Richmond, B.C., considers banning Chinese-only signs amid uproar over city’s ‘un-Canadian’ advertisements
Richard Lam / Postmedia NewsRetail signage along Westminster Highway in Richmond, BC, has a mixture of English and Chinese signs as well as Chinese-only signs on March, 18, 2013. In a unanimous decision last week, Richmond has directed its lawyers to figure out whether it could legally start cracking down on Chinese-only signs.
Last year, two activists appeared in front of Richmond City Council with a 1,000-signature petition and a plea to force local businesses to advertise in one of Canada’s official languages.
“We, the new visible minorities, are experiencing exclusion,” said resident Ann Merdinyan, in front of a slideshow of the city’s Chinese-only signs. “WHY?” read the caption below a photo of a Chinese-only bus ad. “Is this INCLUSIVE TO ALL?” read another.
Richmond’s mayor and councillors — most of them English-speaking white people — told the activists to take a hike.
“With a population of half our people or more being of Chinese origin you can’t be surprised you’ll see some Chinese language,” Mayor Malcolm Brodie, mayor of the Vancouver suburb that is Canada’s only majority-Chinese city.
We, the new visible minorities, are experiencing exclusion
Eighteen months later, something has changed. In a unanimous decision last week, Richmond reversed its earlier stance by directing its lawyers to figure out whether it could legally start cracking down on Chinese-only signs.
“I changed my mind,” said Evelina Halsey-Brandt, the soon-to-be-retired councillor who introduced the motion. “It is time to take a look at whether or not it is appropriate to mandate the inclusion of English on [certain types] of signage.”
More than 30 years after Quebec started cracking down on non-French languages, the rest of Canada has almost entirely steered clear of the pitfalls of policing the language of private enterprise. But now, with an election on the horizon, Richmond is flirting with becoming the first place in Canada where English will be mandatory.
Richard Lam / Postmedia NewsA business with only Chinese signage along Buswell Street in Richmond, B.C., March, 18, 2013.
For years, the public campaign to ban Richmond’s Chinese-only signs was largely a one-woman show.
Lifelong Richmondite Kerry Starchuk took the issue to every politician and media outlet she could find before assembling the petition that made its way to city council last year.
“I want my community back … it’s very difficult when you can’t read the signs and communicate,” she told Postmedia News last year.
With only weeks until her political retirement, Ms. Halsey-Brandt is part of a Richmond political dynasty of sorts. Her husband Greg served 11 years as the city’s mayor and another four years as the MLA for Richmond Centre, and his ex-wife was also a longtime city councillor.
Although Ms. Halsey-Brandt said she has no desire to tell shopkeepers what to do, she had second thoughts on the signage issue when she came across an all-Chinese sign pitched on the front yard of a development in progress.
Richard Lam / Postmedia NewsKerry Starchuk, a 'longtime' Richmond resident, flips through Chinese ads and newspapers while at her home in Richmond, BC, July, 30, 2013. She and others asked council to solve their concerns that Chinese signs are over-running the city.
“You put up an information sign in a neighbourhood that only passes information to the Chinese-reading population, that tells me something is wrong with what we’re doing and we need to re-evaluate it,” she said.
Among the candidates gunning for a council seat in the Nov. 15 election, several contacted by the National Post also expressed worry at what they saw as an “unwelcoming environment” of Chinese-only signs.
“I firmly believe that Chinese-only signs only serve to exclude the rest of the community and this is very un-Canadian,” said independent candidate Janos Bergman in an email.
Henry Yao, a Chinese-Canadian independent candidate, said he is supportive of a “well-redeveloped regulation” for Richmond signage, in part because it would end the ”racism, discrimination, and anger” spurred by the sign debate.
Nobody will dispute that the number of Chinese-only signs in Richmond is increasing, but the vast majority still feature English text.
“There aren’t really that many signs that are Chinese-only in the city overall,” said Judy Chern, a lifelong Richmondite with a passing understanding of Chinese characters.
She noted that the city’s Chinese signs are largely placed on businesses that are uniquely targeted to Chinese clients: Chinese apothecaries, Chinese-language DVD stores and purveyors of feng shui products.
Richard Lam / Postmedia NewsSignage along Park Road in Richmond, BC, March, 18, 2013. With an election on the horizon, Richmond is flirting with becoming the first place in Canada where English will be mandatory.
“I don’t think they’re purposely trying to exclude anyone. I’m a second-generation Taiwanese-Canadian and I don’t use these services either,” she said.
Last year, city councillor Bill McNulty conducted an informal survey of the city’s signage. He found only about half a dozen that were exclusively Chinese.
The Richmond Chamber of Commerce, for its part, has maintained that the city’s sign issue is best left to free enterprise: If local businesses want to exclude the nearly two million Metro Vancouverites who cannot read Chinese, that’s their prerogative.
I’m a second-generation Taiwanese-Canadian and I don’t use these services either
“We’ve always had the same position on this … we don’t feel a bylaw is the right answer,” said Gerard Edwards, chair of the Richmond Chamber of Commerce.
It is a view echoed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. “The market can correct itself pretty fast on this type of thing,” said Dan Kelly, the group’s CEO.
This has been the case at Richmond’s Aberdeen Centre, a prominent Richmond mall that is a hub of Asian stores and eateries. To keep the clientele base as large as possible, though, the mall strictly mandates that all signage be at least two thirds English.
“I trust the entrepreneur to know what is in the best interest of their business,” said Mr. Kelly. He warned that language laws — however well intentioned — “are regularly taken to their ludicrous extremes.”
Richard Lam / Postmedia NewsA for sale sign with information only in Chinese sits on a property along Cook Road in Richmond, BC, March, 18, 2013.
For Western Canadians, the “ludicrous extreme” is the strict language laws in Quebec, where Irish pubs have been asked to take down vintage Guinness signs, not to mention last year’s fiasco when the Office québécois de la langue française wrote up an Italian restaurant for using the word “pasta.”
“Legislation doesn’t always bring out the best in people,” said Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director-general of the Quebec Community Groups Network, the province’s chief advocate for the English language.
“Don’t start with legislation,” she advised the people of Richmond. “It could be a community effort to work together, rather than making it coercive.”
This was the tack taken by Moncton, N.B., which is about two-thirds anglophone and one third francophone. Four years ago, the city turned down a citizen’s request to force shopkeepers to adopt bilingual signage, and instead implemented a cheery program to encourage it voluntarily.
This is about self-segregation: Many people who come to Richmond decide that they don’t want to integrate
“Bilingual commercial signage: It makes good business sense!” reads a City of Moncton brochure.
A Moncton suburb, Dieppe, went the mandatory route in 2010, demanding French be predominant on nearly all new signage. Pattison Outdoor Group, which was soon convicted of violating the law, ultimately removed one of its signs in Dieppe, citing the law’s costs to clients.
Last week, Richmond council candidate Carol Day and Michael Wolfe issued a statement saying they would address Chinese-only signage if elected, and pursue “potential steps to address the issue.”
But Ms. Day opposes a bylaw, preferring to follow a Moncton-style route of gentle encouragement: Monetary incentives, city-funded workshops, maybe even a dedicated city translator going door to door helping business owners draw up coherent English language signage.
“This is about self-segregation: Many people who come to Richmond decide that they don’t want to integrate. I believe that they’re cheating themselves out of a much more enriched life,” said Ms. Day, who is herself a signmaker.
But, she added: “You can’t force this on people.”
National Post
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