The Editor,
Re. "Ambition beats commitment" (Opinion, The Tri-City News, Nov. 27).
The Tri-City News, in the above-referenced editorial, harshly criticizes Coquitlam councillors Linda Reimer and Selina Robinson for their stated intentions to run in the forthcoming provincial general election - alleging opportunism and abandonment of the citizens who elected them to their current offices.
The law does not require mayors or councillors to step down in order to be MLAs; there's nothing cast in stone that councillors cannot finish out their terms or even stand again while MLAs. Having said that, depending upon what their new roles, if elected, finally entail, there might be inordinate scheduling or other conflicts that prevail upon them to step down as councillors, again - exactly as for any other job.
I can find no fault with this. We should, rather, all thank councillors Reimer and Robinson, and indeed those many others, for their service, and their commitment and dedication already demonstrated, and not revile or rebuke them for their willingness to leverage their experience and take on more.
The underlying thesis here, however, is that no one should stand for an elected office while they hold another one. It's an impractical, excessive, standard, particularly given how municipal, provincial and federal cycles overlap.
It is not at all reasonable, nor is it in the public interest, to ask someone who has something to offer to sit it out from one role on the off chance that something else might turn up, or that they might secure a nomination for some different role somewhere down the road.
We already have too few people willing to step in, subject themselves to churlish and unfair criticism of this kind, and pour their souls into their jobs for us.
Ron McKinnon, Port Coquitlam
