Joseph Edward Bird (July 16, 1868 – 1948) was a Canadian legal figure. Bird was the primary lawyer, hired by the Khalsa Diwan Society to represent the passengers on board the Komagata Maru in Vancouver, 1914.[1] Bird fought actively against the threat of his clients' eventual deportation, and he made great effort to challenge Canada's highly restrictive immigration laws.[2] Bird was an advocate for equality, and sought to reform the race-based exclusion laws in Canada. Bird attempted to prove that the passengers of the Komagata Maru should have been able to settle in Canada as British subjects, though he was ultimately unsuccessful; public and political sentiments and policies at the time were overtly racist, and the BC Court of Appeal ordered the Komagata Maru to return to India.[3]