Kerry Jang is a Canadian politician, currently serving on Vancouver, British Columbia's City Council. He currently serves as a Director of the Greater Vancouver Regional District Board.[1] He was first elected in the 2008 municipal election. Before entering politics, Jang was a professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia.
Contents |
Born and raised in Vancouver,[2] Jang was the eldest of three siblings.[3] His father, Leslie, was a Vancouver School Board plumber for 20 years, and his mother, May, had an administrative career with the Provincial Court of British Columbia, taught Chinese cooking, and sold cookware.[2] Jang's paternal grandfather had three wives, of which Jang's paternal grandmother was third, and twenty-one children.[3] Jang's grandfather made a fortune as a merchant after immigrating from China, but lost it all in the Great Depression.[3] Jang's maternal grandfather was a pig farmer in China and became a tailor after immigrating to Canada.[3]
He attended Renfrew Elementary School[3] prior to Windermere Secondary School, where he was not a very good student.[2] He worked on improving his academic record at Vancouver Community College and then transferred to Simon Fraser University to complete his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Psychology.[2] He completed his education with a Ph.D. in Personality Psychology[4] at the University of Western Ontario,[2] where he initially studied under the highly controversial J. Philippe Rushton, known for work on race, intelligence and penis length.[3] Jang witnessed the censure of Rushton, and attributes the experience to understanding the role of protests in shutting down non-popular views.[3]
In September 2006, Jang announced that he planned to seek the federal NDP nomination for the Vancouver Kingsway Riding, after being called by Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP.[5] The incumbent was David Emerson, who had crossed the aisle to the Conservative Party after the earlier election in 2006.[5] Jang subsequently backed out of the race.[6]
Jang was one of three elected officials who served on Homeless Emergency Action Team,[7] which conceived the controversial[8][9][10] Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT) shelters.
Jang and his wife Vicki live at the corner of 16th and Nootka[3] in the Renfrew-Collingwood area of Vancouver. They have two children, Nicholas and Rachel.[2]
|
|||||