The Editor,
Re. “Off to China they go, again” (The Tri-City News, Feb. 23).
It was quite fitting that six of nine School District 43 trustees jetted off to China when they did. 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 China’s 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 Confucius Institute. It is in turn 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 10% of SD43’s annual budget.
I suspect our school trustees are the only ones in B.C. with such a deep conflict because no other public school district in this province has fallen for a Confucius Institute.
I am also told that adults are supposed to be role models for the young but the tainted leadership at SD43 teaches us 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.
Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore
