{"id":253643,"date":"2020-05-01T04:57:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T08:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=253643"},"modified":"2020-05-01T04:57:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T08:57:27","slug":"anti-asian-racism-floats-in-canadian-political-scene-amid-covid-19-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/01\/anti-asian-racism-floats-in-canadian-political-scene-amid-covid-19-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Asian racism floats in Canadian political scene amid COVID-19 crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FDerekSloanCPC%2Fvideos%2F250111502808327%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=560\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nAs Canada joins the different parts of the world in battling the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, the issue of racism surfaced in politics, particularly for the Asian community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDr. Theresa Tam, Canada\u2019s Chief Public Health Officer, has failed Canadians. Dr. Tam must go! Canada must remain sovereign over decisions. The UN, the WHO, and Chinese Communist propaganda can never again have a say over Canada\u2019s public health!\u201d this was how Derek Sloan, Conservative Minister of Parliament for Hastings\u2014Lennox and Addington, captioned his online video commentary posted on April 22.<\/p>\n<p>He demanded Tam\u2019s dismissal, questioning if she is working for \u201cCanada or China.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As of writing, the video has not been taken down despite the backlash it received for his supposed racism versus Tam, a Hong Kong-born Chinese.<\/p>\n<p>Canada\u2019s face in this health crisis, Tam is described by the federal government as \u201ca physician with expertise in immunization, infectious disease, emergency preparedness, and global health security.\u201d She\u2019s been working as the top doctor of the government since 2017 and has played key roles in Canada\u2019s response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), pandemic influenza H1N1, and Ebola.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8216;Without apology&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a recent statement, Sloan stood firm by his stand and emphasized that he did not and is not &#8220;questioning Dr. Tam&#8217;s loyalty to Canada. There was no intention to question it. In addition, I never once mentioned Dr. Tam&#8217;s race or sex.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said that the question regarding whether she works &#8220;for Canada&#8221; or &#8220;for China&#8221; was a rhetorical question. Sloan also said that he was not questioning Tam&#8217;s loyalty but was questioning her and the Prime Minister&#8217;s &#8220;competency to do the job, not their motives.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FDerekSloanCPC%2Fposts%2F139822750944058&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"501\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As reported by Quente News, Sloan also insisted that his \u201ccomments were about serious mistakes made by Dr. Tam early on in the COVID-19 crisis and had absolutely nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or gender.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He explained that it is his job to \u201cspeak the truth\u201d and said that the media just turns any comment \u201cinto a charge of racism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Focus on COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tam, for her part, had said that she is a \u201cpretty focused person\u201d and this is why right now she is just focused\u00a0 to work with her colleagues \u201cto get this epidemic wave under control.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t let noise sort of detract me from that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also lambasted the \u201cintolerance and racism\u201d of Sloan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMillions of Canadians of all different backgrounds who are working together\u2014many, many of them on the front lines to help their fellow Canadians\u2014deserve better than this,\u201d he had said last week.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer refused to comment on the issue last week, but on Monday, April 27, aired out in a press conference, that he does not agree with Sloan\u2019s position and that that is also not the position of the caucus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe it not appropriate to question someone\u2019s loyalty to their country. I believe that is a very serious accusation that you have to have some very substantial evidence to make,\u201d Scheer added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Petition vs Sloan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An online petition by Justin Fung in change.org is making rounds against Sloan in regard to his stand.<\/p>\n<p>The petition mainly demands three things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Derek Sloan and the Conservative Party of Canada apologize to Canadians and Dr. Theresa Tam for Sloan&#8217;s racist statements against her.<\/li>\n<li>Derek Sloan&#8217;s immediate resignation as MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington.<\/li>\n<li>Andrew Scheer and the Conservative caucus remove Derek Sloan from the Conservative Party and remove him immediately as a MP for Hastings-Lennox and Addington.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As of May 1, the signature count has reached almost 11,000.<\/p>\n<p>Fung\u2019s petition can be found on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/andrew-scheer-demand-derek-sloan-s-resignation-for-his-racist-comments-against-dr-theresa-tam\">this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Canada joins the different parts of the world in battling the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, the issue of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":253651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253653,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253643\/revisions\/253653"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}