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Long way from tolerance

Dear Editor: Many thanks for your ongoing coverage of the Burnaby school board's controversial policy 5.

Dear Editor:

Many thanks for your ongoing coverage of the Burnaby school board's controversial policy 5.45 addressing gender identity and homophobia, the backlash against it, and, most alarmingly, the business of the death threat recently given to a Burnaby teacher that has followed from this.

The vocal opposition to this policy and resulting threats of violence are sobering indicators that we as Canadians appear to be a long way from achieving the tolerance for which we are meant to be known, and not the enlightened nation that we once thought we were.

More shocking yet is the formation of a municipal party whose platform appears to single-mindedly embody this backlash.

Malignant attitudes like this are not conducive to either community building or nation building; rather, they do quite the opposite. Such small-minded intolerance is an impediment to these goals, and it simultaneously reminds us of how dangerous intolerance of minorities can be. The march toward being a nation of progressive thinking and with unified purpose, sadly, may yet be long one.

Art Price, Vancouver