Delta South provincial election candidates talked about racism issues in the community during a virtual all-candidates meeting Wednesday night.
Hosted by Delta’s Organizing Against Racism and Hate (OARH) committee, the session featured NDP candidate Bruce Reid and Green Party candidate Peter van der Velden.
Liberal Party candidate Ian Paton was unable to participate as he was attending a previous campaign engagement.
OARH member Rhiannon Bennett facilitated the discussion via Zoom call and broadcast live on Facebook.
Reid and van der Velden were provided with a four-minute introduction during which the candidates spoke briefly about their experiences with racism and discrimination.
Following questions regarding their inherent privileges, the candidates were asked to describe what actions they have taken to shun racism.
Reid said his experience was centered in education, specifically teaching within the Moosonee First Nation in Northern Ontario. During his time there he said he tried to make sure that everyone was treated fairly and equally.
“My journey has been one of curiosity, possibly regret that I hadn't been more active and aware in the past,” Reid said.
Van der Velden also stated a level of remorse saying his experience with racism and discrimination were limited.
“I have to express a certain level of ignorance in that my learning curve has been much steeper in the last 15 to 25 years,” he said. “The only experience I have was coming here as an immigrant and learning to deal with prejudice and seeing it within the community of immigrants.”
Next the candidates were asked what they will do to address racism in the community.
Van der Velden pointed to the Green Party’s focus on education as a solution to racism in Delta.
“We can only equalize our society if we have equal opportunities in education and I think that if we do that through our government,” he said.
Reid also had thoughts of addressing racism through education, but on a larger scale.
“I think we've got to get more involved in educating the general population,” Reid said. “The general population receives very little education with regard to racism and hatred.”
One of the bigger questions of the evening asked candidates if they supported the removal of police from school settings, out of mental health initiatives, off Indigenous lands and the redirection of police funding to community-lead harm reduction initiatives.
“There's no question our policing needs to change,” van der Velden said. “Our policing has been stuck in a form and I'm not so sure that it has progressed.
“Communities around the world have shown that specially trained people augmenting the police force can be very effective at dealing with these issues and I think those are the kind of changes that if we're not looking at them we're not growing.”
Reid drew on his experience with police in the education sector when he provided his answer.
“I've had many, many years of being in the schools and working with the police liaison officer and the police liaison officer in my experience have been there to help students understand that the police are there to protect them,” Reid said.
Both candidates said they supported the creation of tribal police forces if First Nations communities wanted their own policing.
The Optimist caught up with Paton during a Liberal Party campaign announcement by leader Andrew Wilkinson Thursday morning in Tsawwassen.
He said his feelings towards racism were very clear: “There's absolutely no place in Canada, in the world, in British Columbia for any sort of racism or discrimination,” Paton said.
