Vancouver real estate titles reveal city’s racist history

2014/09/05 Leave a comment

A reminder of our not so distant past, and how it has been overtaken by reality (Vancouver, along with Toronto, are almost 50 percent visible minority):

Early immigrants to B.C. faced not only the hardship of settling into a new home, but also seemingly racist policies — Chinese and Indo-Canadians did not have the right to own property and only got the right to vote in 1947.

In Vancouver, West Vancouver and Victoria, owners tried to use restrictive land covenants to keep minorities from buying land — and many of those covenants remain in place to this day.

Realtor Wayne Hammil recently spotted a covenant in a land title dating back to 1928 when he was putting a Vancouver home up for sale.

“One of the clauses in the restrictive covenant makes reference to not selling to certain ethnic minorities in the world,” said Hammil.

The covenant prevents the sale or rent of the land to people who are of Chinese, Japanese, Indian and African descent or any other Asiatic race.

“[Theres a ] total irony because most of the buyers are from mainland China,” said Hammil. “If this was enforced, it would preclude them from purchasing the property.”

Ron Usher, general counsel for the Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia, says Sec. 222 of the Land Title Act makes the discriminating covenants void.

“I would imagine though there are probably hundreds if not several thousand lots covered by this,” said Usher. “Where they find these, they’ve already put on the title the Except for Clause X notation.”

If this note has not yet been made on the title, Usher says its simple to have title updated through a phone call to the province’s Land Title and Survey Authority.

The race-based covenants are still embarrassing because of what they stand for, he says, but getting them completely removed from the land title can be an expensive process as they almost always have other provisions that are valid restrictions on the use of the property.

Vancouver real estate titles reveal city’s racist history – British Columbia – CBC News.

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How Canadian are Hong Kong’s 300,000 Chinese-Canadians? – The Globe and Mail

2014/06/17 Leave a comment

Interesting piece on Chinese Canadian expatriates in Hong Kong, and how they maintain their Canadian identity. As always, identity is more complex than ‘bumper stickers’ like citizens of convenience would suggest.

Surprising that Yuen Pau Woo, of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada didn’t mention this study in his presentation to the Senate Committee examining C-24 last week:

They found that “the lack of opportunities in Canada,” rather than any preference for China, was the primary reason for almost all of these youth moving to Hong Kong. Many worked in fields such as finance where they felt Canada had a glass ceiling for ethnic-Chinese employees: “The nature and systemic discrimination of the Canadian job market pushed many new-generation youth to seek alternative job opportunities.”

Most of them, however, spent much of their time in Hong Kong attempting to maintain a “Canadian” lifestyle. “This,” the researchers note, “includes drinking in bars, watching hockey, reading Canadian newspapers, and drinking Starbucks coffee.” Tim Hortons, it should be noted, is not available in Hong Kong.

“While I am at work, in a break,” one of their research subjects says, “I’m watching a Canucks game through my iPhone.”

And furthermore, they found that the Chinese-Canadians weren’t fitting in to local Hong Kong social circles, because they were determined to keep their Canadian ties: “This group of Chinese-Canadian youth seem to have made a conscious choice not to hang out with local youth, due to their resistance to local Chinese culture. Indeed, their desire for Canadian connections was manifested in the patterns of their social circles, which also showed their detachment from Hong Kong society.”

Most, they found, were experiencing some form of culture shock – while they had the language skills and citizenship necessary to work and live in Hong Kong, they did not feel like Chinese, even if they had lived there for years. “Being Canadian, many felt that they came with a Canadian perspective that differentiated them from local Chinese. They also tended to use Canadian cultural values and practices to distinguish themselves from local Chinese.”

A majority described themselves as Canadian first and Chinese second. And, most importantly, almost all described themselves as “tentatively temporary” immigrants, who fully intended to return to Canada, which they saw as “home,” to put down roots and raise their families at some point in the future.

Another such study, conducted in 2012 in India, found the same result: Second-generation Indian-Canadians living in India saw themselves as Canadians living in India for convenience and money, not as Indians who’d once lived in Canada for convenience.

While there are undoubtedly some Canadian passport holders living abroad who are simply using the citizenship as a convenience, actual research suggests that the majority of such people are loyal Canadians who are using their international connections to benefit their country – which, as they see it, is Canada.

How Canadian are Hong Kong’s 300,000 Chinese-Canadians? – The Globe and Mail.

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Feds walking fine line on temporary foreign workers, say diaspora groups

2014/05/08 Leave a comment

One of the few articles I have seen with reactions from some community groups:

Several industry lobby groups, including Farmers of North America and the Canadian Restaurants and Foodservices Association, have publicly defended the program.

However, leaders of two community organizations serving target constituencies for the Conservative Party opposed widespread use of the program.

The expansion of the program under the Harper government is creating a two-tiered society in Canada, whereby foreigners are brought in but not afforded the same rights as other immigrants or citizens, said Jagdeep Perhar, president of the India Canada Association, in a phone interview.

“I think this is a fundamentally wrong approach,” he said.

“The government should adapt their policy to maybe bring less immigrants to the country, that is fine. But once the immigrants are in, then we should not discriminate,” he said.

Diaspora youth, like all Canadians, are facing trouble with unemployment, while temporary foreign workers continue to stream in, said Victor Wong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council, in a phone interview.

“I think in the end when the government puts its jobs record on the line, I think people will see that it’s failed,” he said.

The government has alienated business owners and employees alike in the Chinese and other communities with its management of the program, he said.

“They’ve been trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth for six years now, and to just kind of get away with it, and now it’s blown up in their face,” he said.

Feds walking fine line on temporary foreign workers, say diaspora groups | Embassy – Canada’s Foreign Policy Newspaper.

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