Viet Nam Human Rights
»
home
»
political-social
»
Bill S-219: Adverse blow to Vietnamese - Canadian relationship
Bill S-219: Adverse blow to Vietnamese - Canadian relationship
18/8/15
Recent years,
Vietnamese - Canadian relationship has been exaggerating for both countries’
interests. But still, there’s a setback in this relation, Vietnamese
Canadian-related issues. The most recent and regrettable incident is the
passage of Bill S-219.
The Senate Bill
S-219 “Journey to Freedom Day” (initially “Black April Day”) and its
hate-inducing view that was passed by the Canadian Parliament in April 28th,
2015, tries to bring back war conflicts. The Bill was sponsored by Senator
Thanh Hai Ngo, a former member of the Saigon regime defeated in April 1975, who
holds an extreme and prejudiced view on the Vietnam’s Communist Party and
State.
The way the
Bill was rushed through the Senate – without allowing
witnesses with opposing views to express their concerns – and then again
through the House of Commons seriously undermines the Canadian
democratic process.
The commemoration
of April 30th as "Journey to Freedom Day" is regrettable. The
choice of date and title is meant to confound the general public, and serves as
a false advertisement for what really lies within. S-219 is not about refugees
or freedom, but about one Senator’s malevolent attempts to enshrine his
personal past history as a member of the Saigon regime – which has been defunct
for 40 years – into law. Not only does the Bill strain what has been an
excellent long-time relationship between Canada and Vietnam, but it also has
highly significant and explosive implications.
Firstly, it’s undermining
Canada's interests. Bill S-219 reverses decades of Canadian-Vietnamese
friendship and threatens both countries’ national interests in terms of trade –
including the negotiation of the critical Trans-Pacific Partnership, critical
projects in research and development, intellectual property, educational
exchanges, etc. The quick passing of this highly controversial Bill by the
Conservative Party was a disservice to Canada by (1) breaching Canadian
democracy, (2) marring Canada's reputation as a country that promotes peace,
tolerance and reconciliation, and (3) undermining Canada's intellectual
integrity by having this Bill passed in a complete ignorance of Vietnam’s
history.
Secondly, it’s
further dividing the Vietnamese Canadian community. Bill S-219 alienates
Vietnamese Canadians and aggravates the division amongst them, since more than
half the population were neither refugees nor the type of refugees seeking
freedom as stated in Bill S-219, thus many in this group oppose it. This Bill
also perpetually rekindles the pain and animosity of those who consider
themselves losing the war in Vietnam.
And, thirdly, it
misrepresents the history of Vietnamese boat people – an important part of
Canadian history. Bill S-219 misleads Canadians and the Government of
Canada with its title "Journey to Freedom Day." This title is true
only for a small group of Vietnamese Canadians who served the U.S. military and
its war objectives in Vietnam. They fled Vietnam on April 30th, 1975, fearing
reprisals for the acts they committed during the war – but no reprisals
did ever actually happen. To these people, the end of the war was the cause of
great personal loss and a failure in their desperate attempt to maintain and
prolong the war. On the other hand, Vietnamese boat people left in 1978-79 for
many different reasons, mostly to look for a better future for their children,
not for political reasons.
The Bill appears
to have divided Canada’s Vietnamese community. While the committee heard
supportive testimony from the Vietnamese Canadian Federation and the Canadian
Immigration Historical Society, the chair received letters from a number of
others — including representatives of the Canada-Vietnam Friendship Association
and the Canada-Vietnam Trade Council — who said it would create tension among
Vietnamese Canadians, many of whom have put the past behind them and now want
cordial relations with Vietnam.
The Bill S-219 is
also the cause of another rift, between the Conservatives on the one side and
the Liberals and NDP on the other. When it was initially tabled in the Senate
last fall, some Liberal senators voted against it, though it ended up
passing. In the House of Commons last month, Bill S-219 passed first and second
reading but not without opposition from MPs recommending that
it be referred to committee in the hope that it would be amended.
That is because,
soon after the relatively obscure bill, which may have initially looked like a
no-brainer, was debated in the House, oppositions MPs such as NDP MP Rathika
Sitsabaiesan say they started receiving emails and phone calls from people
saying the bill did not represent the views of the whole Vietnamese-Canadian
community.
NDP MP Anne
Minh-Thu Quach, one of the two Vietnamese-Canadian MPs to ever sit in the House
of Commons, explained to iPolitics that the community is generationally
divided, mainly between those who left when Saigon fell — including some
associated with the old regime — and were welcomed to Canada as “boat people”
in the 1970s, and those who’ve come to Canada more recently as students or
economic immigrants and maintain ties with the communist state.
As a result, Julie
Trang Nguyen, who leads the Canada-Vietnam Association — a group opposed to the
bill and in favour of maintaining ties with Vietnam — says that people
like her feel ostracized. “You are not supposed to do anything with Vietnam.
That is the attitude. Even the flag, when you have an event then it must be the
old Saigon flag. If not, they will come and question you on how come you
don’t have that flag up there” Nguyen told iPolitics.
Nguyen and other
representatives of the association told reporters in a press conference that
they felt insulted by the fact that the bill advocated for April 30th as a
commemoration date, fully knowing it’s the same day as Liberation Day in
Vietnam. They were in Ottawa to ask the House heritage committee, which
was studying the bill, to consider an alternative date and to change the
wording of the bill to remove references to the war.
MP Anne Minh-Thu
Quach, who supported the bill, said she had hoped that the committee would
indeed consider dissenting voices, but only two opposing witnesses were
heard and no alternative suggestions were deemed acceptable. “It’s
regrettable, I find that it’s a bill that divides more than it unites people”
Minh-Thu Quach says.
Some observers say
the bill is a textbook case of targeted political pandering for ethnic
votes ahead of what is shaping up to be a close-fought federal election.
Alberta-based
political strategist Stephen Carter says, “This is being done in
essence to gather support from those people in the first generational
subset. It absolutely is being done for votes, there is no other way around
it.”
Veteran poll
analyst Paul Barber says that, among multiple strategies that parties use
to woo ethnic votes is the use of “overarching symbolic things that are
connected to their homelands.”
Vietnam’s Ministry
of Foreign Affairs vehemently objected to Canada’s passage of the Bill S-219 or
the so-called Journey to Freedom Day Act, as it distorts Vietnam’s struggle for
national liberation and reunification. Vietnam’s spokeman emphasized that the
Bill S-219 is an absolutely wrong law, whose contents distort the Vietnamese
people’s past struggle for national liberation and reunification, which had
been supported by the international community, including Canada.
This is a step backward in the relationship between
the two countries, adversely affecting the developing ties between Vietnam and
Canada and hurting the feelings of Vietnamese people as well as a large part of
the Vietnamese community in Canada./.
Popular Posts
-
Religion is a part of the spiritual life in society, this phenomenon of the superstructure has been strongly changed with economic - social... -
Vietnam has just done well for the second cycle of Universal Periodical Review (UPR) in Geneva, Switzerland. So, what’s the UPR? an... -
Thai people in Shutdown Bangkok protests Not until this crisis, we have realized the ne... -
Representatives from foreign countries congratulate Viet Nam on its election to the Human Rights Council for the first time on November ... -
A street flowers vendor in Hanoi Another new spring has come to Vietnam, bring... -
If nothing changes, there will be a preferential credit program with hundreds of thousands billion of capital for agriculture and r... -
Recently, several anti-governmental individuals have established series of illegal groups and organizations in the name of civil soci... -
Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a private, nonprofit international broadcasting agency of the United States government that broadcasts and...
All comments [ 11 ]
We hope that Canada will be aware of the negative impact of the passage of Bill S-219 and will take measures to remedy it and prevent similar occurrences.
It is adversely affecting the growing ties between Vietnam and Canada and hurting the feelings of Vietnamese people.
We believe that passage of this Senate Bill S-219 would send the wrong message to the international community and the people of Vietnam.
Vietnam hopes Canada is aware of the negative impact of the passage of S-219 and takes repairing measures and prevents a recurrence of the problem.
It's undermining Canada's intellectual integrity by having this Bill passed in a complete ignorance of Vietnam’s history.
The Canada-Vietnam Trade Council warned in a letter to the Senate’s human rights committee that the bill would negatively affect the government’s economic aspirations.
To these people, the end of the war was the cause of great personal loss and a failure in their desperate attempt to maintain and prolong the war.
The bill reflects the view of less than five per cent of Vietnamese Canadians and promotes a view “of the past, of hatred, of negativity, resulting in neglect of the well-being of future generations.
The bill did not represent the views of the whole Vietnamese-Canadian community.
The process of passing this bill is not democratic and violates criteria which Canada has pursued.
some Canadian senators support the Bill to receive oversea Vietnamese people's support in the election
Your comments