The rusting, near century old railway spike Bill Chu gently cradles in his palm is much more than a simple keepsake to him.
It's symbolic of a time in B.C. when discrimination was legislated - a dark passage in the province's history Chu and others are hoping is amended with an apology to the Chinese community from the province.
It's the focus of a series of seven public consultation meetings titled Apology for Historical Wrongs being held around B.C. and concluding in Richmond next Monday (Jan. 27).
Chu's railway spike is a flaking relic from the railroad building efforts through the Fraser Canyon where much of the labour was done by Chinese immigrants. Often, the most dangerous jobs were given to them as the workforce was considered "expendable" - a categorization that gave rise to the derogatory saying "You don't have a Chinaman's chance."
"There were no standards, no safety rules and the Chinese were considered disposable," said Chu, who belongs to the group Canadians for Reconciliation Society. "(The expression) was derived from the white foremen watching the Chinese workers entering the railway tunnels with explosives and betting on whether the workers would survive."
It's one of the highlights in Chu's examination of discriminatory practices from B.C.'s past that includes more than 100 pieces of legislation focusing on the Chinese community that restrict employment, voting or holding public office, property ownership and imposed punitive licensing and taxes derived from a person's place of birth or ethnicity.
The most prominent was the Chinese Head Tax.
Federally implemented, but made at the behest of the provincial government, it went into effect in 1855 and required Chinese entering Canada to initially pay the then substantial fee of $50. Later it would rise to $500 - roughly the equivalent of two years' pay at the time.
In 1923, Canada passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which in effect stopped Chinese immigration to Canada for nearly a quarter of a century.
As a result, the Chinese population in Canada went from 46,500 in 1931 to about 32,500 in 1951.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was in effect until 1947, the same year Chinese Canadians regained the right to vote. But it wasn't until 1967 that the final elements of the Chinese Exclusion Act were eliminated.
Direct impact For Richard Lee, Liberal MLA for Burnaby North, the impact of the Chinese Head Tax runs deep in his family.
But as a youngster, he recalls never questioning why his family had been split up - his grandfather living in Vancouver and his own family in Macau and Hong Kong.
"It was just the way things were at the time," he said.
Only when the families were re-united in Canada in 1971 did he fully understand his grandfather, Kwong Quai Lee, had paid the $500 Head Tax charge in 1913 and was later prohibited from bringing the rest of his family to settle here because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The effects lingered for another couple of decades until the loosening up of Canada's immigration policy in 1967, re-starting the flow of Chinese immigration.
When he finally arrived in Canada as a teenager, Lee remembers hearing much about his grandfather's hard work and lean lifestyle as a lease farmer on Musqueamowned land near UBC that afforded him to pay back within a few years friends who loaned him the $500 Head Tax fee.
He remembers seeing the carefully folded up green and black printed Head Tax certificate with an attached black and white photo of his grandfather as a young man wearing a stiffcollared white shirt and tie, and pressed black suit.
But he doesn't recall being aghast at the policy back then.
But now he fully understands the unfairness of the old policies and has added his support to the provincial government's push to reach out to the public and develop an apology that will satisfy all parties.
Asked if his children ask much about the period that touched his family, Lee said no.
"We don't talk about it that much. But we should talk more," he said.
Finding the right words
How do you go about finding the right words to express remorse for wrong doings from over a century ago? It's a task facing the province as it moves towards formulating an apology to the Chinese community.
But while getting the right form is a challenge, the process itself can be part of the healing, said Thekla Lit, co-chair of ALPHA (Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia).
"If the B.C. government is sincere in doing this, it must first educate both the Chinese and non-Chinese community about the past wrongs in history. Then there is a possibility," Lit said.
"But without making it a collective memory of all B.C. residents, it will be very difficult."
Lit pointed to her group's efforts where denial of some aspects of Japan's involvement in the Second World War have hindered the healing process.
"How can reconciliation, peace and justice be achieved when you are denying the history?" Lit said.
"Many young people now in Japan don't know about what happened in the Second World War, what the Japanese Imperial Army did to the other Asian countries.
"The result is that when those from other countries seek an apology from the Japanese government, the younger generation there does not understand why," she said.
"There is then no common ground for reconciliation and animosity still exists," she said, adding the same situation could apply to B.C.
"Of course we want a genuine apology with some redemptive action to show the sincerity. We also need a lot of public education and education in the school system," Lit said, adding it would have been beneficial to have had that in place prior to the round of public consultation meetings were started.
"I believe that only when people have a real understanding will they know why the reconciliation process is so important," she said.
Critical of the process is Chu, who likened the process to an extension of the B.C. Liberal Party's much maligned ethnic outreach strategy which sought to lure votes from various communities through methods such as public apologies.
"The public needs to wake up to the fact that this is just a PR exercise," he said, "a pat on the back for a hall full of Chinese people. This is very divisive because it sets the Chinese against the non-Chinese. And that's not what reconciliation is all about."
It is also making divisions within the Chinese community, he claimed.
"The new Chinese immigrants have no idea of what happened in the past, and they can say all kinds of easy things like 'any apology is better than no apology.' I hear that a lot," addd Chu.
Chu said the province is treating Chinese people as the only stakeholder in B.C.'s reconciliation process when it should be inclusive. But it is not too late for British Columbians to realize the danger of such divide and conquer tactics, he said"This is not about nit-picking at the government," he added.
"It's about humanity that has committed a crime. And we need to redeem ourselves, somehow, as a people, together. Not just patting one side on the back, hoping they will go away happy. We should have the faith that something will happen in a country that prides itself on upholding human rights.
"We live in the shadow of a big colonial period, and unfortunately not many people realize that."
New immigrants are interested Richmond finds itself in a unique position on the matter. While the majority of residents are of Chinese ethnicity, most are recent immigrants and do not have a connection to the discriminatory practices of the past, said Henry Beh, executive director of the Richmond Chinese Community Society.
Still, that has not dampened the local population's interest in the issue.
"Even though there is no direct connection to many, we don't want that history repeated," Beh said, adding British Columbia was the most racist province at the time with legislation that impacted not only the Chinese, but Japanese and South Asian immigrants.
"I'm an immigrant, too. I came here from Malaysia 40 years ago. But I am interested, too, in the history. And when I read about it, it was really a shameful period for British Columbia, and Canada.
Asked if current immigration regulations are just another form of discrimination, Beh termed them as "restrictions" designed to ensure the country's economic integrity.
"When you want the country to be prosperous, you need the labour force, you need investment," he said.
So, what does he see as the key to the province's apology process? "We are looking into educating the next generation - how we put what happened in our history books," he said. "And while a lot of younger people and new immigrants might not understand what took place, the fact the government is moving towards making a formal apology it's a positive step.
Compensation not forthcoming
Something not about to be repeated is some form of compensation to accompany a formal provincial apology, said Richmond Centre MLA Teresa Wat who, in addition to serving as Trade and Minister Responsible for the Asia Pacific Strategy, is B.C.'s Minister of Multiculturalism. She is overseeing the consultation process.
"The federal government in 2006, their apology was very specific on the Head Tax," Wat said. "And they came out with financial compensation for the surviving payees. So, for us, the Head Tax was actually federal jurisdiction."
She added that the province had previously made apologies to other ethnic groups in the province for wrong doings - Japanese and Indo-Canadians - and it was felt the time was right to extend it to Chinese-Canadians.
"I feel honoured that being a minister of Chinese descent and multicultural minister I have the opportunity to take on this file," she said.
"As human beings, as a society, we have to learn about our past. History tells us about that past, and it also shapes our future.
"We cannot undo the past, but what we can do is learn from that, move on, and leave a legacy for our children and grandkids."
So far, the seven-stop string of public consultation meetings have drawn best in the Lower Mainland, but have also included some favourable turnouts at those held so far in the interior of the province, Wat said.
Unsurprisingly, the Jan. 12 meeting at the Chinese Cultural Centre in Vancouver's Chinatown drew more than 500.
In Burnaby earlier this week about 150 showed up.
And with Richmond scheduled for next Monday at the Radisson Hotel Vancouver Airport (8181 Cambie Road) from 7-9 p.m., 150 people have already signed up to take part, and a strong walk-up crowd is expected.
Those not able to attend, but wish to provide feedback on the issue can email [email protected].
