The Burnaby Teachers’ Association invited all but one school board candidate to a get together with local teachers earlier this month.
Independent candidate Elias Ishak was left out in the cold.
“I was informed by another school trustee candidate who expected to see me there,” Ishak told the NOW in an email.
The UBC sociology student, whose platform includes doing away with compulsory education, called the move “petty.”
Local teachers union president Rae Figursky, however, said the Oct. 17 event was “very informal,” and she and the union’s local elections contact (a BTA member elected to deal with elections communication) decided not to invite Ishak because he already had more information available on the Internet than other candidates.
“His website made everything so clear that we chose not to invite him,” she said.
But the content of Ishak’s website and his City of Burnaby candidate profile, which says compulsory education has bred “tyranny” and that students under the current system “suffer, like mice and monkeys in experiments beyond their control,” was not the reason he wasn’t invited to the teacher soirée, according to Figursky.
“People are entitled to have their own opinion,” she said. “It wasn’t any decision about the content of what he was saying; it was that he had so much more information.”
As for denying the independent candidate the chance to connect with teachers at the event, she said only about 15 teachers attended to mingle with the 11 candidates who came out.
“Our executive knew; 22 people knew what decision we had made, and we’re fine with that,” Figursky said.
Ishak, however, said the association’s reason for not inviting him doesn’t make sense.
“My understanding is that other candidates have websites as well, and they were still invited,” he said.
He said he believes he wasn’t invited because he “speaks truth to power,” and the union didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“I expect this sort of thing,” Ishak said, “and I don’t blame the president. It’s not her fault. It’s the fault of our cowardly political culture, which she has to conform to.”
The local teachers union has since sent Ishak a questionnaire to fill out, and his answers will be included in information the teachers’ association sends out about candidates to its members and to teachers from other districts who live in Burnaby.
