Montreal city councillor Marvin Rotrand plans to introduce a motion at the council meeting scheduled for June 15 to “unanimously and vigorously denounce acts of hatred, discrimination, and violence directed against Montrealers of various Asian origins.”
The councillor says the city already has similar motions condemning acts of racism against Montreal’s Black population but the same needs to be done for Asians, a group he refers to as an “invisible minority.”
“Targeting racism, violence — it’s unacceptable against our Asian population,” he said at a press conference on Zoom.
The Asian community in Montreal has been targeted by acts of vandalism in recent months.
Lion statues at the entrance to Chinatown were spray-painted with graffiti in early March and similar statues in front of a Buddhist temple in Côte-des-Neiges were destroyed at around the same time.
“I myself have experienced this discrimination. Half of my family are Blacks and they have this discrimination experiences. So it’s due time,” Ramon Vicente, vice-president of the Filipino Association of Montreal and Suburbs, said during the press conference.
Rotrand is also calling on the Montreal Police Department to adopt a race-based data collection policy as a means to end systemic racism — similar to what already exists with the Toronto Police Department.
Reports of incidents of racism against Asian-Canadians across the country have spiked amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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