This petition is a formal request to cease excavation, construction and engineering activity on the south grounds of St. Ann’s Academy for the provincially-funded Japanese Canadian Monument Memorial Park project.

The main feature of the project is the installation of a 300-foot long marble memorial Wall of Names.

 

 

 

 

This petition acknowledges with regret a period of British Columbia history containing the darkness of a racist process of oppression and internment against the Japanese Canadian people, during WWII and beyond. Land, sociocultural and biological health and safety, community well-being and essential heritage roots were stolen from fellow community members on the BC West Coast. 

The process that occurred has had untold and lasting consequences through history. Its impacts on the Japanese Canadian community and all those connected with the traumas are still felt today. 

We understand the well-meaning intentions of the project and its endeavour to redress trauma. However, the selection of this particular location for the monument wall is problematic for the following reasons:

1.    Use of public tax dollars to destroy a designated “Environmentally Sensitive Area“ which was habitat for identified endangered species.  

2.    Encroachment and violation of setback protections for the St. Ann's Academy Historic Heritage site's municipal zoning designation as the SA-1 St. Ann's Academy District (2005). Applicable zoning 10.32 specifically outlines permitted uses within the District and includes setbacks from Academy Close for future onsite development.

3.  Insufficient local-level public consultation by both municipal and provincial officials.

 

 

 

 

(These signs sit at the entry point of a path into the South quadrant of the St. Ann's grounds, right behind where the path is blocked off for the construction project.)

An invaluable vital organ of the region's sociocultural health, community well being and ecological integrity has been violated. We are saddened that these destructive impacts were overlooked in the context of the project's mission in service to remembrance and reconciliation. 

 

 

 

 

The immediate local residents and workers of this heritage region of Victoria were not informed or consulted about this project. Provincial government employees with offices inside St. Ann’s Academy (the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education & Future Skills) were not made aware in any way that this project was happening until the day the fences and gates were erected. 

This deliberate withholding of human-to-human communication and respect regarding a development project having this scale and scope of negative impact on the land is unacceptable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historically, the site was incorporated with a former playground for children, mostly young girls who were boarding school students at St. Ann's Academy. Some of the St. Ann's Academy residential students were indigenous children who were born mainly in the Cowichan Valley.

 

 

 

(Current sign still mounted at St. Ann's Heritage & Historic grounds now facing the construction site. The hedgerow to the right was excavated by Chandos Construction and became a dump pile onsite. They were not legally permitted to do this.)

The log cabin now located at the Royal BC Museum was originally built on the project site, the first convent of the four original Sisters of the St. Ann's Diocese to arrive on Vancouver Island. These nuns were brought as missionaries and teachers for the school from Quebec, by Reverend Modeste Demers, the Bishop of Vancouver Island. 

 

 

 

 

The Annex teaching, boarding and infirmary building built beside the convent on Academy Close later became the home of the Victoria Conservatory of Music (VCM) between 1979-2001.

 

 

 

 

(Image of artifact found Jan. 14th, resting in a decaying tree in the St. Ann's Arboretum.)

The beautiful ceremony offered at the project site on October 28th by elders of the Songhees, Esquimalt and Japanese Canadian communities was a sacred form of acknowledging harms that have occurred to the Japanese Canadians and all people who have been excluded, oppressed and traumatized throughout history. What seems to have been forgotten by project decision-makers is that the ceremony was named as a Ground Blessing. 

If those responsible for envisioning the project from beginning to end were in touch with the core principles that could make the blessing of the land authentic and enduring, it would have been impossible to proceed with the extensive, damaging process leading to installation of the project’s feature element.

We believe the goal of the project will not be achieved by a marble/concrete wall of names erected on the southern grounds of St. Ann’s Academy. 

We ask that:

1. The site be returned to its former function bordering the St. Ann's District as a pedestrian corridor, offering its original connectivity to and for the community within the context of intersecting, interdependent local neighbourhoods and greenspace.
2. Remaining project funds be allocated to a memorial that redresses historical harms while simultaneously being ecologically sound, respectful of heritage value and zoning—undertaken in consultation with local community stakeholders. 

We expect a formal response from the Ministry of Citizens’ Services and immediate efforts by all decision makers in the Japanese Canadian Memorial Park Project to restore this beautiful, precious and fragile urban landscape in Victoria.

Thank you for your attention and response.

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A longer letter containing all aspects outlined and others was sent to the project decision-makers and leaders on Monday January 19th. For interest and more detailed information, the letter sent to project leaders is available here.

Note that AI was not used to write any text in this petition or letter. The photos were taken with an iPhone and have not been altered in any way by AI.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sign welcoming pedestrians still erected at St. Ann's facing the construction site.)

 

 

 

 

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Recipients of this Petition:

Diana Gibson, Minister of Citizens’ Services
Graeme Sykes, Ministry of Citizens’ Services
Caterina Bova, Ministry of Citizens’ Services
Amna Shaw, Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism Initiatives
Niki Sharma, Minister of the Attorney General, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Branch
Suzanna Tabata, CEO, Japanese Canadian Legacies Society
Michael Abe, UVic Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives, Landscapes of Injustice
City of Victoria:
Mayor Marianne Alto
Planning & Development Services 
Heritage Planning & Citywide Planning 
Grace Lore, MLA Victoria Beacon-Hill
Bruce Kuwabara, KPMB Architects
Kelty Miyoshi McKinnon, PFS Studio Landscape Architects
Elder Mary Ann Thomas, Esquimalt Nation
Carmen Dick, Songhees Nation
Chandos Construction
Hoel Engineering