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VANCOUVER — A posh golf course in B.C.'s Lower Mainland is denying membership to non-English-speaking players, similar to a controversial plan by the LPGA.
The private Vancouver Golf Club, which opened nearly 100 years ago in Coquitlam, B.C., rejects potential members who don't speak English.
The club's general manager, Brent Gough, has said the policy is designed to ensure all members are able to communicate and understand the club's rules.
Gough stopped taking calls on the issue Friday, but he told CBC that the policy was introduced a few years ago after prospective members — in particular East Asian immigrants — started applying with the help of translators.
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"We ask them to go away and take language courses and reapply," he said.
Earlier in the week, news surfaced that the LPGA Tour plans to implement a policy that would suspend players who aren't fluent in English.
The LPGA policy, which will sanction women golfers for not speaking English in pro-ams, trophy presentations and media interviews, faced immediate criticism, including from male golfers who aren't subject to the same rules.
Human rights and legal experts agreed the Coquitlam golf club is likely within its legal rights to limit membership, but Prof. Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto suggested the club has a social responsibility to accommodate — not exclude — immigrants.
"I would be one of the people that would say this is not morally correct," Inzlicht, who teaches a class on the psychology of discrimination, said in an interview.
"Not speaking English does not exclude one from good manners, does not exclude one from being a very good golf player, so if you're really worried about rules and regulations ... there's definitely some other ways of getting around this."
Inzlicht said there are other ways to communicate the club rules, such as translating them or having multilingual members explain them to players who aren't fluent in English.
Courts have already grappled with a private club's right to limit membership.
Last year, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled the province's human-rights legislation didn't apply to another Vancouver-area golf course because the club's services weren't "customarily available to the public."
The case stemmed from a human rights complaint launched by a group of women members who wanted access to a men-only lounge at the Marine Drive Golf Club.
Rose-Mary Liu Basham, a lawyer for the women who launched the case, said the appeal court decision appears to also cover the Vancouver Golf Club policy. The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the case.
"In essence, any so-called private club in B.C. which has a bona fide membership selection process in place, is not covered by the Human Rights Act and is permitted to discriminate on grounds that would otherwise be prohibited (i.e. sex, race, religion, etc.)," Basham wrote in an email.
Teri Yamada of the Royal Canadian Golf Association, the governing body for the sport in Canada, said she hadn't heard of any other clubs with English-only policies.
Yamada said the association doesn't dictate membership policies, but she said its goal is to promote golf to as many people as possible — regardless of their language skills.
"One of our mandates is to promote and grow the game, and the best way to do that is to try and be as welcoming as possible," Yamada said in an interview. "Most of them (golf clubs) are becoming all-embracing."
For example, Yamada said her association recently gave the British Columbia Golf Association funding to translate golf rules into a number of different languages.
Murray Mollard, of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, said private clubs' ability to limit membership falls under the constitutionally protected right to freedom of association.
Still, Mollard suggested there are more than simply legal issues at play.
"There isn't a legal remedy to this problem, but I think that everyone has to acknowledge this is exclusionary ... and, on its face, discriminatory," said Mollard.
"One thing to recognize in Canada's traditions now, we recognize people come from all over the place and some people don't have the same kind of language skills as others, and we try to accommodate people."
