Dear Editor:
Some post-election thoughts: 35 years ago, when I was two weeks old, my parents moved from Vancouver to settle in Burnaby, partly for work reasons (my dad laboured in the old Crane Canada plant on North Road) and partly for its convenient central location in the Lower Mainland. As my mom tells it, "Burnaby was in the middle."
Over the past month, I found myself in the middle of a tough election campaign - a campaign punctuated by extremes.
Words like "intolerance" and "fear" threatened to drown out "understanding" and "friendship."
But that's not what I know Burnaby to be. That's not my neighbourhood.
That's not what I saw block after block as I canvassed all over our city, meeting optimistic and hopeful citizens from every walk of life.
Ours is a community that celebrates its differences and draws strength from its diversity.
That's the Burnaby I grew up in, and that's the one I stood up for in this election for my son to grow up in.
This campaign's done, and now those of us who care about Burnaby and its schools will each need to take some steps to come together - "in the middle" - in the best interests of all its students.
Harman Pandher, Burnaby school trustee-elect
