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Were Raids About Race?

Are Indo-Canadians unfairly targeted by the 'Legi-Gate' investigation? A Sikh temple president says yes - but race and politics can be a complex mix in B.C.

Barbara McLintock 20 Jan 2004TheTyee.ca

Barbara McLintock, a regular contributor to The Tyee, is a freelance writer and consultant based in Victoria and author of Anorexia’s Fallen Angel.

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The president of Victoria's Sikh Temple let the elephant out of the basement yesterday.

Just about everyone who's had any involvement in the story of  "Legi-gate," or whatever it's eventually it's going to get dubbed, has known about the elephant in the basement. They've known about it from the first day it was made known that the offices which were targetted by the RCMP search warrants were those of David Basi and Bobby Virk.

But like well brought up Canadians, we have all let the elephant stomp around in the basement while we strolled around upstairs, pretending no elephant was hiding there.

Until Temple president Sam Nagra unbolted the door and let the elephant upstairs.

The elephant, of course, is the whole question of how race interacts with politics in British Columbia.

It became an issue in "Legi-gate" because Basi and Virk are both Indo-Canadians, well-known in Victoria's relatively small Sikh community.  Basi, in particular, has been well-known also as a political activist in the Liberal party both provincially and federally, and an organizer for the Paul Martin campaign.

But it has been an "elephant in the basement" issue for years now in B.C. politics. Whispering campaigns have suggested that such-and-such a candidate received a nomination because of block voting and/or block membership sign-ups by groups from visible minority cultures.

And let's be clear: the whispering isn't confined to the Liberal party. When Ujjal Dosanjh won the leadership of the New Democratic Party in 2001, similar rumours abounded. They are unpleasant, such whispering campaigns, and most right-thinking observers of the political scene brushed them off.

There is, however, no question that the elephant has been rumbling more loudly in the basement ever since the raid on the legislature on Dec. 28 and subsequent disclosures that other places searched by the police were the offices of others closely involved with the Martin campaign in B.C. Thus it was that when Nagra and Jag Dhanowa, the multi-cultural chair for the federal Liberal party in B.C., decided they wanted to talk to the media, there was much hope that issues would be clarified.

Unfortunately it wasn't to happen.

Martin Luther King invoked

Nagra and Dhanowa have, in their own minds, a very clear picture of what they see happening. They see it as a blatant case of racism, with the media and other disgruntled Liberal party members using Basi's and Virk's involvement (whatever it may in the end turn out to be) to cast aspersions on the whole Indo-Canadian community and in particular on Indo-Canadians' involvement in the political processes of their new country.

"I think you guys (the media) are doing it because he (Basi) is Indo-Canadian," Nagra said quite openly. He complained of media reports that had looked into the family ties of Basi, Virk, and suspended Victoria Police Const. Rob Dosanjh, and into their land holdings. He was quite convinced it wouldn't be happening if the three were Caucasian.

Dhanowa complained that other Liberal nomination-seekers who have sought to distance themselves from the entire scandal are motivated deep down by the fact that their "definition of a decent Liberal doesn't include anyone with a brown face."

Nagra linked their news conference with the fact it was Martin Luther King Day, inquiring rhetorically: "Do you think for one minute the black community in the United States would tolerate the kind of crap that has been going on here?" The dubious link angered the only black reporter in the room who later pointed out that the circumstances couldn't be more different.

Quite aside from the political wisdom of branding an entire group of 25 or more reporters as racists, it was clear that Nagra and Dhanowa were speaking from their hearts and were totally sincere in their beliefs. Those beliefs are understandable, given the history of prejudice against Sikhs, not only in Canada but also from the Hindu majority in India.

Perhaps some of the comments made in recent weeks have fueled the fire of those beliefs. Both men spoke of hearing people say that sign-ups of Indo-Canadian members had "ghettoized" the federal Liberal party - a remark which should be considered unconscionable in today's society and the speakers should be held accountable.

But the belief that everything is a result of racism is also regrettable because it closes the door on the opportunity for real and meaningful dialogue in which bridges could be built between the political communities involved.

'Basi's boys' said to be a fiction

Nagra made great efforts to distance the Sikh community from the allegations of phony memberships and meeting stacking that have arisen in the past two weeks. He said that Basi had no particular power in the Indo-Canadian community, that he could not "deliver" large blocks of votes to any particular candidate, and that he had not been involved in mass membership sign-ups in the Victoria-area ridings of Saanich and the Islands, and Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He insisted that there was no group of "Basi's Boys" who worked under Basi's leadership on such nomination, membership and party leadership campaign.

All this goes against many of the statements and interviews that have been emerging in the past two weeks from those involved in Liberal politics, both Indo-Canadian and Caucasian. When one reporter pointed out that several members of a party executive had themselves said they had run as a slate under Basi's direction and leadership, Nagra said they were all lying.

It is worth noting, perhaps, that both Nagra and Dhanowa pointed out that the candidates who are now distancing themselves from the scandal had previously met with Basi and asked for his support of their nomination campaign. It does make you wonder why they'd bother, if Basi had no influence within the party.

'Might run someone in every riding'

More troubling, however, were Nagra's clear implications that if Basi couldn't deliver blocks of votes, somebody in the Indo-Canadian community most certainly could. When a reporter asked him about the history of discrimination against Sikhs in B.C., Nagra replied "that was why we took over the Saanich-Gulf Islands riding." He explained that one Indo-Canadian member had originally been elected to the riding's executive, but had found himself faced with subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle racism when he attempted to put his point across. That, said Nagra, was when "it was directed that we were going to sign up members … that's the reason why we took over the riding." He never did explain just whom that "direction" might have come from.

Later Nagra also mused aloud that if the "smear campaign" against Indo-Canadians continued, "we might just have to run somebody in every riding" (on Southern Vancouver Island). Dhanowa himself is considering seeking the nomination in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Nagra makes the very valid point that Indo-Canadians were originally attracted to the federal Liberal party because of the inclusive policies of Pierre Eliott Trudeau which appealed to many new immigrants. Politics is a way for immigrants to become involved in their new home country - and indeed surely that is what Canada has always said it wanted, for new immigrants to become an integral part of the country, not just people who remain on the outside looking in. For the same reason, Nagra said, the community encourages its young people to get involved in politics and perhaps obtain political staff jobs at either the provincial or federal level.

All of those are good things, and most Canadians would support them. What Nagra and Dhanowa need to realize, however, is that in most cases, it is not racism that motivates questions about the methods used to achieve those goals. And they need to realize that the media would indeed be following the same sort of trails, had the aides whose offices were searched been Caucasian.

It is the hunt for information about how our democratic process is working that motivates those question, not the hunt about what racial groups are involved in that process. Similar questions would also be asked if any one-issue group appeared to be trying to take over a riding association, whether it be advocates for abolishing the gun registry or changing the country's abortion laws. Politics is played on a wide spectrum in Canada, and the public is suspicious of any group that is apparently seeking to narrow that spectrum.

But meanwhile, the elephant is out of the basement, and it seems doubtful it will willingly return there, not at least until the whole "legi-gate" mess is sorted out.

Barbara McLintock is a contributing editor to The Tyee.  [Tyee]

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