Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to have an opportunity to speak to the private member's bill before us, Bill C-333, and to indicate that it is absolutely my position as the member of Parliament for Halifax and the position of the New Democratic Party caucus to support this bill going to committee. We will definitely be supporting the bill at second reading and absolutely supporting the objectives of it.
I want to congratulate the member for Durham for bringing forward this bill. As I am sure she would acknowledge, it is picking up where others have left off, others having done a great deal of groundwork over the years to try to get this government to move on taking the kinds of initiatives that are necessary to deal with the reconciliation and restitution owed to Chinese Canadians as a result of a very ugly chapter in Canadian history.
In congratulating the opposition member who has brought forward the bill, I think it is disappointing that the government has not already moved on this. I was listening closely to the comments of the member for Parkdale—High Park. I was hoping to hear that there is an intention on the part of the government to move on the restitution and reconciliation that have to be addressed if in fact we are going to accept collectively that an injury to one, in a society that claims to be committed to equality, justice, inclusion and compassion, is an injury to all. The way in which we can express that formally is to strengthen Bill C-333, which is before us now, and I hope that is what will happen at second reading, because it is needed and deserved.
I want to take a moment to pay tribute to others who have worked very hard over the years on this issue. They are Margaret Mitchell, who was a colleague of mine, and the former leader of the New Democratic Party, the member for Ottawa Centre. Margaret Mitchell was the member for Vancouver East. She was very much in tune with her own community, which included a large number of Chinese Canadians. She began fighting to have this issue addressed to realize the deep injury and out-and-out racist practices that we do not like to think are part of our history but in fact were, and they will remain part of a history that has yet to be corrected until we deal in a more effective way than this bill does with restitution and reconciliation.
I want to also pay tribute to my colleague, the current member for Vancouver East, who, in two previous motions that she tabled in the House, put forward a more stringent program, a more concrete and effective set of measures to outline what we need to do as a nation so that we can heal those wounds, and that means heal ourselves.
I have heard others stand and say, “I have a large number of Chinese Canadians in my riding. I know they are concerned and affected by this, so I am going to be supporting it”. Let me say that I have a small number of Chinese Canadians in my riding, but this issue matters to all Canadians and of course has particular impact and import for Chinese Canadians.
One of the flaws that I think exists in the private member's bill before us is that it singles out one particular organization that represents the interests of some Chinese Canadians and says this is the organization with which the government should negotiate. It is clear that we have more than one organization that represents Chinese Canadians. There are several. It is our view that this bill should be amended to provide for a more inclusive process involving duly constituted organizations that represent a variety of perspectives of Chinese Canadians in order to take those into account, engage in a good faith process and move on.
I think we know who we want to be as Canadians and I think we know how we want the world to think of who we are as Canadians, that is, an inclusive society, one that is free of racism and free of the ugly forms of hatred that can exist. The reality is that the chapter during which Chinese Canadians were actively and aggressively discriminated against is one that is very ugly. It speaks to who we do not want to be.
To put that behind us, to learn the lessons of the past and to keep reminding ourselves of how important it is that we not repeat the mistakes of the past, we cannot confidently and honestly say we are a society that does not tolerate the kind of hatred and injustice that was embedded in the treatment for 62 years of legislated racism in this country, from 1885 to 1947, when Chinese Canadians had to pay the head tax. It does not sound like a lot of money, but a $50 head tax at that time was a hugely onerous penalty and an ugly symbol of racism. Then, of course, between the period of 1923 to 1947, when Chinese Canadians were actually prohibited from immigrating to Canada, we are talking about a very ugly past.
We do not have a lot to be proud about in terms of not yet having redressed some of the other ugly chapters. We do not have it right yet in terms of the treatment of aboriginal Canadians. This government is still dragging its heels on dealing with the reconciliation around the hateful chapter of residential schools, which damaged a whole population, the founding nations of this country.
We have the ugliest of histories to live down in terms of what happened to European Jews who could not find their way into a supposedly compassionate Canada when they were fleeing as refugees from Nazi Germany, from extermination, from the Holocaust. One of the truly shocking chronicles about Canadian history is found in the book that was so brilliantly written by Irving Abella in order to share this chapter of our history. The title, None is Too Many , is taken from the statement made by the Prime Minister of the day, meaning that we would not be welcoming to our shores Jews who were facing extermination. In fact, we turned people back.
Today we have racial profiling going on in this country. It injures all of us. It tears at the fabric of our society when we have the kind of racial profiling that is going on, affecting particularly members of the Islamic faith and those with Arab and Middle East backgrounds.
We need to heal ourselves. It would be very much in keeping with the rhetoric we hear from the government about how concerned it is that we eliminate racism and religious bigotry from our midst if in fact the government would see fit not just to support Bill C-333 but to support a strengthening of the bill. We must do it, because until it is done we cannot hold up our heads and say that we have taken this seriously and taken our responsibilities seriously.
It was my privilege to introduce a motion in the House in 2003. I want to finish my speech by briefly quoting from it because it does give an indication of why the bill needs to be stronger. It stated that the Government of Canada should:
--(a) formally apologize to the Chinese community for the injustice imposed on Chinese immigrants by the government's Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923; (b) negotiate with members of the Chinese community, financial compensation to surviving [Chinese] who paid the tax....
That does not mean just one organization but the legitimate bona fide organizations representing the diversity of Chinese Canadians, because they are not of one mind and they do not exist in just one organization. The motion continued:
--and (c) financially support educational and cultural initiatives developed in concert with the Canadian-Chinese communities to prevent such injustices from happening again.
I note that the member for Parkdale—High Park talked about these kinds of initiatives in general, but I think we are dealing with a very specific ugly chapter in our own history which needs to be redressed. The victims need to be acknowledged and compensated appropriately as well as our ensuring that today's and tomorrow's generations are fully aware of this history and that we move toward the anti-racism kinds of measures which will indeed ensure that it does not happen again.
I want to finish by saying that we have in this country not just those we have already mentioned. We have Acadians, who were the victims of ethnic cleansing. We have Afro Canadians, who still in my own province, I can tell members, are the victims of racism, which is very embedded in our system and needs to be addressed. I hope that with this bill being strengthened we can move on to deal with some of those other issues as well. Prevention is the order of the day.