Burnaby Parents' Voice may have been defeated in the 2011 civic election, but spokesperson Gordon World is still happy with the results.
"We were ecstatic," World said. "We were not a party three months ago. We formed a party, we had a shoe-string budget, and our top person was about half of what BCA's bottom person was in terms of the popular vote there. To do that with no budget in three months was an incredible who secured 13,438 votes.
World said there were a few factors that undermined Parents' Voice getting a candidate on school board, including mayor Derek Corrigan's "personal attacks" against Parents' Voice candidate Charter Lau. Corrigan expressed concerns in the media about a Christian website Lau was linked to that published questionable comments on Muslims and a video against child abuse that used sexually explicit images of children to gets its point across. Another challenge World raised was BCA candidate Larry Hayes's automated phone messages before the election.
"(Hayes) was raising the issue of bigotry, and again, the implication was we were part of that," World said.
While World thinks there was also some vote-splitting with TEAM Burnaby, Parents' Voice worked on mobilizing their own supporters to the polls.
"We tried to grow the pie, not just take the bigger piece of the existing pie," World said.
World also spoke about some of the backlash Parents' Voice has been up against.
"There's been a lot of irresponsible comments on Twitter and other places," he said, adding Parents' Voice election signs have also been stolen and defaced, and someone wrote "homophobes" on one.
"I'm not crying sour grapes about it, but these are factors that certainly had an influence at the end of the day at the polls," he said.
The BCA took all of the city's seats on election night - school board, mayor and council - and re-elected councillor Nick Volkow said he hopes Parents' Voice hears the message.
"They brought people out, but they brought people out who took a look at the message they were trying to deliver: a campaign of fear, a campaign of intolerance, a campaign that targeted new arrivals in this country, a campaign that doesn't understand what Canadian values are," Volkow said.
World said the civic party and the movement will continue, which likely means more Parents' Voice appearances at school board meetings.
"We will continue to be a thorn in their side," World said.
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