Burnaby has moved another step forward in the process of formally apologizing to the Chinese Canadian community for its discriminatory history, naming seven members to an advisory group that will guide its reconciliation efforts.
The group is made up of members of the local Chinese community, including city staff of Chinese Canadian heritage and a historical advisor.
The seven members are:
- Jimmy Chow (advisory group member)
- Ben Fok (advisory group member)
- christina lee (advisory group member)
- Gordon Mark (advisory group member)
- Dr. Henry Yu (historian advisor)
- Anita Chan (City of Burnaby staff)
- Kim Lai (City of Burnaby staff)
The group will advise the city on ways to engage the community and identify potential actions for reconciliation.
The advisory group will meet up to four times a year over the next two years.
You can read more about each of the members on the city's webpage.
The city previously released a report outlining the discriminatory laws and policies of the City of Burnaby that targeted people of Chinese descent between 1892 and 1947.
Those city policies included excluding Chinese, Japanese and Indigenous people from voting in municipal elections, endorsing petitions and resolutions from residents and other local governments that discriminated against Asian immigrants, and restricting Asian Canadians from being employed by the city and other work.
There's also evidence the city prevented Asian Canadians from owning land.
Throughout the rest of 2023, the city will host conversations with the community, with outreach delivered in Chinese languages and English.
More details will be released in the near future.
