The Editor,
Re. "Moore, Kim no shows at all-candidates' meeting" (The Tri-City News, April 27).
It is with great disappointment to see an article published about this event without any notice to the four non-profit partner organizations that put it together: Civic Association of Iranian Canadians (CIVIC IC), Tri-City Iranian Cultural Society (TCICS), Society of Iranian Canadian Professionals of BC (SICAP) and Sharif University of Technology Association Vancouver Chapter (SUTA).
At several points in the article, Fred Soofi was quoted and he is referred to as "an organizer with the host Tri-city Iranian Cultural Society" while the reality is that Mr. Soofi holds no official position at any of the organizing partner organizations and what he said described his personal perspective as a participant in the event.
The truth is that an email from office of MP and Conservative candidate James Moore was sent to CIVIC IC, which co-ordinated invitations to all candidates, and during the event, the exact content of the letter was read to the audience on Mr. Moore's behalf.
With regards to event being scheduled on Easter Sunday, we as organizers recognize that it would have been ideal if we could have chosen a different day to maximize the number of people who could have benefited from the event but, given five meetings had to be scheduled in Greater Vancouver in a short span of time, and considering candidate and venue availabilities, the chosen day seemed to be the only available option.
We at Tri-City Iranian Cultural Society, along with our other organizing partners are non-partisan societies and this year, collaboratively, we organized five all-candidate meetings in Greater Vancouver ridings with extreme emphasis on keeping the sessions informative to increase the awareness of the public. All measures were taken to ensure there was absolutely no bias or favouritism for one party or another. At our events, independent candidates with no partisan association were also present.
Araz Rismani, chair, Tri-City Iranian Cultural Society
Kei Esmaeilpour, president, Civic Association of Iranian Canadians
