“You’d think that this isn’t needed in 2022, but it absolutely is.”
That was Councillor Garth Frizzell, as the Prince George City Council meeting on Monday addressed The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination next week (March 21st).
Frizzell and Councillor Susan Scott brought forward motions to condemn hate and racism, but also for City staff to bring forward plans in June to take the next step in addressing discrimination.
“We have seen some tremendous moves forward, but tremendous moves backwards too. A lot of hate motivated incidents, we’ve seen municipalities, smaller ones in our region having national scandals with some of their takes on race and some of their ways of treating vulnerable people,” said Frizzell.
Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb stepped down from the Regional District Board back in November after a post he shared on Facebook on “the other side of residential schools”.
“Into this mix, we’ve seen a lot of opinions expressed, and flags, symbols of hate, being flown along side them,” added Frizzell.
Scott said the polarization we’ve been seeing across the country needed to stop.
“Especially the last 12 months in our culture and around the world, we’ve become very deliberate about I’m right, and you’re wrong. And the way that our language has played out around this is just increasingly unacceptable.”
Councillor Brian Skakun said they’ve seen some of the brunt of this hate.
“I mean, it is timely. If you look at the hatred that gets expressed towards politicians, I guess in our case when we talked about the Safe Streets Bylaw, and some of the hate emails we got, some of my council colleagues were confronted in person over this.”
“People have just become so emboldened that this hatred just seems to have taken over. And it’s so unfortunate that political things have divided families now more so than ever,” added Skakun.
Councillor Cori Ramsay was glad to hear that City staff would come back with some more steps to take, noting that action was more effective than grandstanding.
“I get asked quite often how do you sit around this table with people who disagree with you on important issues? Each person here, we’re elected to debate one another, it’s basically like fighting with your siblings sometimes.”
“We all are coming from a place that we think is best for our community, and so you can’t get mad about someone coming from a different position, because they are just doing what they think is best,” added Ramsay.
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