Vancouver accused of paying lip service to multiculturalism amid clash over plan to build condo block in Chinatown

Vancouver is home to a large number of people from ethnic minorities and proudly touts itself as a multicultural city. That status is reflected in the nickname “Hongcouver”, acquired after a wave of immigration from Hong Kong before the city’s 1997 handover from Britain to China.

The 2011 census showed that Vancouver has more people of Asian origin than any other Canadian city, at 37 per cent of the population, including ethnic Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans and South Asians. This compares to 30 per cent in Toronto, while over the border in New York, Asians account for just 8 per cent of the population. The next census will be released in October, and the percentage of Asians living in Vancouver is expected to be even higher.

City politicians make a point of showing up at festivals and events such as the Lunar New Year lion dance in Chinatown, and Diwali, the Hindu and Sikh festival of lights. However, community activists say efforts to appear multicultural are merely superficial, and officials have no real understanding of ethnic sensitivities.

This came into the spotlight in June, when major opposition to a proposed luxury condominium development in the heart of Chinatown caught municipal officials off guard.

The new building at 105 Keefer Street – close to the Dr Sun Yat-sen Garden, Chinese Cultural Centre and Chinatown Memorial Square – would have been 12 storeys high, making it the tallest building in the vicinity. Although it was to have included 25 social housing units, only eight were earmarked as affordable housing subsidised by the provincial government. There were also plans for a “temporary” activity centre for elderly Chinese living in the area.

Almost 200 people – an unprecedented number – registered to speak at public hearings on the proposal. Given five minutes each, the hearings stretched to more than 26 hours over three days.