The Green Party has been quick to distance itself from the Burnaby First Coalition after that party announced its candidates for November’s provincewide municipal elections include two leaders of the 2011 battle against the Burnaby school board’s anti-homophobia policy.
Former Parents’ Voice president and spokesperson Heather Leung and former Parents’ Voice school trustee candidate Helen Ward are running on the Burnaby First slate for school board and city council respectively.
Parents’ Voice was a group formed to fight Burnaby’s school anti-homophobia policy, passed unanimously by the school board in 2011.
Vancouver Green councillor Adriane Carr told Vancouver gay and lesbian newspaper Xtra this week that LGBT equality is a “make or break” issue for the Greens and the party would never enter into any sort of coalition with a group like Parents’ Voice.
Carrie McLaren, a former Burnaby Greens candidate, told the publication that the Green Party was not involved with Burnaby First “at all.”
McLaren, however, is listed as a Burnaby First Coalition Society director on incorporation papers filed in Victoria in February, and longtime Green Party activist Bruce Friesen told the NOW at the end of July he was acting as campaign chair for the new party.
And Rick McGowan, another former Green candidate, had also been a visible figure at Burnaby First press events.
McLaren explained to the NOW Thursday that the Green Party had not officially endorsed the individuals’ involvement with the new coalition.
“They don’t endorse anything at a municipal level unless you have an agreement with them and you’re running as a Green Party,” she said. “We were thinking about it originally, like last year, but we didn’t have enough people who had the time to do this right now.”
McLaren said, despite disagreeing with some Burnaby First members’ views on gay issues, she would have been willing to work with them to bring more open debate to city council and school board, both of which are exclusively made up of Burnaby Citizens’ Association members.
“To have actual debate and have an actual opposition, yes, I can work with anybody,” she said.
In the real world, McLaren said, people have to work with people they disagree with.
“Everybody keeps making a big fricking deal about this,” she said, “and it drives me nuts. If there’s one bad apple, the whole barrel is not bad.”
