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Singh Interview Excerpt ... Johnny: You mentioned Japanese and Chinese as being some of the earliest immigrants to the West Coast. I am not familiar with any large scale immigration of Japanese during the later part of the 19th century. Boom-Boom: Johnny, Johnny [shaking his head] when do you think all those Japanese Canadians – many of whom had been citizens of Canada for generations and were put in interment camps during the second world war – when do you think they came Canada? Johnny: The later part of the 19th century??? Boom-Boom: The last quarter, but close enough. You get a gold, no, a bronze star. You get a silver star if you get the next question right. Johnny: We’re now into awarding stars are we? Boom-Boom: Just for fun. Don’t be a stick in the glue. Why did the Canadian government encourage Japanese men and women to immigrate to the West Coast? Johnny: Don’t be a stick in the mud. Okay I’ll play. Cheap labour! Boom-Boom: Silver star for you; now for the gold star. What industry, in the then province of British Columbia required an influx of cheap labour? Johnny: Forestry??? Boom-Boom: No gold star for you. Johnny: What else could it be! The fur trade??? Boom-Boom: It was the salmon canning industry. Okay. I will give you another chance to go for the gold. Just answer this question correctly. Johnny: Boom-Boom, is this really necessary? Boom-Boom: What, you don’t like being a guest on your own show? Johnny: No but … Boom-Boom: No buts unless it’s about Dr. Diane’s [laughing]. Just kidding. I’m enjoying this. For, what do you say, all the marbles, for the gold star. Which workers did the Japanese immigrants displaced? Which workers, because they wanted better wages and better working conditions, did the commercial canning companies want to get rid of by replacing them with even lower paid workers from Japan? Johnny: I don’t have a clue. Boom-Boom: Here is a hint. They were mainly women. They worked more than twelve hours a day for near starvation wages in hot, messy and dirty conditions slicing and dicing, cleaning and cooking and stuffing this salmon into squat one pound cans that were largely destined for the European market. Johnny: Chinese women??? Boom-Boom: No! No! No! Johnny: English women would never have accepted working under those conditions therefore that leaves only … native women??? Boom-Boom: Yes, yes you got it. You get the gold star. In 1880 something, mostly native women packed twenty-nine million one-pound cans of sockeye salmon. That is the equivalent of six million salmon in one year. Johnny: That’s a lot of salmon! Boom-Boom: Yes and what happened when salmon stock started to decline? Johnny: They instituted conservation measures??? Boom-Boom: Yeah, sure boss. They looked for somebody to blame, silly. Johnny: Who could they blame … the commercial fishermen??? Boom-Boom: Yes, but not the white commercial fishermen. They blamed the same people, the same people they blamed a hundred and twenty years later when irresponsible commercial fishing and pollution brought the stocks of wild salmon to the brink of extinction. Johnny: You are not saying that they blamed … Boom-Boom: The women’s husbands. Johnny: You’re kidding? Boom-Boom: In 1880 something, with the salmon in decline, the canners and the white commercial fishermen wasted no time blaming the Indians – hate that name – for the declining salmon stock. The government of British Columbia urged on by the companies and the white commercial fishermen convinced the government in Ottawa to severely curtail Native fishing rights. They would again blame the Natives – actually they never stopped blaming the Natives – one hundred and twenty years later with the eminent extinction from over- fishing and pollution of all wild British Columbia salmon. Johnny: They started blaming Canada’s first inhabitants for the decline in salmon fish stocks all the way back then. That’s unbelievable, especially when you consider that Natives had been occupying the west coast of Canada for over forty thousands years with no recorded decline in fish and animal species and, within a few decades of the white man’s arrival, the salmon is in decline and the fur trade close to collapse. That is quite unbelievable. Boom-Boom: If you don’t believe me, look it up in a wonderful old book about the history of Canada’s native people called I Have Lived Here Since the World Began by a fellow called Arthur Ray. Johnny: I will. You know, your story about the near extinction of the West coast salmon brings to mind the fishing to extinction of the cod, the haddock, the capelin and just about every other species of fish on the Canadian East coast. Boom-Boom: Not to mention the near extinction of the lobster fisheries. Johnny: Thank goodness the United Nations took over management of that fishery before Canada managed that fishery into extinction as well. Boom-Boom: Here’s an easy question. Johnny: Not another question [laughing], our viewers will think you are trying to take over my show. Boom-Boom: It’s the last one. I promise. Who did those fishermen blame for that near extinction of the lobster? Johnny: The natives??? Boom-Boom: Congratulation. You’re a fast learner. Of course it was the Natives, in this case the Micmacs of New Brunswick and other tribes. Johnny: I guest the Beothuks of the former province of Newfoundland were fortunate in some ways – they were not around to be blamed for the collapse of the East cost fisheries, having preceded the fish into oblivion. ...
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