Feds building named after first Chinese Canadian MP

The Province - After months of controversy and consultation, Ottawa has finally picked a new name for an eco-friendly office building in downtown Vancouver.

401 Burrard building will be named after Douglas Jung, the first Chinese-Canadian member of Parliament.

But while some are applauding the new name -- and Ottawa's second attempt at naming the building -- others have been left fuming over the decision.

"I'm disgusted," said John Green about the naming process. "They took [my father's] name off without any research."

Last September, Public Works Minister Michael Fortier originally named the building after Green's father, Conservative MP Howard Green.

But public outcry soon followed from Japanese-Canadian groups who remembered Howard Green as one of the most feared politicians in B.C. for his racist remarks in the 1930s and '40s.

Ottawa soon rescinded its decision and asked for a new naming committee to come up with fresh suggestions for Fortier to consider.

"The irony there is supreme. Dad played a key role in getting him [Jung] into the House of Commons and also took him to the UN as part of the Canadian delegation," said Green. "My dad was a mentor of Douglas Jung."

Green had resubmitted his father's name for consideration in May.

He said he has no objection to Jung but rather to Ottawa's decision to backtrack on the original name.

"My objection is to them removing my father's name on an incorrect and unjustified slur," said Green.

He said his father was not a racist and maintains that his father's public campaign to oust Japanese-Canadians from B.C. in the 1930s and '40s was based on concerns for Canada's security at a time of war.

But Mary Kitagawa, who played a key role in lobbying for a name change, said she's relieved about the new name.

"I was quite relieved the process has come to an end," said Kitagawa, of the Japanese-Canadian Citizens Association Human Rights Committee. She said she's happy with the new name.

Jung was born in Victoria in 1924 with no legal status as a Canadian.

He and a dozen other Chinese-Canadians joined the army at the start of the Second World War.

Jung said this was in order to help them gain citizenship -- which they were granted after the war, in 1947.

In 1944 Jung and the others were sent on a secret mission to Malaysia to train locals to fight the Japanese.

Veterans' Affairs paid for Jung to go to the University of B.C. to study law after the war.

Jung joined the Progressive Conservative Party and in 1957 was elected MP for Vancouver East.

He was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 1990 and died in January 2002.

The unveiling of the name coincides with 100th anniversary of Vancouver's anti-Asian race riots.

On Sept. 7, 1907, a white mob swept through the Chinese and Japanese sections of Vancouver, smashing windows and attacking Asian immigrants.

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Vancouver Courier - On the 100th anniversary of race riots in Vancouver's China and Japan towns last Friday, a federal office tower was named after Canada's first Chinese-Canadian MP.

Ken Tung, chair of the SUCCESS immigrant service agency, couldn't be more pleased with the choice to name the building after Douglas Jung. Tung, a member of a committee that picked the name, thought Jung was the best choice.

"Putting Douglas Jung's name on 401 Burrard is a very important symbol of the Canadian history today," he said.

Tung noted last year's apology by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Chinese-Canadians for the government's entrance tax and Exclusion Act that restricted Chinese immigration to Canada between 1885 and 1947.

Jung was his first choice of the dozen or so names up for final consideration. Tung believes Jung is a timely choice because 2007 marks the 60th anniversary of Chinese-Canadians winning Canadian citizenship.

Jung went from having no citizenship rights to representing Canada at the United Nations. Jung, who died in 2002, was born in Victoria in 1924. He was among a group of Chinese-Canadians who volunteered to serve in the Second World War to strengthen their demand for civil rights once the war ended.

He was the first Chinese-Canadian veteran to receive a university education under the auspices of Veterans Affairs Canada. He graduated in law and was called to the bar in 1954. In 1955, he was the first Chinese-Canadian lawyer to appear before the B.C. Court of Appeal. He was the first Chinese-Canadian MP, serving as a Conservative Vancouver Centre representative in Parliament from 1957 to 1962.

In 1962, he was appointed a judge on the Immigration and Appeal Board in Ottawa. He implemented the amnesty program that made it possible for thousands of Chinese who had come to Canada using false names to regularize their status with federal immigration. He became a member of the Order of Canada in 1990 and the Order of British Columbia in 1997.

But Jung's name isn't the first assigned to the 19-storey office building at Burrard and Pender, which houses Environment Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Last September, Michael Fortier, minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, named the environmentally friendly, energy-efficient tower after former cabinet minister and Conservative MP Howard Green. Japanese-Canadian groups promptly protested the choice because Green led a public campaign to oust them from the province during the Second World War. The decision to name it after Green was rescinded to the ire of Green's son, John.

The younger Green argued his father, who fought in the First World War, was not racist and, in fact, mentored and boosted Jung.

Green was a longstanding Vancouver South and Vancouver Quadra MP and cabinet minister during the Diefenbaker era who was a strong advocate of nuclear disarmament. He also represented Canada at the U.N.

Arthur Calderwood, Jung's son, feels honoured that his father's name was chosen.

"He would be proud, primarily not for his own behalf," Calderwood said. "He said this numerous times, that whenever you receive an award there are lots of people behind you that have helped you in giving you encouragement and support along the way that are essentially unnamed, and that he felt that any award or recognition that he received was also a reflection of the Chinese-Canadians and of people that had supported him."

But he never specified Howard Green as one of his major supporters, Calderwood said, adding experienced Conservative B.C. MPs mentored all of the junior MPs in Ottawa at the time, but his mom, Joy Calderwood, said Green showed her ex-husband no special treatment.

Tung wasn't on the initial committee that chose Green's name.

"Not one name would please everyone, definitely," Tung said. "I would pick the person who will receive the most welcome from the community, so that's why Douglas Jung is chosen."