Hope's grandparents, great uncles and aunts emigrated from China to Victoria, British Columbia in the 1880s as part of a wave of Chinese immigrants working on the railway and in mines.
[1] He left Canada in 1946 to study engineering at the University of Washington, earned his degree, and settled in Toronto.
He won a seat as a Metro Councillor representing Midtown Ward in a 1987 by-election but was defeated the next year, in the 1988 election, by Ila Bossons.
[3] He attempted to return to council again in the 1991 election but was defeated by John Adams in Ward 13 by a narrow margin of 747 votes.
[5] He worked as a consultant for Environment Canada's "green plan" in the early 1990s[6] and pursued a career as a real estate agent.