Wellington Court strata owners who feel discriminated against based on their language and race now have two political heavyweights backing them up.
Andreas Kargut, who filed a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal complaint against his Chinese-only strata council in December, told the Richmond News MP Joe Peschisolido and MLA Linda Reid stand behind his contention that strata council meetings should be conducted in English.
Reid told the Richmond News on Wednesday she will be advocating for language requirements in the B.C. Strata Property Act — although as Speaker of the House, she cannot table a motion in the Legislature herself.
“As speaker I’m not in a position to do that. I’m certainly going to have conversations, and I have had conversations, in terms of what that might look like,” said Reid.
Late last year, Kargut’s strata council decided to conduct council meetings in Mandarin, after a controversial ousting of non-Mandarin speaking council members.
Kargut claimed the new council was upset the old council spent too much money on repairs.
Reid said the next meeting, on Feb. 23, should be in English.
“Absolutely. It should be in one of Canada’s official languages. That’s his (Kargut) direction, and I certainly can support him in that,” said Reid.
Kargut said he was surprised by the outright support Reid showed.
“I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting your typical politician who wants to keep everybody happy,” said Kargut.
“She said she was very glad to meet me and told me this wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ this was going to happen in Richmond, but a matter of ‘when.’”
Reid said she has discussed the issue with the property manager, hoping to resolve the problem in the meantime. She said the manager assured her the next meeting would be in English.
“Time will tell,” said Reid.
“I think everyone can have every expectation that, if you are an owner of a strata unit, you should be able to follow the proceedings in English,” said Reid.
She was asked if there is a difference between the Chinese-only business sign debate and this set of circumstances.
“I don’t actually think it’s different. When you come to Canada, the language we conduct business in is English. The other is French. So we have the expectation that we want more people to be able to communicate more effectively. I don’t think it matters if it’s a restaurant, a business or a strata council,” said Reid.
Kargut also met with MP Joe Peschisolido, who said he couldn’t comment on provincial laws.
“That’s up to the provincial politicians, Linda (Reid), John (Yap), Teresa (Wat), and the premier, to deal with. But I think it is important to have a language that unites everybody and, in Richmond, it’s English,” said Peschisolido.
Kargut expects a decision by the tribunal to hear his case in March.
