Burnaby resident Sohen Gill is raising concerns about Chinese language on election signs in his neighbourhood.
The North Burnaby resident would like to see the signs in Canada's two official languages.
"I just feel the language is English and French, and why are the signs in Chinese?" he told the NOW.
Gill said he phoned one of the candidates in his area and asked why the election signs were in Chinese.
"I just think our language is not Chinese, it's not Italian. When you single out one language and put it on a sign, it doesn't seem fair to me," he said. "English and French are our official languages."
Gill, a retired firefighter, was born in Canada, but his parents emigrated here from India decades ago.
"My family had to learn English, and they did," he said. "That's the way it was."
According to the latest data from
Statistics Canada, more than half of Burnaby's population, roughly 54 per cent, speak something other than English as a first language. Of those more than 85 languages, Cantonese, Mandarin or simply "Chinese" collectively ranked as the top language, spoken by 54,700 people. The next highest-ranking language was Korean, with 7,145 Burnaby residents listing it as their mother tongue. As for knowledge of Canada's official languages, 194,970 people listed English only, while 11,870 listed both English and French, and 135 listed French only. Roughly 14,500 listed neither French nor English.
Gill acknowledged that Burnaby's demographics have changed over the years.
"I don't have a problem with the different languages. Times have changed since when I was a boy, but the official language of Canada is only English and French," he said.
"Why do these people want to get elected when they don't even know what the official languages are?"
Elections B.C. spokesperson Don Main said there are no rules regarding languages on election signs.
"The only thing in the Election Act about campaign signage is they can't be placed within 100 metres of a voting place," he said. "(Gill) would need to complain to the candidate or the political party."
Janet Routledge, the NDP candidate for Burnaby North, did not want to comment on Gill's argument in particular, but she did explain her rationale for using Chinese characters on her election campaign signs.
"More than 50,000 voters in Burnaby North communicate in Chinese," she said. "Putting Chinese on my signs and in my literature is not a symbolic gesture. Chinese is on my signs and in my literature to make my campaign accessible to as many voters as possible. My goal is to involve more people in the political process."
Routledge said she has campaign volunteers who can speak various languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu and French.
"If there's anyone who feels excluded from this election because they don't understand the language of this election, then my campaign will make every effort to communicate with them in their own language," she said.
"Since I've been campaigning, which is almost two years now, I've gone to a lot of doors that are opened by people whose grasp of English is limited," she added.
