Cette photo est probablement tout ce que je savais de Kenneth Cheung, décédé le 1er septembre 2008 des suites d’une attaque cardiaque à l’Hôpital Royal-Victoria à Montréal. Promoteur immobilier, il a été candidat à la mairie de Montréal en 1986, pour attirer l’attention sur le manque de représentation des minorités visibles dans les instances politiques (ce qui est encore totalement vrai aujourd’hui chez les personnes d’origine chinoise, ou asiatique en général).
Voici un extrait de la lettre de Victor Wong du CCNC qui m’a informé de la nouvelle:
It is with sadness that I inform you of Kenneth Cheung’s passing. Kenneth skillfully managed to advance numerous social causes for three decades. I’ve known of Kenneth since the late 80’s when he was helping Chinese students who were stranded here after June 4, 1989. He was very passionate in his advocacy on numerous community and human rights issues. In November 2003, Kenneth was elected as CCNC National Chairperson and his appointment triggered the regional realignment at CCNC. Kenneth was very firm about the principles of redress even though he and his family were not affected by the Head Tax and Exclusion Act. In 2004, Kenneth walked out on our meeting with Hon. Raymond Chan when the Minister insisted that we agree to the Government’s preconditions of “no apology, no individual financial redress.” It was this resolve that steeled many of us to mobilize the head tax families and the Chinese Canadian community to fight back against the 2005 Government-imposed ACE program.
Un obituaire paraîtra dans le Montreal Gazette de demain. Les funérailles de M. Cheung auront lieu ce samedi à la maison funéraire Aaron, au 1031 St-Denis (angle De La Gauchetière).
