Dear Editor:
Re: Candidate under fire for resumé, Burnaby NOW, May 1.
I'm angry, so shame on you, Liberals! I was asked on CBC radio recently: "What makes you angry?" and at the time I went on about my usual frustrations with the political system and how government has failed in its responsibility to govern.
You know, the usual! But that has since changed, or perhaps even been exemplified.
This evening as I sat to review the usual daily news I found a mini flood of articles that had the rare ability to turn my face flush with disgust and shame. Not to mention embarrassment.
The Liberals, in their pitiful drunken-like stumble have chosen nothing too valuable to grasp in their fall, and in this case, that fifth-century vase comes by the name Jane Shin.
Before I continue, let me for a moment, digress. If you were to take a short ferry across the straight to Victoria and spend a day attending an active session of parliament, you would quickly find yourself seeking the nearest Grade 3 gym class for peace and calm. The place is without discipline, without manners, and without any sense of respect for the issues that matter and people affected by them.
It's in simple terms a "me, me, me" madhouse,
which has evolved into a parasitic attitude that now eats its way directly into every election campaign.
I have all along held high respect for the choice Adrian Dix has made to not run a negative campaign, and congratulate him for sticking to it. The Liberals, however, are a different story.
Jane Shin and I have never been competitors so much as colleagues, regarding the other as our NDP/Green counterpart. Starting this race alone together since Christmas, we've crossed paths and easily become friends, with many thoughts and opinions that run parallel. Not once had we an inkling of playing dirty schoolyard games. We promised each other a respectable campaign and did even better.
I must admit that to some extent I felt the sudden inclusion of a Liberal candidate in Burnaby-Lougheed as a light rain on our two-person parade, but upon meeting Ken Kramer, I was reassured that it was going to be a wonderful and clean campaign. That has all changed.
Now, I'm going to play into the Liberal method here.
As a son, a brother, a teacher, a friend, an elderly caregiver, a colleague, and now an MLA candidate, I am very protective. Some may even say over-protective. So when the Liberals suddenly throw a flurry of illegitimate attacks, based on rumour and social media, charging my friend with unfounded silliness and even going so far as to request her resignation, I will come to her defense.
This is my riding, I live here, as do (in all obviousness) my constituents, and for bringing this shame to our borders I hold the B.C. Liberal Party in contempt. An opinion I must now stretch to you, Mr. Kramer. Simply claiming ignorance to the pursuits of the party acting for your obvious benefit leaves you far from innocent. You intend to represent the Liberal brand for Burnaby-Lougheed, but so long as you wear the hat of a whipped party, you are the hat.
What do you have to say for yourself as a Liberal? A question every candidate in the Liberal party should be used to by now. But as their representative in my beautiful riding, what's your answer?
Darwin Burns, Green party candidate for Burnaby-Lougheed
