OpinionBC Liberals draft an apology to the Chinese community a century after...

BC Liberals draft an apology to the Chinese community a century after the fact

This article was published on November 29, 2013 and may be out of date. To maintain our historical record, The Cascade does not update or remove outdated articles.
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By Christopher DeMarcus (The Cascade) – Email

Print Edition: November 27, 2013

The provincial government makes another apology and another attempt to win the “ethnic vote.”
The provincial government makes another apology and another attempt to win the “ethnic vote.”

 

The BC Liberals are making another move to win approval points, this time dressed up in the clothing of social justice.

As CBC reports, our provincial government held a meeting with the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association this past weekend in Victoria to discuss the composition of an apology that addresses the historical systemic and legislated oppression forced on the Chinese population.

Back in 1885, BC played a large role in creating the Chinese Immigration Act, which put a head tax on Chinese immigrants. The act created a $15 fee for incoming migrants, but by 1903 the price was raised to $500 – the equivalent of two years’ wages.

This type of tax still continues today at about $1,000 dollars. But navigating the system and paying for legal fees costs much more. Most immigrants spend upwards to $10,000 to get into the country. Thus, keeping the poor out and the rich in.

Of course, there are exceptions. Canada has labour programs that help important migrant workers and nannies for our social elite, keeping the costs of labour down in our country.

This is the reality of multiculturalism and immigration in Canada: the story isn’t as simple as the  old-time government being bad in the past, and then the new shiny government apologizing for it.

The motivation behind the Liberals’ appeal to the Chinese community is to gain political support from voters and special interest groups. If it was about authentic justice, the BC government would be cutting $120,000 checks—two years’ wages worth—to the Chinese community. But, now that 100 years have passed, the recipients are dead. They can’t stand up for their rights anymore.

Let’s place ourselves in the future, when Premier Clark reads the apology to her faux-Liberal base. The Chinese community, who is a massive part of BC’s economy and culture, will feel good and the historical oppression of unchained capitalism will be forgotten. I’m all for healing, but we need to take a step back and look at the motivations of the parties involved. Is this the real deal, or are we being sold a false dollar?

This is how ideology works today; we are sorry, we apologize, we declare equality, then we move on with continued corruption.

If the BC government was serious, they would stop and take action against the current temporary foreign worker program. Not only to protect Canadian jobs, but to protect the exploitation of foreign workers.

The reason Canadians don’t want to be coal-miners and fruit-pickers is because it’s unsustainable for them to do so – they can’t pay the rent with those jobs. We have created an economic nightmare that treats unskilled labourers like ignorant slaves. We continue to turn to the exploitation of the other, the foreign worker.

We demand a pluralist society. We invoke the spirit of multiculturalism to ease the tensions between cultural groups. But the multiculturalist mask can hide the true purpose of its masters: economic liberty for corporate interests.

Don’t misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with a large business organization. There is nothing wrong with being a country of woven cultural interests. What’s wrong is a large business organization that puts profit over workers and fake equality as reality. For a businesses to survive today this is what it must do. The corporation is required to be ruthless in its endeavor to survive. Greed is good.

Paddy Chayefsky’s dialogue from the 1976 film Network sums up how the BC government views politics:

“There is only one holistic system of systems, one interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.”

Multiculturalism gives the neo-capitalist system a costume to wear. The apology from the BC government for its past oppression is like a child bully dressed as Captain America for Halloween. It’s American forms of truth and justice dressed up in a freshly bought costume from Wal-Mart.

But we know what’s behind the mask. Inside is a scared Canadian politician, fearful of losing another election, terrified of looking weak, of it being found out that she is the real bad guy – as much as the oppressors of the past.

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