There’s hardly a word of English on this TransLink bus ad

When Translink bus R16108 drives by, some see a simple bus ad on its side.

But others see something different: a rolling billboard for creating language laws in British Columbia.

WATCH: From March 2015 – Chinese-only signs debated in Richmond

Chinese-only signs have long been debated in Richmond, a city where Chinese people make up over half of the population, according to the 2016 Census.

And the bus ad, for a financial services company known as TenKK, has helped the debate flare up once again.

“It causes me great concern because we have a divided community,” Kerry Starchuk, a Richmond resident who has long drawn public attention to the issue of Chinese-only signs, told Global News.

“What we should be doing is celebrating our official languages.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "What we should be doing is celebrating our official languages."

The debate previously saw Richmond city council push to adopt a policy in which staff would encourage and educate businesses that didn’t include French or English in 50 per cent of their sign content.

But a TransLink spokesperson pointed out that it’s a policy, not a law.

“It would need to be a bylaw or something provincially that would mandate what sort of language can be on ads,” Jill Drews told Global News.

“The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is something that we need to consider.”

READ MORE: The sign debate is back on in Richmond, B.C.

TenKK didn’t have anyone who was willing to comment for this story when Global News contacted the company.

However, TenKK later issued a statement saying that, “our advertisement targets are Chinese who are looking for healthy investment opportunities in Canada, and Canadian companies who are looking for funds from the world and respectful business partners.”

It added, “we selected Chinese as the advertisement language due to consideration of limitation on bus space.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: It added, "we selected Chinese as the advertisement language due to consideration of limitation on bus space.

“We never have the intention of ignoring or excluding any other communities.”

TenKK also said it was “sorry for all misunderstanding caused by the social media posting.”

Meanwhile, bus commuters said signs shouldn’t need translation.

“It doesn’t really make sense to have it just in Chinese, why not have it in Chinese and English?” asked one public transit user.

If you ask Starchuk, she thinks it’s time for action on this file.

“I think we need to stop everybody from passing the buck,” she said.

Starchuk said she has heard people kick the issue between the municipal, provincial and federal governments.

“Come on, we can do better than this,” she said.