George Pearson long-term care home gets new name over his anti-Japanese views

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VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Coastal Health authority says it has changed the name of a long-term care home that was named after George Pearson, a B.C. politician who stoked anti-Japanese sentiment during the Second World War.

The health authority says the former George Pearson Centre has been renamed the Oak Care Centre “to better reflect the diversity of the communities the organization serves.”

The facility opened in 1952, and the authority says that in 2021 the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association “expressed concern” about the centre’s name because Pearson led the charge “against the rights and enfranchisement of racialized people, including Japanese Canadians, in the 1940s.”

The health authority says Pearson’s beliefs and actions run counter to its inclusive values and commitment to “Indigenous cultural safety, anti-racism, and equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Vancouver Coastal Health president Vivian Eliopoulos says renaming the facility was “deeply meaningful.”

A 2020 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the National Association of Japanese Canadians says Pearson was part of a B.C. delegation to Ottawa to lobby for the “forced eviction” of the Japanese population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 16, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press