legislature.
It’s pretty stunning looking back, historically, and wondering how we could possibly do those kinds of things. Yet we still see the ugly head of racism emerge from time to time, even quite recently, with events in the United States but also in Canada — even recently in Vancouver, with the threat of violence against the Jewish community centre.
Again, as a number of us have done…. We’re in full agreement with this. We congratulate government for acting on this and for doing it in such a thorough way. But as many have said on both sides of the House, we need to be ever-vigilant. Racism does have a tendency to raise its head from time to time, if they’ve been empowered.
[R. Chouhan in the chair.]
Unfortunately, sometimes elected officials create the elbow room for these kinds of ugly attitudes to emerge again, so we must be ever-vigilant against that kind of thing.
As others have also said here, the process of truth and reconciliation applies to more than just the Chinese and other ethnic groups, of course. We have a huge issue here in British Columbia and in other parts of Canada as well, but particularly in British Columbia, because we haven’t come to full agreement with First Nations in terms of their unceded territories.
We have a huge amount of work to do with First Nations in this province. I think it’s very fitting that the minister introduced some of our guests here from the Sumas First Nation. It highlights the fact, the work that
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we have to do on that particular issue — that truth and reconciliation applies not just to Chinese, not just to Japanese, not just to other ethnic communities, but to our very own First Nations communities, our very own friends and neighbours.
With those brief comments, again, I want to commend government and congratulate all the speakers who have stood up today and very eloquently supported this legislation in a true spirit of bipartisanship. I’m very proud to be part of this moment.
Hon. S. Anton: I thank all of the speakers. I’ve been sitting here for some time now, in fact since the Minister of International Trade opened the debate this afternoon. I will say that one of the real strengths of the discussion today is what we’ve learned from each other.
You don’t always know. You work with people, and you don’t always know their personal history.
It is fascinating to hear how so many people have been personally affected through their families by racist elements and racist pieces of our British Columbia history.
The history of our British Columbia settlement, beginning with the first contact by outsiders with First Nations, is a history of settlement of peoples from around the world. The first Chinese that we know of came to Nootka Sound in 1788 to build the first year-round non-indigenous settlement, and they came with Capt. John Meares. So certainly, Chinese settlers and other immigrants have been here, mixed together in British Columbia, since the very beginning of the history of people coming from outside and settling here and joining people of First Nations who lived here.
Early settlers, of course, included Japanese, South Asians and people from around the world. We had the gold rush in 1858, so via San Francisco, people swarmed into British Columbia to pursue the dream of gold. Some of them achieved their dreams; others did not. But certainly, that was a massive immigration and a massive settlement to British Columbia. People in the gold rush had come from around the world.
Then, during the building of the railway, of course, which was vital to British Columbia joining Confederation, again, many more people — in particular, many people of Chinese origin — came to British Columbia to work on the railway and to work in other occupations which were part of British Columbia’s history at that time.
British Columbia and Victoria, Vancouver Island and the colony of British Columbia, and then the joined-together province of British Columbia in 1871 were always multicultural places, but they also had a racist sentiment. That was not a universal sentiment, as others have pointed out, but it was forceful enough to drive both federal and provincial legislative agendas. That is a large piece of work on the Chinese apology, which we have been working on in government.
Under the leadership of the Premier and the hard work and leadership of our Minister of International Trade and the Minister Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism, there has been a very extensive piece of work over the last three years — work on the Chinese apology.
I thank all the people who were on her committee. Again, people from around British Columbia, many of whom are people that I have known from Vancouver, but many who I have come to know through the work of the committee and who have joined that committee to produce their initial piece of work, which was the report, the Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations.
That work was distilled from the consultations between November 2013 and January 2014: 1,300 people, seven community consultations, 150 oral submissions and 100 written submissions. That was a very extensive piece of work. It was a very extensive piece of fact-finding and opinion-finding, finding out what people thought in British Columbia. The result — one of the pieces of the report, then — was the apology in this House on the 15th of May, 2014.
The report recommended a commitment to education. It recommended, amongst other things, a study of Chinese historical places in British Columbia, and now this piece of legislation today, which is the repeal of the historic acts.
I would like to, before I get to this legislation, though, talk about the historic places work that was done. I grew up in Duncan. Duncan had a Chinatown, but unfortunately…. I hate to say it, but it was a government building, I think probably in the ’60s that was built for the new courthouse. So the old Chinatown was taken down. I believe some of it is now in Cumberland, but it would be on this list. It would be No. 1, if it was still there. But it is what happens to our historic places if you’re not paying attention to them. You know, I remember that Chinatown from my childhood, and I regret that it is gone.
I am so glad that the work has been done on these 21 historical places. I understand there will be 15 plaques and ceremonies around British Columbia in 15 of these 21 places, and recognition by the rest of it.
I’m going to read them out, because I think it’s important to have, in this record, a record of what those places are. Chinese-Canadian cemeteries: the Kamloops Chinese Cemetery, the Cumberland Cemetery, New Westminster historic Chinese cemetery. Chinese-Canadian community hubs and clusters: New Westminster Chinatown, and we heard from the member from there a few minutes ago; Coal Creek Park in Chinatown in Cumberland.
Chinese businesses and residences in Alert Bay; Nelson’s Chinatown and Sing Chong Laundry; Quesnel Forks; Nam Sing Ranch in Quesnel; Ahbau Creek, Ahbau Lake and Ahbau Bridge near Quesnel; the D’Arcy Island
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Chinese-Canadian leprosy quarantine station; the Joss House in Lytton; Arrandale, Mill Bay and Nass Bay canneries; Commando Bay, Okanagan Lake; Tod Inlet, Vancouver Island.
Lord Strathcona School in Vancouver; gold rush landscapes in Nlaka’pamux territory; Browning’s Flat and Rip Van Winkle Flat on the Fraser River; the Dominion Immigration Building in Victoria; and Chinese Market Gardens at Musqueam Reserve No. 2 in Vancouver. I did have the pleasure of attending the ceremony at Musqueam to celebrate the recognition of the 21 historic Chinese places.
I think for those of us who grew up in British Columbia or those of us who have only just arrived, it is important to recognize our history. Having actual, physical, historical recognition is important to all of us because it shows us what that history is. Certainly for Chinese Canadians, it is a long and proud history in British Columbia.
Although we were multicultural, and although people lived together and worked together, it did not seem to take very long for some early settlers in British Columbia to advocate for discriminatory legislation against Chinese, Japanese and — the word which was included in this legislation — Asiatics.
Certainly, as I just mentioned a few minutes ago, the strength of the enterprise by people in British Columbia was enough to drive both a federal agenda and a provincial agenda. That is not something that we should be proud of, the fact that British Columbia seemed…. We’re often proud of British Columbia’s leadership, but the leadership in this case was not good leadership. It led to dreadful results for Canada and, particularly, for people of Chinese descent.
One of the pieces which is often referred to, because of the terrible problems that it caused, was the head tax — in 1885, a $50 head tax; in 1901, a $100 head tax; in 1903, a $500 head tax. People still came from China; 97,000 people came. But then in 1923, the Exclusion Act was passed by the federal government, under pressure from British Columbia. It lasted until 1947. During that time, very few people came from China, and there were many, many tragic cases of family separations, some of which we’ve heard in this House today.
What changed that, of course, was World War II, where loyal Canadians of Chinese origin joined up and fought for their country. They have a very proud history, and I’d like to just give a little shout-out here, or maybe a big shout-out, to the Chinese Canadian Military Museum in Chinatown in Vancouver, which recognizes that history. It does an absolutely outstanding job with its exhibits and its recognition of that history.
Of course, when those veterans came back from the war — men and women — things needed to change quickly. The Exclusion Act was repealed, and the vote was granted. Did that repeal all of the legislation which was discriminatory? That, of course, was another piece and another question raised by the apology in this House. Did we know that all of the discriminatory legislation in British Columbia had been repealed?
Clearly, at this time, at this point in our history, discriminatory legislation will not be legal. It would not be permitted. But if it remains on the books, is that acceptable to us? So a very significant piece of work was done, and 19 bills were found where sections are being repealed. It is so important to get those sections off the books. Certainly, when you read the pieces of legislation involved, they’re fascinating. They’re a portrait of our early history.
It’s also fascinating and horrifying to read the discriminatory provisions in the legislation, mostly around labour. “You shall not employ Chinese people.” “You shall not employ Japanese people.” “You shall not employ people of Asiatic descent.” When we read that now, it is dreadful. You can hardly imagine that people thought that way. But as has been observed a couple of times, the most recent of these bills was passed in 1930.
My father-in-law lives with us in Vancouver. He was born in 1924. There are many people alive in British Columbia today who were alive in 1930. So it was not so long ago that the last of these bills was passed.
The work that was done…. I just describe it because it involved my ministry. I would like to thank the people from the Ministry of International Trade and staff from the Ministry of Justice, because it was a complicated piece of work. You think you might be able to just push a few buttons. That’s what we’re used to doing in searching right now — pushing some buttons, doing a search on a few words and, bingo, you’ve got your answer. It is not at all like that to search these historical acts.
The Ministry of International Trade provided the Ministry of Justice with a list of 188 historical public and private acts that were found to contain discriminatory provisions based on place of origin or ethnicity. These statutes span the time period between 1874 and 1948.
Ministry of Justice research staff, with the assistance of legal counsel, were tasked with verifying whether all of the identified discriminatory provisions had been repealed. Researchers located each statute containing an identified discriminatory provision and traced the legislation forward throughout time until the provision in question was found to be repealed by statute.
Legislation from this time period is not available on line. Therefore, researchers were required to manually search through bound volumes of legislation. This research took about 200 hours over a period of six months to complete, and the scope of that piece of the work was limited to the 188 acts that were provided. Those 188 acts, 200 hours — it was a lot of work.
The review concluded that 169 of the discriminatory provisions, including all of the provisions found in public acts, had either been repealed, were never brought into
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force, were disallowed or were otherwise no longer in effect. Six of the provisions were actually deemed not to be discriminatory. However, the researchers found 13 discriminatory provisions in 13 private acts, and they could not determine whether they had been repealed.
Based on the outcome of the research, the Ministry of International Trade expanded the scope of the research to include a review of over 1,600 unrepealed and unconsolidated private, special and local acts enacted between 1873 and 1982 to determine whether additional discriminatory provisions remained in the legislation.
The Ministry of International Trade hired contract researchers, who were asked to read through these statutes to identify any provisions that could be discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity or place of origin. Identified provisions were sent to the Ministry of Justice research staff for further review and to determine their status. Another six acts were found where it could not be determined that they had been repealed.
The six plus the 13 are the 19 before us today. It is time they were gone.
As I said earlier, I congratulate the minister for the work that she did. I thank the committee for the work that they have done, which has led to the work that we are doing now in this House, which is to repeal these pieces of discriminatory legislation.
As I said, it is horrifying to read them. We can hardly imagine that people thought that way because of where we are now in our society in British Columbia. We pride ourselves on our multicultural society.
I represent the riding of Vancouver-Fraserview. I’d love to count one day how many different places of origin, or where the families may have come from, because it would be massive. I think that in the last census, over five years ago now, about 55 percent in my riding were of Chinese origin and about 15 percent of South Asian origin. But I know when I knock on doors, people are from everywhere.
As one of the other speakers pointed out, kids don’t really notice too much about where people come from now, because everything in the schools is completely mixed. People are friends or not friends just depending on normal human dynamics. That is a wonderful thing, and we are very lucky in British Columbia to be from a society like that.
We do have to be vigilant. We have the human rights code of British Columbia. We have the Canadian human rights code. We have to guard against discrimination. We have to be vigilant about things like the bomb threat on the Jewish community centre recently, because although we can pride ourselves on our multiculturalism and pride ourselves on how much we appreciate that society, it is not always universal. And it is not to say that there are never problems, because there are. It’s up to all of us — up to political leaders, community leaders and, indeed, everyone — to make sure that we do continue to celebrate our multicultural society and guard against any threats to it.
The interesting piece of challenge and work that’s underway in British Columbia right now is reconciliation with First Nations. We have the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We have work done by numerous public bodies and private bodies around British Columbia so that First Nations are our economic partners in so many different ways. It is important to continue to build those relationships, to build those partnerships, so that everyone who is First Nations or whoever you are in British Columbia — but in this particular case, First Nations — does well and thrives in British Columbia.
British Columbia is a wonderful province. We are very lucky to live here, and we have to make sure that everyone who lives here can be fortunate to live here and can do well.
This piece of work that has been undertaken by the Minister of International Trade and the Minister Responsible for Multiculturalism and her committee, all of the hard work that has been done by many, many people to get us to this place today…. It is a proud day. I know this legislation is going to pass.
I thank all of the people for the work that they have done, and I thank all of the people in this House who have shared their personal histories. As I said earlier, we learn from each other, and we learn things that we didn’t know about each other. People have interesting personal histories and personal histories which are really touched by the kinds of provisions that are being repealed in this act today.
I thank you for this opportunity to speak and everyone who has been involved in this project for the hard work that they have done.
S. Robinson: I’m pleased to speak today to the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act. I guess I’m proud to stand here in this House and speak to why I think this is a really good piece of legislation, but I also stand with a little bit of sadness, because we’re speaking to this on the heels of a bomb threat at the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre, and we are speaking to this shortly after the murder of Muslim men at a mosque in Quebec. So I think it’s important that we sort of recognize and acknowledge the work that we have to do as British Columbians and as Canadians.
While we look back at laws that were made when B.C. joined Confederation and we read through some of these laws and related House activities and what’s gone on, we can’t just sort of sit back on our heels and say: “Yes, yes, that was 100 years ago.” We look, and we’re sort of horrified and almost chuckle, because it’s so ridiculous now. But there are still awful things that happen to groups of people just because they look different or sound different or eat different or dress different. So we always must remain vigilant.
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I’m particularly pleased to address this piece of legislation, because I know that it was really a collaborative effort. The minister and her team had to go back and, by hand, go through very old laws, and that took a lot of work. I understand that it was over 200 hours, and that’s tedious work in musty books.
But I also know that some of my colleagues on this side of the House also put in considerable effort to raise the issue of having these racist laws on our books. The previous member for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, Jenny Kwan, along with the members for Surrey-Whalley and for Vancouver-Kingsway, back in 2014, prepared and developed a very thorough list of discriminatory legislative measures and actions. They reviewed statutes, motions and reports, and they essentially hunted down legislation that historical legislators brought into effect here in this very chamber.
I thought it would be really helpful to go back and just look at some of those motions and some of those laws, because I think it provides us with a context.
We often say: “If these walls could speak, what have they heard?” And we have it here. We have it on record. I think it’s important to understand the context, not because it makes it okay, but it helps us to understand.
I think one of the reasons why we go back and we take a look is that it helps us reflect on what we’re doing and saying today. If this is what they were saying 100 years ago about the Chinese, about the Japanese, about South Asian immigrants, what are we saying now about Syrian immigrants? What are we saying now about people that come from faraway places that look different, act different or speak different than the rest of us? It holds us to account. I think it’s always important to go back and look at history and appreciate what was going on so that we can then reflect on what we’re doing today.
Going back to 1872, if these walls could speak…. Clearly, there were men only in this chamber at the time. On February 26, 1872, MLA Robson moved to impose a per-capita tax of $50 a head per annum upon all Chinese within the province. Now, what’s interesting is that the motion lost. It didn’t get support. But the fact that somebody would say that suggests that it wasn’t just them.
They came from a community. As MLAs, we represent a body of people. So there were people in this province that were saying and informing this MLA: “We need to do something to disallow and to not permit the Chinese to come.”
This happened again a couple of years later, the exact same thing, but again, the motion did not pass.
In 1876, there was a discussion at the Committee of the Whole, and it was on immigration. Now, immigration was not a provincial area, but they still had this conversation about it. I want to read a quote, because I think that if we think about what’s going on today…. Even though this is historical, we always have to reflect on today.
One of the quotes from that debate in this House was that the Committee of the Whole was doing this “for the purpose of considering the expediency of taking…steps towards preventing the country from being flooded with a Mongolian population, ruinous to the best interests of British Columbia, particularly her labouring classes.”
Then they amended the motion to read: “A Select Committee be appointed to consider, and report to this House, upon the best means to be adopted to prevent the spread of the Chinese evil.”
Now, we only need to look south of the border. It breaks my heart. I was reading through this, and I kept thinking: “Oh, my goodness. Here we are in 2017, and we can hear this rhetoric. We can hear this hatred. We can hear this racism.” I’d love to say that we’ve come so far, but I have to say that I get discouraged when I read these words and I read what’s going on south of the border. I don’t know that we’ve actually gotten very far.
Again, in 1879, a few years later, there’s another motion. It was resolved that a select committee be appointed to report on the best means to “deal with our Chinese population and to prevent further immigration of Chinese to the province.” The report of the select standing committee on Chinese immigration was presented in the Legislature on March 28, 1879.
It continues. In 1883, in the throne speech…. It’s a throne speech, so the government of the day felt very strongly, and they actually presented to British Columbians what their vision was. On January 25, 1883, the Lieutenant-Governor said: “The increasing evils arising from the unrestrained immigration of Chinese led me to urge the federal government to promote the necessary legislation for the purpose of restricting Chinese from entering this province and from obtaining employment on Dominion public works. And I shall ask you to make further representations on the same subject to the Parliament of Canada.”
So here in British Columbia, there was a movement afoot to appeal to the federal government to keep the Chinese from coming. They were seen as an evil, as a plague.
I think about today, and I think about the refugee situation that we have today. I think about the hate that we hear from south of the border. I know that my colleague from New Westminster has certainly talked about racist posters that have popped up in New Westminster and that we see in Abbotsford about Islamophobia. Certainly, we’re seeing that in the Jewish community to this day.
It hurts my heart when I think about how it’s the same rhetoric, it’s the same fear, and it’s the same anxiety, just a different group. I wonder a little bit about who we are as humans that we get so stuck in this box and that we think that we’ve come a long way. We think that it was so late 1800s, two centuries ago, when those were those attitudes. “That was back then.”
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These were the people representing British Columbians, so it certainly speaks to the number of British Columbians that felt that way and that were afraid of being overtaken, whatever that might look like. When you look at our land mass, when you think about British Columbia and our land mass and when you think of how small the population was back then, it’s like: what were they afraid of? Really, what were they afraid of?
It continued on. There was a debate in 1883 where the B.C. government was to call on the federal government to pass a law to restrict Chinese immigration to B.C. and encourage white immigration. White immigration — really, that’s code for European. That is absolutely a code for European.
We see that come up a little bit later, when there was lots of conversation around making sure that people spoke English or that they spoke European languages. So even if they didn’t speak English…. If they spoke French, that was okay, or if they spoke Spanish, I guess that might have been okay, or if they spoke German, that was okay. But they couldn’t speak Chinese. That was a problem.
In 1893, there was a law that I thought was interesting. It was a law about the home for aged and infirm. Given that I follow the seniors file, this one caught my eye. The assembly passed the provincial home act on April 12, 1893. It stipulated that Indians or Asiatics could not gain admission. Again, even towards older people…. If you were Chinese or South Asian, you couldn’t live in a publicly funded home for the aged. It was reserved for white English-speaking people.
Certainly, there were activities that did not allow Chinese to be employed. They were not allowed to work, certainly, in public works. They weren’t allowed to vote municipally. There was another law in 1897, the Chinese and Japanese alien labour…. The assembly passed a bill banning the hiring of Chinese and Japanese workers by companies created by private bills.
There’s a whole list here of all the different ways in which laws in this province, motions in this province, debates in this House…. The walls have heard debates that were horribly discriminatory, and the language that was used was so problematic.
There’s one in 1900 on immigration. The assembly passed a law requiring that any person wanting to immigrate to B.C. must be able to complete an application in “some language of Europe.”
I thought this was really interesting. It didn’t say you need to speak the language of the land, which on this side of the country was English. Back east, you could argue that it was French. It didn’t even have to do with what language you speak here in Canada; it was the language of Europe. So I suppose Swedish was fine, Finnish was fine, German was fine and Danish was fine. So it was incredibly discriminatory against a certain, particular immigrant group.
It wasn’t about being able to do business. It wasn’t being able to communicate in this land. It was: just not these people.
This list goes on and on. In 1903, the assembly passed a law forbidding Chinese people, or people unable to speak English, from being appointed to a position of trust or responsibility in a mine, subject to the act.
Voting. In 1907 — this one is a different group — the assembly amended the Provincial Elections Act to exclude Hindus from voting. That received royal assent on April 25, 1907. So they actually specified — it was very, very specific — about which groups could and couldn’t vote in our communities, couldn’t participate.
There’s one, actually…. I almost imagine that here in this chamber there was almost a battle. As I read through this list…. There was an investigation into the act of the Lieutenant-Governor regarding Bill 30 of 1907. That had to do with the position that the Lieutenant-Governor took, refusing to assent to the passage of a bill of the last session to regulate immigration into British Columbia. Because they wouldn’t give it royal assent, there was a movement afoot that the Governor General be called to investigate the actions of the Lieutenant-Governor and dismiss him from office if it was determined that he behaved unconstitutionally.
I can imagine, here in this chamber, that there was this debate. I can almost hear their booming voices and carrying on and waving of fists. “How dare the Lieutenant-Governor not act on behalf of the will of British Columbians to stop the immigration of the Chinese….” I want to say “hordes.” I don’t know what language they would have used. Then, taking it a notch further, to say, “We have to appeal to the Governor General,” because the Lieutenant-Governor wouldn’t sign off on it.
These walls have heard it, and we have an obligation to recognize that that happened here in this province. I’m pleased that we’ve had this opportunity to do this research, to make sure that it goes into the history books, because we need to understand what has gone on in this chamber. It is our obligation, I think, as British Columbians, to have a clear understanding of what’s gone on here.
I often wonder what MLAs 100 years from now…. We know that there’ll be 87 here after May; maybe there’ll be 107 in 100 years. I don’t know. I wonder what they’re going to say about the voices that we have all shared here today — and other voices, in terms of other bills and acts and motions and debates. What are they going to say about us in terms of the ways in which we’ve behaved here in this chamber, the conversations that we’ve had, the debates that we’ve had and the stories that we’ve told?
Are they going to be horrified by some of the debates that we’ve had here in this House in terms of discriminating against particular groups of people? I know that we’ve had some interesting debates around sexuality and
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gender in this House. And 100 years from now, what are those legislators going to say about us?
I’m pleased to support this bill. I think it’s important that we recognize the wrongs that previous legislators have made. But I think it’s important that we don’t just…. When I saw the bill come up, and I took a look…. It’s one page, and it lists a number of pieces to be repealed. But it has no context, right? It just lists sections and numbers. You know: “section 4 of An Act respecting a Subsidy for a Railway from Victoria to North Saanich, S.B.C. 1886, c. 16.” That’s the legalese that is just…. It’s what makes the Clerks happy when they see this. It’s part of their work.
But we have to contextualize it, and that’s why I thought it was really important to sort of speak to the kind of place British Columbia was, to speak to the kind of chamber we had, to speak to the debates that went on when this government continually tried to pass legislation and get the government of Canada to limit immigration of the Chinese and to bring in this repulsive head tax to try to discourage immigration.
I want to just remind everybody in this House and all British Columbians about how important it is that we talk about racism and that we don’t just pretend: “Well, that was then.” There are so many ways in which we see it played out now. There are so many ways in which our conversation…. You can hear it. It just sort of burbles under the surface.
Before I take my seat, I just want to just share one story. I remember having a debate with someone who’s now on Coquitlam council. This was when I was first running for council back in 2008. We were at a concert, of all things. It was a summer concert, and we were sitting on our blankets. I knew him, and we were just chatting. He said: “So why do you want to run?” I was telling him about why I wanted to run for council. We talked about — and I don’t know how the subject came up — racism, and anti-Semitism in particular.
He said: “Well, anti-Semitism — it doesn’t really exist anymore.” Anti-Semitism was pretty rampant back in the day, I would argue, well into the ’60s. Jews couldn’t join any of the golf clubs in the Lower Mainland. I think it was back in the early ’80s that they actually said, “Well, to hell with that. We’ll just get our own golf club,” so the Richmond golf and country club was born. That became, sort of, the Jewish golf club.
So it’s been alive and well in many different places, as we saw recently with the threat at the Jewish community centre. But when we were debating on this blanket, listening to this music, he said: “You know, we don’t have to worry so much, because we’ll never get to zero. We’ll never get to zero.”
We always have to fight for zero racism. We always have to fight to make sure…. It creeps up on us, so we cannot be tolerant. We cannot accept it.
I look forward to having a debate, once again, with this colleague who is on Coquitlam council now, because we are seeing a rise in anti-Semitism. We are seeing a rise in Islamophobia. I know that we won’t see it here in this House. I know that it won’t be part of the story that these walls get to take. I know that it won’t be 100 years from now where we have to repeal some sections. I have confidence in our ability to do that.
But I think if we don’t stand up, if all 85 members of this chamber don’t stand up and push back when we need to, then it will creep up, and it will creep in. We need to make a point of absolutely always standing up whenever we hear it. I look forward to hearing more of the debate.
R. Lee: I am pleased to rise in the House to support Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act. Since 1871, when British Columbia joined Confederation, many acts have been passed in this House that prevented fellow British Columbians from fully participating in our province.
After two years of informal and formal consultations with committee groups, by MLAs and ministers, on May 15, 2014, a motion was passed in this House:
“…that this Legislature apologizes for more than a hundred laws, regulations, and policies that were imposed by past provincial governments that discriminated against people of Chinese descent since 1871, when British Columbia joined Confederation, to 1947. These laws and policies denied British Columbia’s Chinese communities’ basic human rights, including but not limited to, the right to vote, hold public office, or own property; imposed labour, educational and employment restrictions; subjected them to health and housing segregation, and prevented them from fully participating in society….”
Along with this apology, our government made a commitment, as recommended by the Chinese historical wrongs final report, to review legislation identified as discriminatory.
Two days ago the Chinese Legacy B.C.: Legislation Review Report was released. It identified 19 acts that contained discriminatory provisions that appeared to still be in effect and a further 204 discriminatory provisions that are no longer in effect.
Bill 3 is about these 19 private acts which contain discriminatory provisions. It’s evident from the depth of the legislative review report that the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of International Trade and Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism have put in considerable time and effort to review nearly 2,000 pieces of relevant legislation spanning 111 years, between 1871 and 1982, to identify those that appear to still be in effect.
All legislation following 1982 was subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and, therefore, conform to the standards of respect for all Canadians and all people that we expect today.
This review also identified the 2,004 discriminatory provisions that are no longer in effect, due to being repealed, not brought into force, never having received royal assent or having been struck down by a court or the federal government.
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Some of those 2,004 provisions are associated with incorporated companies that have since been dissolved. All of the 19 acts repealed under Bill 3 are found to be private acts, dating from 1881 to 1930, that enabled a particular business activity such as mining and transportation.
One of the 19 acts specified that one association shall not sell rights or interests to Chinese. Another act specified that one mining company shall not transfer lands or interests to Chinese. Seven of these acts, for certain companies, forbade the employment of Chinese workers. Eight of these acts forbade employment of Chinese and Japanese workers. Two of these acts forbade employment of Asiatic workers. Another two acts required the company to only employ white labour.
It’s interesting to see that one of the acts was to rectify an agreement between the city of Vancouver, the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway company and the Canadian Northern Railway company that specified that these companies shall not employ Asiatic workers. The year of that act was 1913.
In 1913, my grandfather arrived in Canada and paid a $500 head tax. Yet he would not have been able to work in these railway companies. The Chinese veterans who went to fight for Canada and returned home from the First World War could not work in these railway companies.
It’s ironic that Chinese Canadians contributed so much to build these railways and build our province, yet this discriminatory provision took away their employment opportunities.
The Canadian Northern Pacific Railway was wholly a subsidiary of the Canadian Northern Railway, which was taken over by the Crown, upon nationalization, in 1918, into the Canadian National Railway, commonly known as CN. The question is whether the agreement between the city of Vancouver and the Canadian Northern Railway carried over to an agreement between the city of Vancouver and CN. CN was a Crown corporation from 1918 to 1995, when it was privatized by the federal government.
I’m confident there’s no employment discrimination of Asiatic workers at CN today, but it’s not clear when the company ceased adhering to this discriminatory agreement. Bill 3 will finally bring closure to many of these discriminatory provisions that exist on paper, yet no record existed to verify they were no longer in effect. While these provisions could no longer be used today to legally discriminate against anyone in our province, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act will repeal the discriminatory sections to right this historical wrong.
Current legislation for human rights in British Columbia protects all British Columbians against legislated discrimination. It’s important to know that there are no active B.C. laws or statutes that prohibit any ethnic group from owning land or participating in any occupations in B.C. Striking the discriminatory provisions is a matter of principle.
My understanding is that the library and research staff from the Ministry of Justice, and Multiculturalism staff, have thoroughly revealed countless records and materials that have been maintained by the B.C. corporate registry, the B.C. Archives, the Attorney General law library and the University of Victoria law library.
Their tireless work was instrumental in crafting Bill 3 and righting historical wrongs. I would like to express my profound gratitude and appreciation.
C. James: I rise to also speak to Bill 3. Before I do, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we are on the land of the Songhees and Esquimalt peoples and to thank them for the opportunity for us to meet and to work on their land. I raise that because I believe it’s important to acknowledge Canada’s history.
As we go through, we’ll hear a lot about our history post-Confederation, which is important. We’ll hear a lot about our history in the B.C. Legislature and in parliament. But I think if we are truly going to deal with truth and reconciliation, we need to begin at the beginning, which is colonialism and the challenges that continue to be faced by First Nations because of our colonial history here in Canada. I begin there purposefully to acknowledge and to recognize our First Nations peoples and the continued challenges that we see in our province.
I think it’s also important to raise that issue at the start of my remarks, because we often think that much of the discrimination is part of our past. I think we’ve heard other speakers talk about the need to be vigilant, the need for this to be something that we’re always paying attention to.
I just want to read a quote. It was spoken by Stephen Harper in 2009 when he was speaking abroad — in fact, down in the United States — about our history in Canada. He said: “We also have no history of colonialism. We have all the things people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them.” In 2009, hon. Speaker.
When we think that it is our past, when we think that we are dealing with discrimination in our past, this quote, to me, shows the importance of this bill. It shows the importance of recognizing and acknowledging our history, not trying to pretend that it was not there, but confronting it head-on to learn the knowledge. I think the fact that a prime minister of our country could have made that quote in 2009 just proves how important it is for us to acknowledge that.
As others have said, this bill comes forward as a recommendation from the Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations. It was to ensure that following on the apology that we were all proud to stand together united on in the Legislature, there was a full repeal of discriminatory legislation that had been passed by the B.C. Legislature after B.C. joined Confederation.
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A full review was done. I think others have spoken to the work of the Vancouver-Kingsway member. I also want to recognize the extraordinary work that was done, and also by the staff — the staff in the library, the staff in the Justice department and other ministries who took the time to go through pieces of legislation and bring forward the discriminatory provisions that remain, technically, in a large number of acts.
Why is this important? I’m sure all of us in this House have had people say to us that we shouldn’t look back, that we should simply look ahead, and why are we spending time looking at our past? I am a believer about the importance of knowing our history. That means not just knowing it but naming it, being upfront, confronting it — not just apologize and move on, but actually look at confronting our history.
I think that’s why I’m so pleased to see this bill come forward and why this bill, and the research and the work that went into it, is so important. This gives us an opportunity to name our history. This provides us with an opportunity, as part of reconciliation, to know our past, to learn from it, to educate ourselves.
I had an opportunity a few nights ago to attend an event put on by UVic as part of their Ideafest. Ideafest is a public festival that brings together research, scholarly work and creative work for the public to have a dialogue and discussion. The event this year is focused on truth and reconciliation. There was an extraordinary panel. It was an amazing evening.
One of the panelists was Carey Newman, who, I’m sure many members in this House know. He is an extraordinary artist, an extraordinary individual. One of the things that Carey Newman always says about truth and reconciliation is that we always have to remember that truth comes first. You can’t get to reconciliation without the truth. We need to be truthful about our history. We need to be truthful about what’s happened in our province. I think that’s part of the reason that this is so important. We can’t look away. There isn’t true reconciliation unless we deal with the truth.
The reality is that while the discriminatory legislation was being passed across our country — this wasn’t simply unique to British Columbia — I think it’s also important to acknowledge and recognize that B.C., in fact, was a driver for much of the discriminatory legislation and many of the actions that occurred.
Twenty-four of the anti-immigration bills that were put forward in that time period, in the early 1900s, were actually disallowed by the federal government. They were bills that were being pushed by British Columbia knowing that the federal government wasn’t going to support them. The B.C. Legislature decided to push ahead with them anyway. So we have a great responsibility, as future legislators from that past, to right these wrongs, to remove those discriminatory parts of legislation.
One of the early acts of the B.C. Legislature, after the province joined Confederation in 1871, was to take away the right to vote from First Nations and Chinese men. At that point, women did not have a right to vote; it was simply men. But in 1874, they took away the right to vote for First Nations and Chinese men. One of B.C.’s former Premiers Sir Richard McBride was quoted as saying: “British Columbia shall be a white man’s province.” That really laid the ground for the feature of the government policy during that time period, the policy that is being removed by this bill, the policy that we are acknowledging needs to be removed in this Legislature.
They also, as a parliament in British Columbia, expanded the franchise to vote. At that time, your franchise was related to, obviously, race, but it was also related to whether you owned property or not. They decided to expand it for white men whether they owned property or not, but not for others in our province.
I’m really proud when I take a look at the history of the community that came together here in British Columbia and here in Victoria to fight some of that racism. One of the longest-standing Chinese associations in Victoria is the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. That association actually came together in 1885 to fight the head tax and the anti-immigration laws that were being introduced — really quite extraordinary.
[R. Lee in the chair.]
We also had a Victoria Chinese Canadian Club, which was instrumental at the time in pushing back an attempt that was being made to segregate Chinese students by the local school board. That was in 1922. Again, the community came together to say that’s not something that we are going to allow to happen.
The Chinese community was also very active in fighting the Chinese Immigration Act — which was repealed in 1947, when the right to vote was won by Chinese Canadians — again, looking at discriminating against immigrants coming to our country and our province and our city.
There were also, during the time period I was growing up in Victoria, China-Canada friendship associations, which were forming during some of the discrimination in the ’60s and ’70s, around opening the doors to China and building relationships with China.
Those associations were founded across Canada, and one of the larger branches was right here in Victoria. My parents were involved in that association and in building that knowledge and building the education that is so necessary if we’re going to deal with discrimination, if we’re going to deal with racism. Again, I’m very proud of the history of coming together to fight that discrimination.
Bill 3, as others have said, identifies 19 historical private acts that have discriminatory provisions that still re-
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quire repealing. And it’s tough. I think others have said this. It’s tough to review those acts. It’s tough to look back and read those acts. There are acts within this bill that clearly point out that companies shall not employ Chinese workers — very clear clauses. There’s an act that speaks to a refusal to sell rights or interests in companies to Chinese or to Japanese Canadians, companies required to only employ white labour. Those are the kinds of things that are enclosed in this bill and the kinds of pieces of legislation that we are looking at pulling back and removing from the history of this Legislature.
It’s hard to read them, as I said. It’s hard to know that that was that kind of sentiment, and that there were legislators in this place who were passing that kind of legislation. But it’s also critical for us to know this, critical for us to state it publicly and critical for us to learn from it if we are truly going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I said at the start of my remarks that there are always people who will say: “This should be part of our past. We don’t need to talk about it anymore. We don’t need to learn from it. It’s part of our past. We weren’t involved then, so why would we bring those issues up now?” But you only need to look around the world and right here in our cities and in our province to know that these are not issues of the past. These continue to be issues of the present.
We continue to see issues that concern all of us when it comes to racism, when it comes to discrimination. These are not only part of our past. This is also part of our present, and it makes this bill and the discussion we’re having on this bill even more important. As others have mentioned, there was the shooting at the Quebec mosque. There was the bomb threat this past week at the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre. Continued discrimination against First Nations in our province.
So what do we do? Well, I think this bill is a step. I’m very proud of this Legislature that we didn’t simply stop at saying we’re sorry. We didn’t simply stop at apologizing. We said that more work needed to be done. We need to make sure that we are educating ourselves, that we are aware of what’s going on and that we learn from what has happened already. There’s so much more work to be done, but the fact that we are bringing this bill forward as education is critical. Building awareness is critical.
I have to say…. I know that they’re looking at another open house. Last year, the mosque here in Victoria held an open house. They wanted to build awareness. They felt that there were many people who were not Muslims who probably had never entered the mosque, had never been to a mosque and might be curious. So they decided to hold an open house and invite the community to come, learn and build those relationships. They were overwhelmed by the response. They had lineups around the block for people who were waiting to share a meal, to go in and see what a mosque looked like and build relationships with the people in the mosque.
It gave many of us great hope. I think you saw it, as well, in the extraordinary events after the Quebec shooting. You saw it in the crowds that showed up for vigils, the crowds that showed up to show their support. So while the difficult things go on, I think there is great hope for all of us.
But it is critical to be alert. It is critical to speak up. As I said, apologies are important, and statements are important, but real change happens when we see, when we know and when we acknowledge the truth. When we do that as individuals, and then we do it together, then we can start building understanding.
I think there’s a great deal of work that we need to look at still to be done in our school system. I’m looking forward to seeing the work that will be done in our schools around truth and reconciliation.
I certainly hope that we see a great deal of work in ensuring that our colonial history is recognized within curriculum and that students have the opportunity to learn about the real history, to learn about residential schools and to have an understanding of the past and the impact that it has had on the people of British Columbia.
I’m pleased to speak to this bill. I’m pleased that we’re bringing it forward. I thank the government for bringing this piece of legislation forward. As I said, I thank my colleague from Vancouver-Kingsway, who did a lot of the beginning work around gathering the information and the data and the pieces of legislation and who really was a driving force in that as well.
I look forward to a rare time in this Legislature where we stand unanimously in support. I think it’s a great statement in our Legislature that we do that. I don’t want us to rest on that. I don’t want us to presume that the work is done, but I’m proud that we’re taking part in this work.
R. Sultan: As I’m sure the other members before me feel, I, too, feel honoured to speak today to Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act. Not only is the repeal of discriminatory provisions in our body of historical legislation an important symbolic act; it also gives those of us of a certain age an encouraging refresher course in how far and how quickly our society has evolved in tolerance and respect for those who arrive on our shores bearing different cultures, different languages and different-coloured skin.
We would like to believe Canadians no longer harbour discriminatory views, but that would be naive. But it’s been many decades since such views were backed by force of law. The good news is that today, there are no active B.C. laws or statutes that prohibit any ethnic group from being employed in any occupation or owning land in B.C. However, such laws and statutes may still exist in the dusty hallways of the legislative archives.
The B.C. government, this government, is, therefore, to be commended for making a special effort to review all legislation since British Columbia was founded in 1871,
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including legislatively endorsed corporate articles of incorporation, searching for any vestigial elements of racial discrimination. That search encompassed a review of almost 2,000 pieces of legislation since the founding of this province and a lot of billable lawyer hours, I’m sure. The Attorney tossed out a number which surprised me by its modesty, because I was quite prepared to believe that certain person-years of effort would go into reading and interpreting legally such a large number of statutes, since she herself pointed out that inactive legislation is not digitized. So the search is a manual chore.
As we have learned, they identified 19 historical private acts that contained discriminatory provisions — not government acts. I have to assume that in today’s context, these would be the equivalent of private members’ bills, not government bills. Nevertheless, we learned, for example, that the predecessor electrical distribution company in Vancouver, which I believe eventually became part of B.C. Hydro, was prohibited in its corporate charter from hiring any Chinese. But that was over a century ago.
Therefore, when I reviewed Bill 3 prior to its coming into this House, I was astonished to learn that as recently as 1930, a company was organized in New Westminster with the same provision in its charter, sanctioned by the Legislature in which we all sit today — not allowed to hire any Chinese.
New Westminster, the Royal City, the home of the sappers who built the Cariboo Road to the gold fields, where placer deposits were mined very much by Chinese workers during the gold rush and the Chinese who probably built much of the Cariboo Road to get there — 1930, not allowed to hire any Chinese. Almost within my lifetime — 1930. As Loretta Lynn once sang: “We’ve come a long way, baby.”
Let me speak, personally, about what it was like growing up in Mount Pleasant in the decades immediately following the enactment of that 1930 New Westminster statute. Even in those distant decades, Vancouver had a large Chinese-Canadian population. They no longer lived just in Chinatown.
I went to Florence Nightingale School — on 12th, just off Kingsway — with Chinese students, and it was no big deal. No discrimination that I can recall. I still remember that the one Chinese student in my grade 8 class had the unusual name of Lincoln Yeasting, and I look at his class photograph from time to time.
I went to King Edward High School with many Chinese students, and that was no big deal either. However, one of my best friends was Bob Lee, whose father, I seem to recall, owned a fruit and vegetable store. When the school counsellor, a Mr. Howard, gave us our aptitude tests, he told Bob that he should aspire to work in his father’s fruit and vegetable store, since he was not suitable material for university. Of course, we all know Bob later went on to become the chancellor of UBC, and he created the strategy which allows UBC today to have more than a $1 billion endowment. So much for fruit and vegetables.
Discrimination, real or perceived, could work both ways. Again, travelling down memory lane, I invited an attractive Chinese-Canadian girl to the grade 10 high school dance. She accepted. I don’t think I knew how to dance in those days, and I really still don’t. A few dates later, her older brother apologetically approached me and told me that her parents had ruled this out, so I never did take her to the dance.
Fast-forward a few decades. My son married a Chinese escapee from Tiananmen Square. They have presented me with two beautiful granddaughters. It’s hard for me today to imagine a world in which my two granddaughters might have been legally prohibited from employment due to some British Columbia law or corporate statute.
Thank you to the Minister of Trade, Multiculturalism and Asia Pacific Strategy, who hails from Hong Kong herself, for championing this legislation. I support Bill 3.
B. Routley: I found it interesting that the Minister of Justice, who also grew up in Duncan, recalled the Chinese community that I recall as well. When we moved there, it was 1952.
Interjection.
B. Routley: Yeah.
I very much remember the Chinese community. I, too, join in being concerned that that history doesn’t seem to be there in the Cowichan Valley, other than that there are pictures on the wall in museums and that kind of thing of what used to be. I also worry about the fact that the graveyard — there is a Chinese graveyard in the Sahtlam area in the Cowichan Valley — has come into some disrepair. There’s a lot of grass, and it’s kind of rundown. It’s just across the railway tracks in the Sahtlam area. It’s still there. There doesn’t seem to be a large group left to manage such historical sites.
I would remind people that I actually came to the Cowichan Valley. My mother and father met in, of all places, Winnipeg, studying Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese. They planned to be missionaries to China. They had heard that there were some people of Chinese descent in the Cowichan Valley, so we went to the Cowichan Valley. In fact, some of my friends today are people that I met as a young boy. Our house was very much like the United Nations, so I grew up never really fully understanding or appreciating the kind of discrimination that was going on all around me.
I do recall when I went for the first time to the theatre. I saw a sign, and I asked my sister: “Why does it say ‘Indians up to the balcony’ with an arrow?” I wasn’t really familiar. I actually thought maybe that was kind of a preferred thing. But I soon learned that it wasn’t a
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preferred thing at all and that there was a form of discrimination going on.
I, too, join all of those who have stood up and mentioned how important it is to be part of this debate of Bill 3, the Discriminatory Provisions (Historical Wrongs) Repeal Act. It is an extremely good thing that this House has enough dignity and respect for our history to go back and try to ferret out these wrongs, to clear them from our record and to be jointly part of that, in a bipartisan way but also in a way that recognizes the multicultural nature that I think most of us in this House are extremely proud of.
[Madame Speaker in the chair.]
I know that any time I go to a multicultural event, I often say to people: “If you haven’t had the opportunity to yet meet a family or a group from another culture, you’re actually missing out. It ought to be something that you seek out and try to experience.” I think all of us grow in our understanding, in our compassion and in our empathy for others when we, as my father used to say, walk a mile in the other person’s shoes.
I do want to, as well as others, talk about the history going back to the 1800s and how they talked about, in the early legislation, things that are so grievous to one’s heart today. To think that the Qualification of Voters Act amendment act, back in 1872, actually passed third reading in April 1872. The law stated that nothing in the act applied to Chinese or Indians, but the Lieutenant-Governor reserved royal assent until the Governor General provided approval, and the Governor General did give his assent.
These are some of the historical wrongs that have been found as part of the record, and it is important that we found these kinds of provisions and that we’re talking about doing the honourable and right thing today in working towards jointly agreed legislation. Both sides of the House are very passionate about making sure that we support something that is critical like this.
Also in that same year, in 1872, they talked in the vital statistics registration. It said also the assembly passed a birth, death and marriage registration law, which included a section stating that nothing in the law applied to Chinese or Indians. It was stunning and shocking, and we have to remember that there are a number of cultural groups that are being affected by this. We need to be sure that we include, in our discussion, all of those wrongs.
I want to talk about some of the things that I personally experienced in my more recent lifetime. Anybody that thinks that discrimination has somehow been cleared…. Again, this is honourable work that they were doing, and I’m very proud to be a part of this, but I do want to add that it was as recent a time as the 1990s when I got a call.
I remember Herb Doman’s office called me personally, as president of the local union. They said: “We’ve got a problem at the Duke Point mill.” The East Indian community had downed tools, and they were refusing to go to work because the manager had posted on the lunchroom wall a posting that said that you couldn’t have hair longer than collar length on your beard, that you couldn’t have that kind of adornment. It was normal in the East Indian community. They grow their beards, and to suggest that…. He even wrote on the policy that he was going to be checking to be sure that the hair wasn’t longer than a standard collar and that there would be no sewing on longer-than-standard collars to get around this policy.
Now, the crew sat in the lunchroom, and I got called down to Herb Doman’s office — who, by the way, just happens to be in the Sikh community. It was the first time in my experience that I went into Herb’s office…. Sure, we respected each other, but it was the first time I ever walked into Herb Doman’s office and got sat in the big white chair right next to the cherrywood table with all of the Royal Bank cupholders around the room. He sat me down, and he said: “I want to hear from our president.” Our president — I had never been called our president by Herb Doman.
Sitting across from me was the manager of the Duke Point mill — who I’ll just call Wes. Wes was there with his tail between his legs. He knew he was in big trouble, getting summoned down to Duncan from Nanaimo about this policy and that Herb was not happy at all. They asked me what I thought about this policy. I told them that I thought it was really designed to attack the Sikh community, the East Indian community. How dare a manager come up with a policy that goes way beyond what’s required by WCB.
I was a safety guy. I agreed with safety policies. But to put up a policy designed just to attack certain people on the crew and try to force them to shave their beards, which was against their religion, was really unthinkable. I was thankful that Herb Doman…. I still smile when I think about it. Herb looked across at him, and he said: “Well, we’ve now heard from our president, and I want you to respond to this.” He looked at Herb, and he said: “You know, I think that maybe I’ll just revoke that policy, and we’ll move on to just the WCB regulations. How about that?” He said: “That’s a good idea. Now get out of my sight.” And away he went.
Well, that was one of the experiences I had, but it’s worth telling you the other one — again in the 1990s. I was sitting in my office minding my own business and in came a delegation from the Sikh community. My good friend Tikka Mann from the Youbou mill and some of the other fellows from the Youbou mill came in to see me. They wanted to get on a conference call with the president of the World Sikh Organization, which we did.
To make a long story short, they pointed out that at the Chemainus mill, which is right here on Vancouver Island…. It was one of the most modern. It was rebuilt in 1984. It reopened and went from a 700-man crew to a
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160-man crew. So a modern, state-of-the-art mill. But interestingly, they had the team system in place, and when they hired people, they sat down with the team and they had a group. Ironically, it just happened to be 12 white men that sat at a table.
I’m sure they weren’t thinking: “You know, we’ve got nothing else to do. Let’s discriminate against some of these people that have applied to work here at the mill.” But when you examine…. I’m not a rocket scientist, hon. Speaker. I know you find that hard to believe. But I looked there — and I had my jiggery-pokery meter working back then, too.
I looked at this list, and I said: “Wow, this looks like some kind of jiggery-pokery, for sure, because there’s hardly anybody from any ethnic group involved.” When they told me that the Youbou guys that had been laid off…. Like, 240 guys had been laid off, and Tikka Mann had his forklift rodeo certificate. He was a tallyman. He was a grader. He had all of this expertise. He had a first aid ticket, for crying out loud. He’d applied at the mill, and they hired the foreman’s son. Really?
So I said: “Well, hey,” when they told me all that. “Let me just dial up the manager here, and we’ll get him on the speakerphone. I’m going to introduce all the people that are here in the room.” So I did. I phoned. Actually, I didn’t get a hold of the manager at the mill, so I went higher. I phoned the vice-president of MacMillan Bloedel in charge of sawmills and manufacturing.
I still remember that very pleasant call. Because I’m sure you know, I can be quite pleasant when I need to be. I try to start out that way with the pleasant side always — don’t want to reveal the other Angry Bill side unless it actually has to come out.
I started out, and I explained the situation and the problem. They said: “Really? We’re quite concerned.”
“I do have to tell you that our next step after this conversation with you could be to go and see the Human Rights Commission. But we’re sure and confident that with the team system and all that you’ve got going on, this is some kind of an error, some kind of a terrible mishap. I’m sure you’re going to look into this. We’re confident that you’re going to take care of this.”
Well, I hadn’t hung up the phone five minutes, and it was ringing off the hook, with the industrial relations manager saying: “We made a grievous error. And Tikka Mann — could he start tomorrow?” And I said: “Yes, I think he’s right here. I’ll let you talk to him.” To make a long story short, suddenly, there was a shortcut, and we started to hire some of the folks that needed to be hired.
Again, even in a case of discrimination, Tikka was so grateful. At first, he brought around some real nice East Indian food to my house. Okay, I have to tell this part of the story, because I feel a little bit guilty about that. He brought this food around, and I thought: “Well, hey, that’s just saying ‘thank you’. That’s okay.”
“Thank you, Tikka. I really appreciate that.”
It was beautiful. It was a whole bunch of rotis. He asked me what I liked, and I told him: “This butter chicken is just to die for.” But a week or two went by, and he was bringing more. I thought: “Well, wait a minute.” I accepted that bunch too. Then a couple of weeks later, he came by again.
I said: “Tikka, come in here for a minute, and let’s sit down. I want to have a chat.” I said: “Look, Tikka, I have great respect for you and for the community, and I really, really appreciate your kindness. But it feels to me somehow wrong that…. I was just doing my job. I do not want you to keep bringing me food out of some kind of feeling that you have to be grateful. You deserved that job. You had the qualifications. You had all of the rights in the world to be working ahead of that guy. And you don’t need to be beholden to me or anybody else.”
He thanked me. Well, sadly, my wife said: “Well, that was a real smart move,” because that was the end. There was no more. I don’t know. I hope he didn’t get the wrong idea that I didn’t appreciate his kindness, because suddenly the well dried up, and there wasn’t a whole lot more.
But we did have more folks that were qualified and had the experience getting hired. And that was a good thing.
Do we have time for a quick one more?
Interjections.
B. Routley: No? Okay.
Madame Speaker: Noting the hour.
B. Routley: Hon. Speaker, let’s move to adjourn the debate.
Madame Speaker: And reserving your right.
B. Routley: I’ll remain available come the next opportunity. It will be exciting. Thank you.
B. Routley moved adjournment of debate.
Madame Speaker: Excellent, Member.
Motion approved.
Hon. T. Stone: I’m no longer available. [Laughter.]
Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until 10 a.m. on Monday morning.
The House adjourned at 5:50 p.m.
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