Abbotsfotrd – The Clearbrook Golden Age Society in the Garden Park Tower on Clearbrook Road, is holding an All Candidates Meeting on Friday, September 30, at 7PM.
All Abbotsford Mayoral and Council Candidates have been invited.
But the timing is now being questioned.
September 30 is also Orange Shirt Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
FVN has received a number of queries as to why this could not have been done the day before or after.
Was this a tome deaf move or an honest mistake.
FVN has reached out to Garden Park Tower for comment. John Redekop, the event organizer responded to FVN and chillTV’s request for information. It was simply a matter of availability:
Let me state emphatically that the Clearbrook Golden Age Society and I, personally, fully support the goal of Truth and Reconciliation. The reason why we have scheduled the All-Candidates Meeting for September 30 is very simple. That was the only date that all four mayoral candidates could attend on one of the dates when the Magnolia-Azalea Hall was available. Given that reality, we had no other choice.
I thank you for expressing your concern.
Sara Bremner echoed a number of inquiries that FVN received:
It seems incredibly inappropriate and in extremely poor taste to hold an all candidates meeting on a day intended to be one of mourning and remembrance for what amounts to an act of genocide against Indigenous people. The act of choosing that date will be felt as not only another slight against Indigenous trauma but a demonstration of the lack of care and attention to that trauma by our local officials.
Sara Bremner
