As the B.C. government prepares to issue a long-overdue apology to the Chinese community for historical wrongs committed by the province, New Democrats remain concerned that British Columbians – both of Chinese heritage and of all backgrounds – should have a more complete understanding of the injustices that have taken place in our province’s history.
Only by recognizing and addressing the many unfair and unjust actions of our government over more than a century can we truly expect reconciliation through a sincere apology.
In that light, the Official Opposition, with the remarkable help of the talented staff at the B.C. Legislative Library, have reviewed the B.C. legislature’s record relating to its treatment of Chinese, Japanese and South Asian people from 1872 to the late 1930s. What is striking is the sheer volume of racist, discriminatory legislation against Chinese Canadians (and Japanese Canadian and South Asians)—While the list is not exhaustive and there are likely similar items that could be added to the list, we believe making these volumes available is an important step towards reconciling our province’s past injustices with our many multicultural communities.
The documents:
There are many hundreds of pages of documents from the B.C. legislature in this collection. As such, they have been posted here by decade. Click the links below to go to a page that contains a series of PDF documents for the given decade.
A summary guide outlining what is contained in the documents for each year is provided here.