Biography: Douglas Jung
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Douglas Jung was born in 1924, in Victoria, BC. Under the Chinese Immigration Act, the government required all people of Chinese origin, whether or not they were born in Canada, to register for an identity card. This identity card did not confer citizenship.
“There was no such thing as a Chinese Canadian. The Chinese — even if they were born in Canada — didn’t have the right to vote, weren’t recognized as citizens, couldn’t practice certain professions.” — Douglas Jung
Despite this discrimination, in 1944, Jung was one of 12 or 13 Chinese Canadians who volunteered for Operation Oblivion. This was a British Special Operations Executive plan to send troops from Chinese backgrounds behind enemy lines in Japanese-occupied China as spies and saboteurs. These soldiers became part of a group called Force 136.
Jung trained in BC and Australia but was injured in a parachute exercise. He remained in Australia as an intelligence instructor. Operation Oblivion was eventually cancelled, but many members of Force 136 served in Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia. After the war, Jung studied to become a lawyer. He was called to the BC bar in 1954.
Jung entered politics for the Progressive Conservative party in 1956. He lost a provincial by-election, but in the 1957 federal election he unseated Liberal defence minister Ralph Camney, earning the nickname “the giant-killer.” Jung was the first Chinese Canadian member of Parliament. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker named Jung chairman of Canada’s legal delegation to the United Nations. When he took his seat at the UN, an usher told him he must be sitting in the wrong place, as that spot belonged to the Canadian delegate. Jung replied, “I am the Canadian delegate.”
As an MP, Jung spearheaded amnesty for the many Chinese living in Canada without legal status, who had joined their families during the period when the Chinese Immigration Act was in place. He also supported the creation of the National Productivity Council (now the Economic Council of Canada) and of the Coast Guard. Defeated in the next two federal elections, Jung returned to his legal career.
Douglas Jung died in Vancouver in 2002.