by Susanne Tabata, NAJC BC Redress Project Director
Dear community members,
Your BC Redress project team is making progress towards a BC Redress package that serves our community. We do this work acknowledging with respect the ongoing struggle of Indigenous Peoples throughout Canada. We stand with the survivors and families of all children who were in residential schools. We need to heed the Calls to Action from the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
Towards BC Redress
Building on the 2012 Apology led by former MLA Naomi Yamamoto, our community’s work in 2019, which many of you participated in, set the stage for the steps that have followed. A huge amount of work was led by Steering Committee Chair Maryka Omatsu, with support from co-chair Art Miki, Judy Hanazawa, Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi, Les Kojima, Eiko Eby and NAJC Executive Director Kevin Okabe. The 2019 community consultations, and submission of Recommendations for Redressing Historical Wrongs, was followed by a new committee which began setting a framework for relations with the BC government: Art Miki, Maryka Omatsu, Paul Kariya, Lorene Oikawa, Eiko Eby, Les Kojima, Angus McAllister, Carmel Tanaka, and Susanne Tabata.
In early 2020 we began looking at approaches to BC Government discussions, and conducted organizational consultations and further refinement of BC redress requests, culminating in an analysis which gives substantial weight to support Seniors Health and Wellness (Tabata/Noble, 2020). That group consisted of Art Miki, Maryka Omatsu, Paul Kariya, Lorene Oikawa, Eiko Eby, Les Kojima and Susanne Tabata. A submission of a preliminary list of BC Redress requests was presented to BC Premier John Horgan in July 2020 by Susanne Tabata, Lorene Oikawa and Paul Kariya, followed by an independent analysis conducted by the Institute of Fiscal Studies in Democracy (IFSD), submitted in November 2020, to buttress the case for supporting seniors health and wellness, including intergenerational wellness.
The Year to Date
2021 has seen concrete progress on BC Redress, both in our ability to support our community’s elders who experienced the Internment era, as well as in our discussions with the BC Government toward a comprehensive BC Redress package. We have created a BC Redress website at www.bcredress.ca, and we invite you to visit for more information.
Following a March 2021 meeting with the Hon. David Eby, BC Attorney General and Ministerial lead on the BC Redress file, and Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives Rachna Singh, the BC Government committed to a framework that aligns with the July 2020 set of requests to the Premier’s office, including an agenda of monthly meetings to discuss each pillar. We are now working within that framework, and in these discussions the NAJC is represented by Susanne Tabata, Lorene Oikawa, and Paul Kariya.
As an initial gesture of goodwill, and of commitment to caring for the health and wellness of Japanese Canadian seniors, the BC Government made an initial $2m funding commitment in May 2021 to what has become the Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund. The Fund is administered by the Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society, and is being led by Ms. Eiko Eby, with support from Ruth Coles, Cathy Makihara, Linda Kawamoto Reid and Susanne Tabata. Many of you have contributed to the work of the Fund in identifying unmet health and wellness needs of our approximately 6,600 living survivors (Ohki, 2021), and for that we are grateful. To date, the Fund has identified and contacted nearly 100 Japanese Canadian organizations and community groups, as well as many individual survivors. We estimate that the organizations, community groups and individual survivors contacted by the Fund collectively represent approximately 1719 survivors. Applications for funding opened on September 1st, 2021, and will be open for two months until October 31st, 2021. The Japanese Canadian Survivors Health and Wellness Fund has created a website at www.jcwellness.org, and we encourage you to visit for more information.
Presenting the BC Redress Pillars
Our BC Redress Negotiations Committee continues to meet with the BC Government in the pursuit of a package that meets our community’s needs. As of September 1, 2021, formal meetings have now been held on all of the pillars identified by the community–Monument, Anti-racism & Acknowledgement, Education, Health & Wellness, Heritage, and Community & Culture.
On the Japanese Canadian side, the BC Redress process has been led by Susanne Tabata, BC Redress Project Director, and with BC Redress Negotiations Committee representation from NAJC President Lorene Oikawa, and advisor Paul Kariya. Each meeting has consisted of a series of community presentations on one the six pillars above, and we are deeply grateful to all of the community members who have put such time and care into their presentations. On the BC Government side, the BC Redress process has been led by Rachna Singh, Parliamentary Secretary, Anti-Racism Initiatives. Relevant BC Government Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministerial staff have been in attendance, and the BC Government response to date has been positive, collaborative and serious.
Monument
We are working toward the creation of a monument to acknowledge, remember and honour our families uprooted and displaced during the Internment era. We have requested the BC Government establish a large scale monument with a Japanese landscape design, in a place of importance to the BC Government. This would provide a site for pilgrimage and reflection, and an ability for survivors and family members to touch, in large format, the names of the approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians who experienced the Internment era. We have asked the BC Government to fund the required research to create a complete list of names. Correspondence with the BC Government has narrowed site options to a potential site in Victoria between Southgate Street and Academy Close, south of the formal grounds of St. Ann’s Academy. Discussions are ongoing as to the feasibility of this site.
Education
The BC Redress Education meeting took place on June 11, 2021. Susanne Tabata co-chaired the meeting, attended by Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya, Art Miki, Masako Fukawa, and Mike Perry Wittingham. For the BC Government, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was joined by Hon. Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Education, and Hon. Anne Kang, Minister of Advanced Education and Skills Training, along with staff and officials.We have asked for mandatory inclusion of BC’s Japanese Canadian history in the BC curriculum, along with funding to ensure BC’s teachers have the available resources, support, and knowledge to effectively teach BC’s history of the internment, dispossession and forced uprooting of Japanese Canadians, such that teachers may equip new generations of BC students with the knowledge to ensure this history is never again repeated. At the invitation of the NAJC, the University of Victoria has also proposed the creation of an Art Miki Forum for Social Justice.
Anti-Racism & Acknowledgement
The BC Redress Anti-Racism meeting took place on June 11, 2021. Co-chaired by Susanne Tabata, the meeting was attended by Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya and Judy Hanazawa, along with Art Miki, Masako Fukawa, and Mike Perry Wittingham who remained on the call following the earlier Education meeting. As a conclusion to the 2012 Apology, we have asked for a comprehensive and meaningful acknowledgement of the BC Government’s lead role in the uprooting, internment, and dispossession of Japanese-Canadians from 1942-1949. We have also requested the creation of an independent, permanent and sufficiently-resourced anti-racism institution, whether housed at OHRC or included as a standalone element of the new BC Anti-Racism Act.
Community & Culture
Following the Heritage meeting, the Community and Culture meeting included presentations by Lynn Deutscher Kobayashi, VP, NAJC & President, Toronto NAJC; Kelvin Higo, Steveston; Ramses Miki-Hanson, Young Leaders, NAJC; and Dr. Kirsten McAllister, SFU.
Co-chair Susanne Tabata then summarized the Community pillar, consisting of a request for $20 million to create an independent Japanese Canadian Community Fund that would support programming, infrastructure, scholarships, training, arts, and the creation of community spaces.
Health and Wellness
The health and wellness needs of our surviving elders are real and urgent. Further, given the deliberate dismantling of Japanese Canadian culture and identity, and the ensuing first-hand and intergenerational trauma, it is also essential that BC Redress create support for intergenerational wellness to include healing spaces, storytelling, gatherings to ‘break the silence’, where community members can come together to reclaim our culture and connect with one another to rebuild a stronger Japanese Canadian community.
The BC Redress meeting on Survivors Health and Wellness took place on July 23, 2021, was co-chaired by Susanne Tabata, and attended by Lorene Oikawa; Paul Kariya; Ruth Coles, Cathy Makihara and Jay Hiraga, Nikkei Seniors; Keiko Funahashi, Tonari Gumi; Dr. Karen Kobayashi, UVIC; and Eiko Eby, Survivor Health and Wellness Fund. For the BC Government, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was joined by Hon. Adrian Dix, Minister of Health, and Hon. Sheila Malcolmson, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and Mable Elmore, Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors’ Services and Long-Term Care, along with staff and officials.
Our community made a strong moral case for addressing Health and Wellness as a pillar of BC Redress, alongside a credible, competent plan for addressing these unmet needs. We requested funding for the creation of a Nikkei Village at Nikkei Seniors Health Care and Housing Society, consisting of a new complex care facility ($36 million), integrated affordable housing and childcare ($15 million), and a Helping Hands Centre for outreach, respite care, and health and wellness programming for Japanese Canadian seniors ($3.7 million).
We have also requested a community-led Survivors Health and Wellness Fund, valued at $5 million/year over 10 years ($50 million total), providing $4.5 million/year for survivor health and wellness funding, and $500,000/year for intergenerational wellness. The Fund would have a mandate to meet the health and wellness needs of Japanese Canadian survivors Canada-wide, including direct funding support for health needs (accessibility aids, home care, etc.), and community programming (outreach, health system navigation, social, meals, etc.). It would also focus on the wellness needs of their descendents, including funding for intergenerational storytelling and wellness programming–an essential legacy of BC Redress for current and future generations.
Heritage
On September 2, 2021, and after burning the midnight oil, the final two pillars for BC Redress were presented to the BC Government in two back-to-back meetings: first Heritage, then Community & Culture. This full-time, behind-the-scenes effort has been aided by input and feedback from around BC on the Heritage pillar, and from BC and beyond on the Community & Culture pillar.
The community was represented at the Heritage meeting by Howard Shimokura, Tashme Museum; Laura Saimoto, Heritage Sites; Mayor Leonard Casley, Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre (NIMC), New Denver; Mary Kimoto, Ucluelet; and Karah Goshinmon Foster, Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre (NNMCC). For the BC Government, Parliamentary Secretary Singh was accompanied by Ministers Hon. Katrine Conroy, Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, Hon. Anne Kang, Advanced Education Skills and Training, and Hon. Melanie Mark, Tourism Arts and Culture, along with key government staff and officials.
Co-chair Susanne Tabata summarized the Heritage pillar, including making our request to the government for $14.5 million in BC Redress Heritage funding. This would consist of the creation of a $10 million Japanese Canadian Historic Sites Fund to support heritage work across BC, and especially in underserved communities, $3.5 million for NNMCC, including the creation of digital portal and archives to improve heritage access for all Japanese Canadians, and $1 million in funding to NIMC to support urgently required maintenance and restoration.
Conclusion
This series of presentations, government responses, and refinement of our BC Redress pillars has been building toward the creation of a comprehensive BC Redress package. We now begin the process of bundling these six BC Redress pillars together, and meeting with the BC government to plan next steps.
To date, all Ministers in attendance, as well as the Premier himself, have expressed their support for the Japanese Canadian community, and for the BC Redress process. Our intent is to deliver the full BC Redress package to the BC Government in Fall 2021, and to conclude any negotiations in time for our BC Redress package to be included and announced in the next BC Budget in Spring 2022.
Many of you have helped to bring us to where we are today, and we are grateful for your contributions. We still have work to do, and we are honoured for the opportunity to do this work on behalf of our entire Japanese Canadian community.
Thank you for trust and your support.
Sincerely,
Susanne Tabata, on behalf of the BC Redress Project team
BC Redress Negotiations Committee: Susanne Tabata, Lorene Oikawa, Paul Kariya; with Art Miki & Maryka Omatsu as Honorary Co-Chairs