Dear Editor
Sponsored by Voice of Burnaby Seniors, the Sept. 28 all-candidates meeting was attended by about 60 of us seniors. Predictably, the Conservative candidate was conspicuous by his absence. However, the four attending candidates – Green, Liberal, Marxist Leninist, and New Democratic – didn’t seem to mind that what’s-his-name wasn’t there to defend his party’s honour.
For the most part, the debate was fairly high-minded and respectful, although the Green and Liberal candidates had a bit of a go at the NDP candidate. But the audience seemed determined not to take sides and politely applauded in equal measure for all. It was a rather pleasant kind of meeting.
That is, until the Green Party decided to inject a moment of “gotcha” theatrics. Lynne Quarmby held up a photo of two woman wearing a T-shirt with the words “I love oil sands”. She stated one of them was an NDP candidate and declared this was why voters could not trust the NDP on the question of the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. But, as I found out the next day, all was not as it may have seemed.
The candidate in question is Melody Lapine, running in the Fort McMurray-Cold Lake riding, right smack-dab in the middle of the oil sands. Ms. Lapine is a member of the Miskew Cree First Nations and, in accordance with her community’s decision, for the last 12 years has been working to ensure the Miskew Cree people benefit from oil sands mining of their traditional lands.
That decision would seem to reflect the intent of Green Party policy: “We will work … to ensure that the responsible development of Canada’s natural wealth benefits all Canadians, beginning with the consent of the peoples on whose traditional territories they exist.”
Although the objective of flashing the photo at an all-candidates meeting was to embarrass the NDP, it seems to me that the Greens should be embarrassed instead. Most certainly it doesn’t bode well for future relations with First Nations.
Bill Brassington Sr., Burnaby
