Film and television producer and author Jinder Oujla-Chalmers said while the book covers much about early Sikh-Canadian history in BC as it does about Asa Johal and his business and family life, the final result is not the book she wrote as her version had the really juicy bits, including all the family drama and fights. Obviously, the family wasn’t happy with that version of the book and furiously objected to it – it was ultimately the publisher Harbour Publishing which decided to go with a tamer version of the Johal family history.

 

 

By R. Paul Dhillon

SURREY – When film and television producer and author Jinder Oujla-Chalmers first began writing the biography of the original Sikh-Canadian lumber mogul Asa Johal, she wasn’t sure that she had enough raw material and definitely the background knowledge regarding the role the lumber industry played in the early development of the Indo-Sikh-Canadian community in BC.

 

“When I was approached to write this book through Asa’s family (she’s related to the Johal family through marriage), I wasn’t quite sure but one thing I wanted to do my get our collective history right because in the bigger picture it’s important to tell our individual stories through our collective history in Canada,” Oujla-Chalmers told DESIBUZZCanada.

 

Her book Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products: How A Sikh Immigrant Created BC’s Largest Independent Lumber Company isan intimate look at the personal life of one of BC’s preeminent economic and philanthropic leaders.

 

In the book, Oujla-Chalmers describes Asa, who she says is a shy guy, and his wife Kashmir’s arranged marriage (they did not meet before their wedding day), the ins-and-outs of their family life, Asa’s estrangement from his father, and the relationships they have with their own children. We also learn about Asa’s other accomplishments—he was the first Sikh to become a member of the Order of Canada—as well as his philanthropic nature.

 

While the book covers much about early Sikh-Canadian history in BC as it does about Asa Johal and his business and family life, the final result is not the book she wrote as her version had the really juicy bits, including all the family drama and fights. Obviously, the family wasn’t happy with that version of the book and furiously objected to it – it was ultimately the publisher Harbour Publishing which decided to go with a tamer version of the Johal family history.

 

 “I had a different vision for the book than Asa’s family and I felt it told the family’s story, warts and all, after two and half years of research and writing and five rewrites, but the publisher felt that the first book on that time of immigrant business history shouldn’t be about the latter part of the family’s history and ultimately we decided to publish the version that we all felt was the right one,” said Oujla-Chalmers, who is now writing the fiction tale The Lies My Mother Told Me as well as working on a series about Komagata Maru tragedy.

 

 

The final book does a good job telling a classic “rags-to-riches” story of a man, who’s net worth has been estimated to be in the billions. Asa immigrated to Canada as an infant from a small village in Punjab, India. His parents were hard working, but they were very poor, and faced much hardship and discrimination.

 

Asa started working at the age of twelve to help his family and left school at fourteen for full-time work. He started his first company (Queensborough Fuels) when he was just eighteen. He has been running businesses and founding companies ever since, until his retirement in 2016 at the age of ninety-four.

 

 

Oujla-Chalmers said it’s a strong representation of the importance of diversity in Canada. She describes the conditions in BC at the beginning of the 1900s, including the 1907 bill that disenfranchised all natives of India not born of Anglo-Saxon descent, legislation that impacted the Punjabi community for the next forty years, preventing them from voting, holding public office, practicing in skilled professions such as law, and even creating their own lumber companies. The author also touches upon immigration issues, the Komagata Maru incident and discusses how discrimination affected members of the Johal family.

 

A detailed, inside account of the forest industry and the many people, events and decisions that have made Terminal Forest Products the successful company it is today. Among other topics, Asa shares his thoughts on unionization of the workforce, softwood lumber disputes, and his colleagues and competitors in the industry.

 

In this extensively researched book, Jinder Oujla-Chalmers provides an intimate and revealing look at one man’s against-all-odds journey to multi-faceted success, and the surprising inside story of one of British Columbia’s most successful entrepreneurs and philanthropic leaders.

 

Asa Singh Johal immigrated to Canada with his parents as a toddler in 1924, and he first started dreaming of owning his own mill when he was twelve years old, working with his father operating a portable mill in Alta Lake. When Johal later founded Terminal Forest products in 1965, he was determined to build a thriving business. It was a difficult journey. Johal faced many challenges along the way, from getting a timber supply and establishing markets, to navigating complex political situations, economic recessions, and all the permutations of the softwood lumber dispute. But through it all, Johal established himself as a force to be reckoned with among the predominantly white-owned and white-run forestry giants of BC. And after the restructuring of the Canadian forest industry at the beginning of the 21st century, when many of the other major players vanished into memory, Terminal Forest Products was still standing, stronger than ever.

 

 

Part biography of Johal and his traditional Sikh family, part intimate look at the evolution of the modern lumber industry, this book is an inspiring story that details Johal’s hard work, perseverance and the discrimination he experienced, as well as the many decisions and choices Johal made over the years that helped him become the successful business leader he is today.

 

Author Jinder Oujla-Chalmers is a freelance writer, film and television producer and documentary director. She is currently working on a miniseries based on the events of the Komagata Maru and is a board member of the Writers Guild of Canada Diversity Committee and the Toronto Film, Television & Digital Media Board.  She won the Sondra Kelly Screenwriters Award in 2019.

 

 

The book Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products: How A Sikh Immigrant Created BC’s Largest Independent Lumber Company is currently available in bookstores and online.