It was quite fitting that six of nine Coquitlam School
District 43 Trustees jetted off to China when they did.[1]
At the time of their departure President
Xi Jinping was busy manipulating the constitution to put an end to term limits,
so he would become president-for-life, which he is now: the eternal leader,
above the rule of law.
Similarly, our school trustees continue to ignore consistent
public opinion and the rule of Canadian law as expressed in British Columbia’s
Community Charter, which among other things is intended to regulate “gifts” to our
civic officials - and implicitly, as well, to our school trustees. How do I know this? Because our civic leaders and our trustees
are decided in the very same community elections.
So our school trustees seem to consider themselves immune
from any B.C. regulation while travelling with so-called “support” of the local
Confucius Institute. It is funded by China’s Communist party government (which has turned to the “soft”
cover of Confucius to make itself appear more palatable) while the overseas
students from China just happen to supply a mere 10% of SD43’s annual
budget.
I suspect our school trustees are the only ones in British
Columbia with such a deep conflict, because no other public school district in
the province has fallen for a Confucius Institute. The only other exception in Canada is the
Confucius Institute at the K-12 School Board in Edmonton, and the one linked with
the New Brunswick Department of Education.
Toronto rejected the alleged opportunity.
I am also told that adults are supposed to be role models
for the young, but the tainted leadership at SD43 teaches us that we don’t have
to pay attention to the inconvenient regulations or ethical concerns of B.C.
democracy. From my perspective, our local
school trustees – and school board officials - are doing a deplorable job of
instilling ethical virtue and conscientious respect for the rule of law among
their charge. But, as we all know, such style
of leadership is a commonplace, nowadays.
