Editor:
Re: Mayor’s slate holds majority on council, Oct. 25
Lois Jackson has been the mayor of Delta since 1999. She finished second among 20 candidates for Delta council in the recent civic election.
After the election results were counted, she was quoted as saying that she was looking forward to her new role as an elder on council in the Indigenous tradition and sharing her knowledge with other councillors.
Really? What an ignorant thing for a person of white privilege to say in a public space, especially right here in Delta, which sits right next door to the Tsawwassen First Nation.
At 80, Jackson is still not self-aware enough to realize that she has been sitting in positions of power for the last 45 years: first as a municipal councillor in Delta, then as the mayor and now as a city councillor again. She has obviously taken this for granted.
Apparently, she still cannot see that the only people who can look at the world through an Indigenous lens are Indigenous people. Therefore, the only people who can be elders, and pass down their knowledge to others in the Indigenous tradition, are Indigenous people.
Jackson certainly chose her words poorly when she made this statement.
She will never be able to learn how to be an elder on council, and share her knowledge with other councillors in the Indigenous tradition, because she is not an Indigenous person.
A. Cameron
