Dozens of KKK flyers found around Chilliwack raise concerns of racism

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      Dozens of racist flyers bearing the name of the KKK have been distributed around Chilliwack in recent days.

      “Loyal white knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” they read. “Yes! White lives do matter!!! ‘We must secure the existence of our people & a future for white children!”

      CBC News reported that one of the pamphlets was delivered with a bag of rice. The Chilliwack resident who found it outside his home, Cameron Kenis, told a reporter he worried that his home was targeted because his fiancé is of a Chinese background.

      “It was this little Ziplock bag with rice in it and then a little note,” Kenis told CBC News about the flyer.

      He said he checked his neighbours’ properties to see if they had received similar packages. Kenis said they had not and that this added to his concern for his house being targeted.

      “I was kind of shocked that you'd see something in this day and age, in our community, something like that,” Kenis continued. “It was a little bit concerning.”

      Chilliwack RMCP confirmed that the flyer Kenis found was one of “dozens”.

      "The RCMP take these complaints seriously and the Chilliwack RCMP general-investigations-section team is in the initial stages of their investigation," Cpl. Mike Rail of the RCMP’s Upper Fraser Valley regional detachment told CBC News.

      Flyers drafted by an obviously different author but also of a xenophobic nature were distributed around Nanaimo in May 2015 and again in September of that year.

      Flyers distributed in Nanaimo claim home sales to foreigners will lead to the loss of the city "we know and love".
      Putting Canada First

      Those documents were drafted by a group called Putting Canada First. They called attention to advertisements for real-estate agents that included signage written in Chinese.

      “Say goodbye to Nanaimo… forever!” one of those pamphlets reads. “Or… at least say goodbye to the Nanaimo we know and love!”

      The same group details a campaign on its website that calls for the District of West Vancouver to adopt a bylaw that forbids advertisements written in languages other than English and French.

      So-called foreign buyers and money from Mainland China are widely blamed for Metro Vancouver’s out-of-control real-estate market.

      B.C. government statistics indicate that over a five-week period in June and July, 10 percent of residential properties sold in Metro Vancouver went to foreign buyers.

      On July 25, Finance Minister Mike de Jong announced the provincial government will collect an additional 15 percent tax on residential real-estate sales where the buyer is a foreign national or a foreign-controlled corporation.

      Today (July 29), the Angus Reid Institute, a polling firm, reported that 90 percent of Lower Mainland respondents are in favour of that tax.

      The KKK flyers do not mention housing or immigration. But they come at a time when some Asian Canadians living in Metro Vancouver say they feel a growing sense of racism directed toward them in relation to rising housing prices in the region.

      In recent weeks, the Straight has reported in-depth on those concerns.

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