Crombie Promises a Process

- David Crombie, second from left, with his Chief of Staff, Ron Doering, far left, meeting with the Vancouver JCCA Redress Committee, Japanese Language School, January 1987. (Photo: Tony Tamayose)

By the fall of 1986, the Negotiation Team, which had been specifically formed to work with Jack Murta, was dissolved, and its place the NAJC council established a Strategy Committee both to advise the Council on how to proceed and to plan the future course of the redress movement.

This NAJC Strategy Committee first met with David Crombie and Ron Doering in Toronto on December 22, 1986, at which time Crombie announced his intent to make a recommendation to the Prime Minister on both a procedure to arrive at a settlement and the elements of the redress package.

Although aware of the NAJC’s Redress Proposal of May 1986, and the Redress Questionnaire showing support for compensation in a combined individual and community form, Crombie asked for time to meet privately with some individuals and groups in the Japanese Canadian community.As he explained, he wanted to understand redress personally, so that his recommendations would be based on face-to-face discussions with those directly affected by the injustices.

The NAJC had opposed similar requests by Murta and Jelinek to “consult” with individual Japanese Canadians directly, but Crombie’s easy going manner, and his apparent desidre to work with the NAJC, were effective manoeuvers on his part. The NAJC agreed to his request, pulled back, and waited.

Crombie began by meeting with a few “high-profile” individual Japanese Canadians of his choice to listen to their personal views on redress, although he remarked that he would also talk with ordinary Japanese Canadians, such as his dry cleaner.He spoke with Tom Shoyama, former Deputy Minister of Finance, Joy Kogawa (author of Obasan), Ken Adachi (author of The Enemy That Never Was), and Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama whose work includes the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto, Toronto’s Science Centre, and the Metro Toronto Library.

Responding to pressure to include the west in his personal consultations, Crombie made one visit to Vancouver, On January 16, 1987, he met with the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizen’s Association (JCCA) in the historic Japanese Language School on Alexander Street, in the very area that was the original site of the mass uprooting in 1942.There, already some five months after assuming responsibility for redress, he reiterated that he would soon recommend – he “hoped” in February – a process to reach a settlement.

By then, however, his credibility amongst Japanese Canadians was beginning to wane.In his Vancouver meeting he was evasive, vague, and uncommitted when asked about the real issue – compensation to individuals who had suffered injustices and who were still alive.There were no signs that his position would differ substantially from his predecessors.

- Justice in Our Time: The Japanese Canadian Redress Settlement. (1991). pp. 101-102.