Cunningham v. Tomey Homma National Historic Event

n/a, British Columbia
Tomekichi Homma, c. 1900 (© Courtesy of Keiko Tenney-Sean Homma)
Tomekichi Homma, c. 1900
(© Courtesy of Keiko Tenney-Sean Homma)
Address : n/a, British Columbia

Recognition Statute: Historic Sites and Monuments Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. H-4)
Designation Date: 2011-07-19

Other Name(s):
  • Cunningham v. Tomey Homma  (Designation Name)
  • Tomekichi "Tomey" Homma  (Other Name)
Research Report Number: 2008-071, 2009-049

Importance: Provided pre-Charter human rights activists with a compelling illustration of the need for measures that would protect the civil and human rights of individual Canadians

Plaque(s)


Prominent Japanese Canadian Tomekichi “Tomey” Homma fought a landmark legal battle in 1900–1903 against a provision of the British Columbia Provincial Elections Act, which barred Asian Canadians and First Nations from voting. While he won in the lower and superior courts, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, then Canada’s highest court of appeal, upheld the Act, affirming the power of the provinces to disqualify voters on the basis of “race.” The injustice of this legal precedent inspired generations of activists who fought to secure equal voting rights for all Canadians, which was achieved only in 1960.