'This is hate': West Vancouver homeowners, local MLA want racist land covenants removed

When Michele Tung applied to renovate her West Vancouver home, she had to obtain the original land title from the 1950’s. She knew some homes of that era in the British Properties had racist land covenants, but was still shocked to see it right there in black and white.

“Upon reviewing the document, there was a clause that said no cows, no pigs were allowed on the property. Below that, it said no one of "African or Asiatic" descent was allowed to reside or occupy the premises, unless they were a servant,”said Tung, who added the first thing she felt was humiliation.

“Here is a document that says someone of my skin tone, of my ethnicity is inferior to someone of a lighter skin tone. I am coming below that of animals, farm animals. It’s very dehumanizing,” said Tung.

While the race-based covenants were deemed illegal in the 1970s and aren’t enforced, some homeowners say the language is hurtful and should be removed entirely.

“It’s no question these are racist, they are hateful covenants, and they do not represent the current society’s values,” said West Vancouver resident Yashar Tashakkor. “Unless somebody takes leadership and voices that this is important and something needs to be done, I don’t think it’s going to be done on its own.”

The homeowners now have an ally in West Vancouver-Capilano MLA Karin Kirkpatrick, who has tabled a private members bill asking the provincial government to take action.

“They are the ones that manage the land titles, and they’re the ones that can change the law to allow us to remove these covenants altogether,” said Kirkpatrick.

Currently the convenants are simply being crossed out. Tung and Tashakkor say that’s not good enough.

“I think it’s important that we completely get rid of them to demonstrate what our society stands for and what is important,” said Tashakkor.

"There needs to be some sort of legislation change in terms of actually removing the language versus just striking them out,” said Tung. “So having MLA Kirkpatrick championing this is just amazing.”

If the NDP government backs the Liberal MLA’s private members bill, the challenge will be locating all the properties with racist covenants. Kirkpatrick is confident it can be done.

“There is a lot of technology now that allows us to search out and find these covenants” she said. “It’s going to be a big project, but I think it’s the provincial government’s obligation to take it on.”

Tung is hopeful it’s going to happen, and looks forward to getting a new land title document without the racist covenant.

“There is no place for language like this,” she said. “This is hate, this is not of our times, and we need to move beyond that.”