Dear Editor:
An open letter to Mr. Bill Chu, CEO of the Canadians for Reconciliation Society,
Clearly, Mr. Chu, you do not consider New Westminster parents to be among the "legitimate" stakeholders who have a vested interest in the Douglas Road Cemetery, that which is the current NWSS site; sadly, that is not only unfortunate, it is wrong. That you so boldly assert that the school-project announcement 'plays' parents against the many stakeholder groups of the historic cemetery is provocative and offensive and, further, it minimizes their importance in the process; the reality is that New Westminster parents and children are not only stakeholders, they are the stakeholders who are most directly impacted by the cemetery issue.
Honestly, I have to ask, by what authority do you assign parents such a diminished status in this process? Who are you to compartmentalize today's New Westminster parents in a manner that suggests they have no concern or a lesser connection to those whose final resting place may be on the high school site - the First Nations or asian persons, the poor, the imprisoned, the mentally ill, stillborn babies, etc.? It is my understanding that you arrived in Canada in 1988 and so I wonder, by whose authority do you function, your own? Fact: many of the families who currently reside in New Westminster have been here for multiple generations, including my own, and by my simple math, the likelihood that these families have a possible connection to the cemetery is significantly higher than yours.
Please, at this point, I think it is important for you to publicly recognize and acknowledge that, from the beginning, the objective of all involved parties is (and has been) to honour and respect those whose remains may be buried on site; to continue to stir the pot and suggest otherwise is irresponsible. The true irony here is that your self-promoted "title" implies that your quest is for "reconciliation," but your involvement in this issue has been confrontational and divisive, almost from the start.
In my opinion, as spokesperson, you do a disservice to your group (what are the membership numbers for your group? I wasn't able to find out). Mr. Chu, I would like to suggest to you that perhaps you ought to join or follow the lead of Mr. Hilbert Yiu, president of the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver (established in 1875, with current membership numbers being in the thousands); his public message was not only sensitive to the complexities of the situation, it was authoritative and optimistic.
So, instead of demanding that the new high school be constructed on an alternate site in a city where no such land parcel exists, or calling for the resignation of the province's minister of education, please Mr. Chu, if you intend to stay involved in this issue, for the benefit of all, please adopt a more balanced and reasonable approach to this very challenging process. In closing, I would like to say to all involved stakeholders; now is the time for common sense and common decency to prevail. That is, while it is impossible to undo past wrongs, as a mark of integrity, it is possible to avoid future wrongs. Together, we can acknowledge historic wrongs and simultaneously build bonds to strengthen our futures. Really, at this point, it's just a matter of all stakeholders having the sensitivity and "political" will to do so.
Lisa Graham, New Westminster
