Randall Sun-Kue Wong

In 1981, Randall Sun-Kue “Bud” Wong became the first Chinese Canadian federally appointed judge. Judge Wong now serves on the Supreme Courts of British Columbia, the Yukon, North West Territories and on the Nunavut Court of Justice.

Born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1941, Justice Wong received a bachelor’s degree in commerce in 1965, and earned a LLB the following year. He served as the first Chinese Canadian provincial crown counsel in Canada in 1967, eventually becoming a B.C. provincial court judge in 1974.

In an address to the Association of Chinese Canadian Professionals (Vancouver) in 2006, Judge Wong reflected on the early years of Chinese Canadians practising law:

“Even in the 1960s, not many Chinese-Canadians studied law as a career.  UBC Law School only graduated one or two Chinese-Canadians out of a class of sixty students per year.  Andrew Joe was the First Chinese-Canadian who graduated from UBC Law . . .  and was the first to be admitted to The Law Society of B.C.  Most Chinese-Canadian lawyers practised in Chinatown and were primarily solicitors and not litigators.  None were employed with major law firms in Vancouver until the late 1970s.”