When Columbia River Revelstoke NDP chose Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft as their man for 2017’s election a parallel universe arrived in the Kootenays.
The BC NDP’s gender equity policy stipulates that a male NDP MLA stepping down be replaced by an equity-seeking individual, i.e. a woman or a person with minority status.
This policy has given Vancouver Island NDP ‘equity woes’. Their candidate, Georgia Collins, for Cowichan Valley quit so the NDP held a contest to select her replacement.
Their long standing riding association president, Ian Morrison, was barred from running because he’s a man. He quit the party.
“In order to remove barriers for what they call the equity-seeking groups, they’ve raised barriers against heterosexual white males … and that’s the dictionary definition of discrimination,” said Morrison.
Morrison rejects the NDP headquarters “elitist” rules so he’s going to run as an independent.
In Kootenay Columbia we remember former Councilor Ms. Spring Hawes competed with Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft to become the next NDP candidate. She obviously met the NDP criteria.
Mr. Taft, however, had to belong to a minority group in order to be considered for the candidacy.
“The group that I identify with is bisexual,” Mr. Taft said, “It’s something I wanted to keep private. I’m in a heterosexual relationship (and have) a young child.
“An MLA should represent everyone, even those who didn’t vote for them,” Gerry Taft correctly said. “So that’s part of the reason as well that I didn’t think it was necessary to identify with one group and broadcast that out.”
Of course, Gerry’s right. NDP elitist policy forced him to tell the world he’s bi-sexual, which is grotesquely irrelevant to his nomination. His claim cannot be, and must not be, verifiable.
A quintessential social activism parallel universe has arrived in BC. The NDP dogma is unnecessary and wrong.
Jim Abbott
Wasa, BC
Editor’s No:
Jim Abbott was the MP for Kootenay-Columbia from 1993 until 2011.
