Activist criticizes Canadians for 'anti-China sentiment' and 'white supremacy,' becomes federal judge

A legal activist who lamented the “shameful history” of John A. Macdonald and opposed citizenship tests is now a federal judge. Avvy Yao-Yao Go had been director of a Toronto law clinic that criticized Canadians for "anti-China sentiment and white supremacy."

Justice Go, in a 2020 commentary in the Globe & Mail, described herself as a lawyer "fighting for social justice" and cohesion. "The past several years of turmoil both in the United States and Canada have taught us our democracy is fragile and that structured racism, if left unchecked, poses a serious risk to social cohesion," wrote Go.

Attorney General David Lametti appointed Go to the bench on Friday. Lametti, in a statement, said he was confident she would "serve Canadians well."

Go was director of the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic of Toronto. The federally-funded group, in a June 1, 2020 submission to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, complained of widespread racism in Canada.

"In contrast to the image of Canada as multicultural and welcoming, many Canadians have been emboldened to use the pandemic as a license to exhibit hate and racism," said the Joint Submission to the UN. "Moreover, since the outbreak of the pandemic, anti-Asian hate speech has proliferated on social media platforms fueled by right-wing extremists who are using the pandemic as an opportunity to stir up racist ideologies."

"The collision of conspiracy theories, anti-China sentiment and white supremacy has rendered dangerous results, including the movement of racist theories and messaging from the fringe to the mainstream," wrote the Clinic. The group earlier received a $301,904 grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

"While the Prime Minister has remarked that 'hate, violence and discrimination have no place in Canada' and his government stands with 'Asian-Canadians across the country,' his government has failed to take any concrete steps to address the surge of hateful violence and messaging that has arisen during the pandemic," said the report.

Justice Go, in numerous commentaries and letters to editors, criticized Canadians' treatment of racial issues and proposed abolishing the citizenship test as a "hollow screening" of immigrants. "The moment I became a true Canadian was the very moment when I began to challenge the Canadian system," Go wrote in 1998. She was born in Hong Kong.

In a 2014 commentary in the Toronto Star, Justice Go lamented the "shameful history" of John A. Macdonald, "architect of racist law" that saw Canadians "forced to live in nightmarish conditions while Macdonald pursued his dream to unite Canada."

"Given the stark human rights record under his belt, why should Canadians celebrate John A. Macdonald’s birthday?" wrote Go.

In a 2013 letter to the Globe, the judge wrote: "The term 'visible minority' is fraught with issues, the key one being it uses 'white' as a standard against which everyone else is measured."

"As we prepare to mark Canada Day, Ottawa must admit past wrongs particularly against Chinese-Canadians," she wrote Toronto Star editors in 2003. Justice Go was one of thirteen new federal appointees named to the bench Friday.