One of the most shocking and disconcerting statements in your paper about the recent elections in Chilliwack (second only to the distressing low voter turnout itself) was the assertion by your editor that school trustees are not elected to represent the members of the local community: “Even if it were true, which it is not…,” is how Mr. Henderson unequivocally puts it (Editor’s Notebook, Oct. 21, 2022).
READ MORE: OPINION: Dear newly elected Chilliwack trustees, please make school board boring again
Silly me. Here I thought the foundational idea behind democracy and the reason we hold elections, is to give the people a voice, to elect women and men who best reflect their ideals and values and who will make decisions, spend money and implement policies based on those values.
Carin Bondar is to be congratulated for receiving the most votes for a trustee, 8,888 of 17,338 votes that were cast. But her votes were only 12.7 per cent of the 69,997 eligible Chilliwack voters and her agenda or platform can hardly be argued to be a meaningful representation of the opinion or wishes of all the people of Chilliwack.
Turns out it really does not matter in any case. The role of a Chilliwack public school trustee apparently is to simply implement the ideology, the values and the priorities of media influencers, government bureaucrats and teacher union bosses. They are the ones who know best what our children need and what they should think.
Perhaps the smart Chilliwack voters were the ones who used a fine fall election day to walk their dog or dig up the last of the carrots in the garden, and did not waste it by waiting in line at a voting booth.
Ross McQuarrie
• Send your letter to the editor via email to editor@theprogress.com. Please include your first and last name, address, and phone number.
• READ MORE: Chilliwack Progress Letters