Apology has special significance here

FRIDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — The apology to Chinese Canadians delivered in the Legislature on Thursday by Premier Christy Clark might have seemed like a political gesture and, indeed, has already been criticized by some Chinese Canadians as being just words.

But they’re important words, appreciated by many Chinese Canadians descended from pioneers who were discriminated against or who themselves have felt the sting of racism.

The official apology has special meaning in Kamloops. Chinese immigrants built the Canadian Pacific Railway, which reached Kamloops in 1883. A cemetery here is the resting place of many Chinese workers who died working on the CPR.

Today, Kamloops has an active Chinese Canadian community, including the Kamloops Chinese Cultural Association, as well as a Chinese Students Association at TRU.

Chinese Canadians in Kamloops provided important input into the process leading up to Thursday’s official apology.

Following completion of the railway, many pieces of legislation attempted to stop a feared influx of Chinese immigrants, including the infamous “head tax,” and the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, for which Prime Minister Stephen Harper officially apologized in 2006.

“We can’t undo the actions of the past, but we can acknowledge them, apologize, and learn from them,” Clark said Thursday.

Opposition leader John Horgan was right when he said, “True reconciliation will not occur immediately, but will take focused, sincere and sustained efforts.”

The apology is, indeed, words, and won’t of itself solve past wrongs, but it signals a willingness to start again, and get it right.