Douglas Jung

Douglas Jung, CM, OBC, CD (鄭天華, pinyin: Zhèng Tiānhuá) (February 24, 1924 – January 4, 2002) was the first Chinese Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) in the Canadian House of Commons.

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Early life

Douglas Jung was born in Victoria, British Columbia, on February 24, 1925. During his childhood, the Government of Canada passed numerous pieces of legislation that disenfranchised Chinese in Canada. Jung and a group of young men from British Columbia enlisted in the Canadian Army during World War II in order to change the status of Chinese Canadians.

Although Jung enlisted himself in the Canadian Army back in 1939, he did not receive his first assignment until 1944, mainly because politicians in Ottawa and Victoria did not want to deal with the issues of enfranchising the Chinese after the war. However, Winston Churchill's wartime Special Operations Executive recruited Jung and a group of Chinese-Canadian soldiers who were sent to British Malaya to train local guerillas to resist the Japanese Imperial Army occupying Malaya and Singapore.

After the war, Chinese in Canada were enfranchised in 1947. Veterans Affairs Canada provided funds so that Jung and his Chinese-Canadian comrades could obtain a university education. Jung graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1953 with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws degrees. He was called to the British Columbia Bar in 1954.

Political career

Douglas Jung joined the Progressive Conservative Party in...
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