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OK: The man who became the minister, the lead minister on the negotiations was David Crombie, who was the Secretary of State, and he, in effect, took this over from the minister responsible for multiculturalism and he carried the file. There was an incident that occurred in this period of time that had an indirect impact on everything, and that was the Meech Lake discussions.

TI: I'm sorry, say that...

OK: The Meech Lake discussions, which were constitutional discussions between the government of Canada and the provinces. And those, the Meech Lake Accords, the agreement that came out from the provinces, conferred a special status on Quebec. It recognized Quebec as a distinct society. It did other things that were eventually very much in disagreement in Canadian society, but it had an effect indirectly on the thinking of people in Ottawa. David Crombie was, as I said, the Secretary of State, the lead minister. He had an executive assistant named Ron Doering, D-O-E-R-R-I-N-G, who... I'm conflicted whether I should be generous or not. Who thought he knew a lot about this issue. He didn't know very much about it, but he thought he was knowledgeable. He, in fact, was profoundly ignorant about ethnic relations in Canada, and said, over the course of many discussions, some really stupid things. But he was convinced that Reagan and the Republicans in the United States would not settle anything. No question in his mind, he said he had great ties to people in the Republican party, he spoke to people in the conservative caucus who had great ties to the Republican party. The Prime Minister had a special relationship to Ronald Reagan, and everything they knew said, "Reagan and company are not gonna settle with the American Japanese Americans." I knew a member of Congress, a man named Lloyd Meads from the second district in Washington, and I had spoken to Meads, and Meads told me they were gonna settle and there would be individual compensation. I went back to Crombie and said, "This is going to happen." Doering right in front of me said, "Absolutely not, this will not happen, I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's wrong." I must admit I was not absolutely sure of Lloyd Meads' information, after all, he was a Democrat. But he was a pretty knowledgeable individual and a bright guy. So I kind of had my doubts, but I was inclined to believe what Meads was telling me. Crombie basically accepted Doering's position, and so the instructions to Anne Scotton and company were, "All we're going with is a foundation at the very most with an endowment, and that's it. No individual compensation."

I said something in that meeting, the Deputy Minister was in that meeting, a man named Jean Fournier, myself, Doering, and the minister. And I basically, what Crombie was saying was, "These discussions or negotiations are at an end. This is as far as we're prepared to go. If the NAJC is not prepared to accept that, then that's the end of it. We're cancelling everything." And I looked at the minister and I said that, "If you stop this process in this way, your government will have no moral authority on any other issue again. I thought the Deputy Minister was going to have a heart attack on the spot. You don't talk to a minister like that, but I felt very strongly about it, extremely strongly, that you could not say to the NAJC, who had entered into the negotiations in good faith, laid out their demands, it's not like they were secret or anything. And the government, according to what Crombie said at the time, was prepared to end the negotiations. This was in the fall of '86 or the spring of '87, my memory is a little faulty on this. It was either late fall or late winter/spring of '87. I thought then my role was, I'm dead. I got called to the deputy minister's office after our meeting with the minister and was dressed down, saying, "You never, ever speak to a minister like that." And, in fact, I was told, "You won't be sitting in meeting with the minister anymore on this, and probably any other issue." I was feeling both somewhat despondent, but not overly concerned, because I could always go back to my job in Vancouver. That job was sitting there waiting if I returned, as it turns out, I did. I told the deputy minister some months later that I wanted to return to Vancouver, that I didn't think I could do anything more useful here. And in June of '87, I did return to Vancouver, and not too long after that I went on leave and went to teach at the University of British Columbia.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.