The Editor,
Re. “SD43 China trip is on hold — for now” (The Tri-City News, March 7).
In a country where human rights and rule of law are dirty words, two Canadian citizens have been arrested on national-security grounds and a third one was sentenced to death.
On the other hand, reporter Diane Strandberg in The Tri-City News informed us that a planned trip to China for School District 43 trustees and officials remains on hold.
She also wrote: “Board chair Barb Hobson said the trip, which was to have taken place this month, has been postponed and the situation continues to be monitored.”
Does Coquitlam Trustee Hobson and the rest of trustees know what patriotism implies? Do she and the other trustees understand what conflict of interest means?
Why do trustees have to go to China every year and not to countries with a culture similar to ours if they really want to bolster relations between education officials?
In December, a Glacier Media article informed the public: “Multiple Canadian universities — including two B.C. schools — are using computing services or accepting money from controversial Chinese tech giant Huawei despite repeated warnings from the country’s intelligence service of Chinese companies’ possible involvement in state-sponsored espionage.”
Likewise, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) said in an academic outreach report last May: “Beijing will use its commercial position to gain access to businesses, technologies and infrastructure that can be exploited for intelligence objectives, or to potentially compromise a partner’s security.”
In addition, B.C. has record numbers of birth tourists, mainly from China, and an invasion of foreigner nationals whose questionable millions are displacing Canadians from real estate market.
In view of the above, one has to wonder why the trustees are so excited about going to China instead of heeding CSIS’s advice.
Marta Posilovic, Coquitlam
