East Indians in Canada

Abstract

*TMie few hundred East Indians who liv§ in Canada have an x international importance out of all proportion to their numbers. It is as difficult to explain to Canadians why their treatment is resented in India as it is to explain to Indians why they do not enjoy full political rights in all parts of Canada. Within a few years, and perhaps within a few months, India will decide whether to remain within the British Commonwealth or to secede from it. In decisions of this sort emotions play as strong a part as reason and any display of sympathetic consideration by a British Dominion may have more influence than cold calculations of military expediency and economic advantage. Equal rights could be given to East Indians in Canada by changing two or three words in a statute of the Province of British Columbia. There are.no disqualifications in the other provinces and practically all the disqualifications in British Columbia would disappear automatically if persqns of East Indian race were eligible to be placed on the voters' list. So would the disqualification for voting in federal elections in British Columbia. When the Legislative Assembly is in session forty-eight men and women have it in their power to make the decisive change. Indians naturally ask why they don't do it. No noticeable change in Canadian life would occur if East Indians were enfranchised in British Columbia. Less than 1,700 persons are concerned including children, who would not be able to vote because of age. By no means everyone entitled to vote troubles to get his name placed on the list and by no means everyone whose name is on the list actually votes. At most a few hundred votes would be cast by East Indians in provincial and federal elections. Even if these votes were cast in the most objectionable way conceivable (and there is no reason whatever to expect that this would be the case) they could make no appreciable difference to Canadian political life. If the direct consequences of enfranchising East Indians are negligible the indirect consequences must be examined. We