Donna Damaso said she took the video on Thursday, August 11 at the Richmond Brighouse station. He says two elderly Asian women were buying tickets and speaking Cantonese to each other when they were confronted by a man. “He decided to come out and confront them and say, ‘You’re in Canada, you have to speak English,’” Damaso said. Damaso said she didn’t know anyone involved, but she was so angry and upset that she had to step in and say something. “It was my first time dealing with a situation like this,” Damaso said. “He’s harassing women so I decided to speak up and tell him it’s not right and he’s racist.” In the video, the man claims to be a lawyer who graduated from McGill University. In June 2020, CTV News Vancouver reported on another video showing a man making a similar anti-Asian rant, who also claimed to be a lawyer and graduated from McGill. Damaso said she was rushing to the airport to catch a flight back to Edmonton and has yet to report the incident to police. He says, however, that he is considering speaking to the police in the near future. In an email to CTV News, Richmond RCMP said they are encouraging anyone who has been a victim or witness to an apparent “hate-motivated incident” to report the matter to them. Doris Mah of the Stand With Asians Coalition says the incident is worrying but not surprising. “It triggers all these emotional feelings because it could have been your relatives, your parents, your mother,” Mach said. “But it’s not shocking to me, because it’s very common. It’s very common in our community and it needs to stop.” The video, which was posted on Saturday, had more than 350,000 views as of Tuesday morning.
