The Liberal government had always refused to apologize or compensate Chinese Canadians for their internment during the second world war. Now during an election campaign, the Liberal government reversed their policy of over half a century and agreed to apologize to Chinese Canadians. Prime Minister Paul Martin would not apologize in Parliament, but instead apologized on an obscure Chinese radio station in Vancouver. Prior to that, the Liberal government in a feat of divide and conquer decided to promise the redress of the issue of  the internment to a new and unknown Chinese organization rather than an old Chinese organization that had been spearheading the issue of apology and compensation for decades.

The turn-around by the Liberals was because this issue became a hot political ticket on which a party contesting the elections could win or lose an election. Chinese Canadians have significant numbers. The Conservative Party on the other hand all of a sudden started promising an apology and compensation to the Chinese, something they had refused to do all these years. Stephen Harper even started talking about speeding up the recognition of foreign credentials to enable new Canadians to secure jobs in Canada, an issue that had not escaped the lips of the Conservatives in decades. Just to win votes. The Conservatives could have done the same to the Chinese as they did to the Japanese in 1988- an apology and compensation for their internment.

The New Democratic party has been consistent on the issue of apology and compensation all these years and in all their election platforms. My colleague, Guidy Mamman has written an excellent article on the immigration policies or lack thereof  by both the Liberal and Conservative parties. I have also previously written numerous articles on the politics of immigration, including the fact that Liberal party policies have in the past led to the wholesale deportations of small-time black criminals, the fact that the Liberals imposed the $975 head tax on immigration applicants in 1995 and so on.

Left out of all promises of compensation and apology by all political parties are African Canadians. It is as if we were never enslaved and discriminated against in the history of Canada. It is a voluble statement by all parties of our position and our political clout in the Canadian mosaic.

Munyonzwe Hamalengwa is a criminal and immigration lawyer in Toronto

mhamalengwa@sympatico.ca