276 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 2 MARCH 2021
Robert Tadashi Banno, Q.C.
With the passing of Robert Tadashi Banno, Q.C.,
Canada lost one of its most prominent Japanese
Canadian lawyers and a leader of the bar in the
advancement of our multicultural heritage. At the
time of his death on June 16, 2020, Robert remained
at the height of his professional life as an active senior
partner at DLA Piper and continued to play a key
role in the Japanese Canadian community. His practice included acting for
some of the largest Japanese companies. He also had a large First Nations
practice, having done corporate and commercial work for many of the
bands in this province.
Robert was born March 9, 1943, approximately 14 months after Pearl Harbor
and within a year of Canada’s declaration of war on Japan. It was a time
of pervading racism and paranoia against the Japanese, which led the government
of Mackenzie King to make orders-in-council resulting in the
internment and dispossession of the livelihoods and assets of thousands of
Japanese Canadians, about 22,000 of them in British Columbia. This was all
done without a scintilla of evidence that any one of them had an inclination
to be disloyal to Canada. The Japanese Canadians, most of whom were born
in Canada, were forthwith moved to internment camps in the interior of the
province.
This included Robert’s father, Edward, a young dentist building a practice
in Vancouver, and his wife, Mata, who were moved from Vancouver to an
internment camp at Tashme near Hope, British Columbia. Their eldest son
was Robert, who was born in the camp. Two more sons followed: Victor
became a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, and Dale became a lawyer like
Robert. Dale sadly passed away less than six months after Robert died. A
later Advocate piece will celebrate Dale’s life.
I had the pleasure of knowing Robert most of my life. Following the family’s
release from the Tashme internment camp, they moved to Kamloops,
where Dr. Ed Banno set up a successful dental practice and all three sons did
their elementary and high school education. Robert and I were friends in
grade 1 at elementary school, through high school, and through several years
at UBC including three years of law school. From there we both articled in
Kamloops, I for a brief period before transferring to Vancouver, and Robert
at Millward and Company, where he remained in practice for a short time.