With Olivia Chow’s announcement that she’s running for Mayor of Toronto, we revisit her foreword to the 2019 collection, Putting Family First: Migration and Integration in Canada.

My father was an excellent teacher who rose to become a school superintendent in Hong Kong’s Department of Education. Speaking fluent English and with a teaching certificate recognized in Canada, he assumed he would have no trouble finding a job when he, my mother, and I emigrated and moved to Toronto in 1970.

Well, no.

There were too many out-of-work teachers at the time, and the job market was poor. So he did some supply teaching, and when he couldn’t make a living, he drove taxi or delivered Chinese food. After two years of struggling to find meaningful work, he suffered a nervous breakdown. And he became abusive towards my mother.

For her part, my mother, too, had been a qualified teacher in Hong Kong. But she couldn’t land a job here in her field either. Because she needed a job to help make ends meet, she had to forego her study of English as a second language and never did get the chance to learn English properly. So, my mother worked in a hotel, first as a maid and then as a helper in the basement laundry department, where she hauled heavy, wet sheets and linens all day long.

Years of hard work. Unfulfilled dreams. Pain in her hands from manual labour. The sum of it all made her a bitter and negative person, as did the beatings my mother endured as a result of my father’s fragile mental health.

As my parents struggled, our home life became a war zone. I was a young teenager in high school, and I naturally sought help from the guidance counsellor. But he had no relevant training or understanding of the plight of immigrant children. So rather than counselling, resources, and assistance, I received no help at all.

I often wonder what things would have been like if the immigration laws and settlement services had been different; if my father had received better mental health care and employment counselling; if my mother had been provided transit fare and a living stipend while she was studying English; if there had been counselling support when the violence intensified; or if I had had access to resources that might have helped our family. The little psychiatric help my father received did not involve supporting the family. My father, Wai Sun, passed away in January 2018 never having recovered from the nervous breakdown he suffered after he arrived in Canada. How might things have been different for him, and for all of us, with better immigration policies and settlement services?

This is a question that has dogged me my entire life and had driven my career. While I studied fine art at university, and made a good living as a trained artist, I was always drawn to other work that reflected my experience: I had jobs as a settlement-services worker, as an advocate for new immigrants and refugees, and as an English-as-a-second-language teacher. I joined the board of directors of immigrant service agencies, helped started the Chinese and South Asian legal clinic, and pushed for language-specific mental health services. I then worked in the immigration field as an assistant for an MP specializing in immigration law. Later, elected to public office in Toronto, I remained obsessed with this issue. I eventually became an MP and the NDP critic for immigration and citizenship, all because – as I see it now – I was haunted by the thought that if Canada had had more humane, holistic, and family-oriented immigration policies, the life of my father and mother and I would have been dramatically altered.

And yet, my family was among the fortunate. Because we were a family. And as dysfunctional as our family might have been, we were able to support one another in our own ways. Chinese people arriving at the turn of the twentieth century did not have the luxury of relying on family members. Chinese men were recruited to work on the railroad, which united Canada from sea to shining sea, but they were not allowed to bring their families with them. And when the task was completed and their labour was no longer needed, they were sent back home. Those who chose to stay could not bring their families here. Such forced separation caused untold hardship to thousands and yet, many years later, even with an apology from Parliament, Canadian immigration policy is still economically driven rather than family-driven. And the forced separation of families causes immeasurable emotional distress. It also causes financial hardship. And when family reunification is possible, the definition of family is very narrow and does not reflect the needs and realities of so many.

My mother, Ho Sze, is now ninety-four years old and lives with me. If we had an immigration policy that recognized the fundamental importance of family, I would have been able to sponsor my brother to come to Canada to help me take care of her. But no, Canada’s arbitrary definition of family excludes brothers and sisters, sons and daughters over twenty three years of age. It also does not include uncles, aunts, or cousins.

Recently, my eight- and six-year-old granddaughters and I made sushi together, and the next day I visited the zoo with my two stepchildren and their kids. I carried the six month old and felt her heartbeat with mine. I am known as Grandma Ollie by my four grandchildren, and our relationships are as deep as can be. Both of my stepchildren, who live close by, visit often. We celebrate Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Thanksgiving together. But according to Canada’s immigration laws, the grandkids I have from the two stepchildren I have with my late husband, Jack Layton, would not be defined as part of my family since I am not their parents’ natural birth mother.

This book answers the question that has driven me through my career and that continues to haunt me today. If migration is a family affair and if policies were developed with this reality in mind to meet the needs of families, what benefits might accrue to Canadian society? The powerful insights and recommendations found in the pages that follow illuminate the ways in which our regressive policies could be remade. These essays challenge us to imagine and implement holistic settlement services and policies that measure outcome, happiness, and the ability to prevent needless suffering and oppression.

Every immigrant family has its own stories, good and bad. It is my great hope that what this book brings to light will assist every member of every new family welcomed into the fabric of our extraordinary society so that the good outweighs the bad – for every immigrant, for every family, and for every Canadian.