1990-10-12
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852 845 2870
LA GAUCHI
When Cheung put himself up for clec- tion as mayor of the French-speaking capi. tal of North America, the then 50-year-old real estate broker knew he was chancing his arm. After all, when you accuse the locals of racism, you can't expect to make many friends.
The greying, yet still youthful, Cheung explains that he had taken up the slog of City Hall politics because he wanted to make a point. "The world is changing and the multi-cultural side of Canada has to be given a political voice, even here in Montreal," he says.
"I didn't really expect to win," says Cheung of his 1986 election bid, yet it brought him considerable local attention and a not unrespectable third place in the occasionally boiling cauldron of Montreal politics.
Being mayor of Montreal, as with most North American cities, entails becoming the czar of the town, with the personal power to make or break thousands of projects and careers; and given Cheung's idealistic turn of mind, he might well have been unsuited to the job. Like Martin Lee, whom he admires greatly, Cheung is not made for the inside track. He is probably too prickly, maybe too honest.
A father of three including one daughter who is a lawyer in a Canadian firm in Hongkong and another who is dat- ing David Steele, a member of the pop group, Fine Young Cannibals Cheung feels that maybe now is the time to pass the torch to the next generation. His son Douglas is studying in Western Canada and, at age 19, has become president of his mainstream university Liberal Party.
"That Douglas can achieve things like that shows we no longer have to prove our 'Canadianness'. That is a great thing," says Cheung.
Yet it clearly worries Cheung to be regarded as an outsider, and that's what drives his political life and may do so for
many years to come
The rainbow coalition" of blacks (including a number of Haitians), Chinese and Anglophones - native English speak- ing-Quebeckers that made up his Mon- treal Democratic Alliance Party was creat ed to help "people to feel full members of this society”.
"To me the reality of Canada should represent not only its English and French facets but also the country's aboriginal past, as well as its multi-cultural future. I believe there is really too much of a hang- up over the French/English thing."
Cheung points out that the "visible" Canadian cultural minorities will make up more than 50 per cent of the total popula- tion by the year 2000. “There will be 18 per cent French, 30 per cent English and there will be the rest of us. To be bilingual and bi-cultural is not enough. We must all be multi-cultural."
Yet he sees French-speaking Montreal as the only place to be, thanks to the Cana- dian duality. "If you don't speak French, you can forget about being prime minister or president of the Bank of Canada or tak- ing a government posting at the United
Nations." But in Toronto or Vancouver, he continues, most kids learn only English
a language "any fool" can learn in the right environment. “In Montreal, my kids were able to speak English and French and retain most of their home language."
Not that Cheung is tri-lingual himself, After 80 years as a resident in Quebec, he is only now really making an effort to learn French. "At the age of 54, I think it is
about time."
Although he faces an exhausting 17- hour flight to Hongkong, Cheung still makes the trip at least twice a year.
"I go home to Hongkong because that is where my roots are, whatever else hap- pens. My wife's family are the Chow Sang Sangs the gold kings of Hongkong-so if everything goes wrong here, there would always be something else."
The listener feels he might be using irony, but there is also an element of truth in what he is saying.
For informed non-Pure Laine (pure- blooded) Quebeckers these days, there is a feeling that politically things could yet go drastically wrong if the turbulent relation- ship between French and English Canada finally turns completely sour. So oddly enough, for the real estate broker, oft- beleagured Hongkong still holds an element of salvation.
Cheung had left the University of Hongkong following a year's foundation study to take a maths degree at the Univer- sity of British Columbia, later going on to study dentistry at Montreal's McGill Uni- versity in 1959. But he left after two years
"I didn't like dentistry. It didn't suit me" - and went into teaching for about a decade.
Establishing himself as something of an elder in the small world of Chinese Mon- treal, he ran as a city councillor in 1982 and then for mayor in 1986.
Talk to some of the other luminaries in Montreal's Chinese community and the hose of I es Immeubles Sincere Inc is either
praised excessively or given very short shrift indeed.
"Ken Cheung? Oh yes, that man thinks an awful lot of himself and he tries to speak for us but, you know, I think he could have done more harm than good over the years. Maybe not for Ken Cheung, though," comments one community leader.
That may or may not be true. Certainly Cheung lives in a comparatively wealthy. suburb, some way from the heart of China- town. But so do most of the city's successful Chinese businessmen.
Yet after a couple of hours' conversa- tion, you can see how the mild-mannered Ken Cheung could raise a few hackles. In a rather un-Chinese way he speaks his mind. telling not only his private world what is good for it but also the greater community.
Every so often, he emerges with an acer- bic comment: "French-Canadians love their cars more than their homes so it is easy to see why they would be willing to pay for their parking space rather than their housing." Cheung said he was merely pointing out that there was more money to be made in Montreal by investing in car
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