Canada's Asian community rallies against racism

"Stop Asian Hate" rallies attended by thousands of members of the Asian community across Canada have created a growing movement against racism and violence.

The events came in the wake of a mass killing of eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent, in the Atlanta area, amid a surge in anti-Asian incidents in the US and Canada.

Sunday's demonstrations, which took place in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary, also displayed solidarity, according to the Chinese Canadian National Council, one of the organizers.

The council has documented more than 1,000 anti-Asian incidents since the start of the pandemic, 60 percent of which were reported by women.

"These racist incidents have resulted in deep and long-lasting impact on the Asian Canadian community as a whole," said Avvy Go, director of the Chinese & Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. "We need the prime minister and all parliamentarians to take a stand against anti-Asian racism. Instead of empty rhetoric, we demand concrete action."

Rally organizers urged lawmakers to act against hate and condemn "scapegoating Chinese people for the COVID-19 pandemic".

Research shows that there has been a significant increase in hate crimes against Asian Canadians since the start of the pandemic, with major cities in Canada seeing rates that are 600 to 700 percent higher than the previous year.

According to data from Fight COVID Racism, there were 891 reported anti-Asian incidents across Canada as of mid-March.

Rally attendee Andrew Li said that there has been growing fearmongering and hatred toward Asians in the past year in Vancouver, where anti-Asian incidents were up 717 percent in 2020.

"I've been in Canada for 49 years. I've spent most of my life here; this is the only home I know, but I've never felt 100 percent at home," Li told Global News.

Another protester, Binci Lai, who grew up in Vancouver, told the media the twin pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic and former US president Donald Trump's anti-China rhetoric have served to push it to the surface.

"The pandemic and a lot of comments from Trump calling COVID the 'China virus', the 'kung flu virus', has exacerbated the racism and has made it more overt and more physical," said Lai, adding that she always felt Asians weren't fully accepted in Canada.

Police found two instances of vandalism targeting the Asian community in downtown Toronto last week, which they are investigating as hate crimes.

Toronto Mayor John Tory said anti-East Asian racism has risen to the "top of the list" of reported hate crimes in Canada's largest city in recent months.

"I am discouraged to hear about violent and threatening behavior against our residents that is fueled by hate and racism. Acknowledging its existence is the motivation I need to cement my commitment to eradicate this behavior," Tory said at an anti-East Asian racism roundtable with community leaders Thursday.

Pledging that the city needs to move quickly to create a concrete plan to combat the issue, the mayor is also asking Toronto residents to speak up and stand up against anti-East Asian racism.

"Often these attacks, whether verbal or physical, are not reported because even when they are, they are not considered hate crimes," said City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam. "When these incidents occur, we must be bold in the face of white supremacy, racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic violence."

"Today, we find ourselves in a delicate political and social climate where innocent citizens of Asian descent have become scapegoats and targets of hate crimes. It is a sad reality that Asian Canadians have to face these threats of racist attacks in their everyday lives," said Senator Victor Oh.

"Humans are not born racists. Where there is racism, we must double up efforts to address it through the education system, cultivate children's upbringing and address racism in society through public education, law enforcement and the judicial system," said David Choi, national executive chair of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians.

More than 6 million ethnic Asians call Canada their home. Asian Canadians have helped build the country through the construction of railroads in the 1800s, new business development and growth, and pandemic-response efforts.