Despite having served as the provincial Solicitor General in Canada's British Columbia and as a police chief, veteran law enforcement figure Kash Heed is stunned by the racism he has faced while running for Mayor of the city of Richmond.
Kash Heed became an Indo-Canadian councillor in Richmond in 2022 and decided to run for the mayoral seat in an election scheduled for Saturday. He previously made history as the first person of Indian origin to head a police department in North America when he assumed charge of the West Vancouver force in 2007, and his extensive career in British Columbia spanned nearly 40 years before he later served as the province's minister of public safety and Solicitor General.
Despite his decades of public service and having lived in Richmond for 60 years, Heed stated he was entirely unprepared for the fresh challenges and ethnic targeting he encountered during the campaign. Remarking on the hostility, he noted that while everyone encounters prejudice at some point, he had never experienced racism to this degree in all his decades in the city.
The abuse has emerged from an unexpected direction in a city where the majority of residents are of Chinese descent. Heed pointed to specific online material, including a social media post in Chinese stating that 60 percent of Richmond voters are of Chinese descent and would only support candidates of Chinese descent, mixed descent, or those with Chinese spouses, adding the claim that they were merely upholding cultural values rather than acting out of racism. Another online poster explicitly declared they would definitely not vote for India's street vendors.
Heed, 70, noted that these derogatory messages have circulated widely across both Chinese-language social media networks and mainstream platforms such as X and Facebook. He criticized the rhetoric for trying to divide the electorate along ethnic lines rather than evaluating candidates based on their proven experience and qualifications.
While acknowledging that the outcome of the mayoral election remains unpredictable, Heed expressed hope rooted in the cosmopolitan nature of the city and the deep-seated multiculturalism of the community. Even as his campaign remains steadfast in sharing its message, he lamented that the local political race has unfortunately descended into a sad place.