MLA Linda Larson. (File photo)
MLA Linda Larson should apologize to supporters of a national park for calling them “crazy people” and “extremists,” says Spencer Chandra Herbert, the B.C. NDP environment critic.
Chandra Herbert was reacting to statements that Larson, the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen, made in recent media interviews in which she referred to national park supporters as “the crazy people out there.”
Larson also said people who write frequent letters to the editor expressing their views are “extremists.”
Larson made those comments to Osoyoos freelance journalist Roy Wood in a story published last week in the Penticton Herald.
She made the comments when asked about a secret committee she established to review public submissions on the provincial government’s Intentions Paper, which proposes a national park reserve in two areas of the South Okanagan.
Last week, she announced the work of the committee, which she called a “focus group,” will not proceed and “will be disbanded immediately.”
Her decision to disband the committee came on the same day that the Osoyoos Times published names of four of its five members, showing that two members belong to groups opposing a national park and two claimed to be neutral.
While the fifth member of her committee has not been identified, none of those named are national park supporters.
“Since announcing the creation of a five-person focus group to seek … input, it has become clear the idea has become a distraction from the thoughtful and needed debate that must occur,” Larson said in an emailed statement. “Therefore, I am announcing that the work of the focus group will not proceed and will be disbanded immediately.”
The Osoyoos Times sent an email to Larson last Thursday morning asking her whether Wood’s quotes attributed to her were accurate and offering her a chance to respond. She did not reply.
Chandra Herbert said the best political leaders are those who bring communities together.
“They don’t try to divide and name call and bully those they may disagree with,” he said. “You should be trying to bring your community together, especially over an issue like this that has divided the region for so many years.
“She’s the one acting badly here. She should apologize for it. If I was to try that with my constituents, calling them names and being pretty rude about it, I couldn’t show my face on the street. I would feel that I let down the kids in my neighbourhood because here we all put on pink shirts for anti-bullying day and say ‘don’t be a bully, don’t name call.’ Yet the local leader is doing exactly that.”
Chandra Herbert said part of an MLA’s job is to hear from people with diverse viewpoints.
“I think people who write letters to the editor have just as much right to be involved in helping make a better province than those that don’t,” he said. “Yet she seems to see them as enemies.”
Chandra Herbert admits that before entering politics he often wrote letters to newspapers arguing for solutions. This, he said, is a sign that people want to be involved in their communities and it shouldn’t disqualify them.
“What she is suggesting, that somebody writing a letter to the editor is an extremist, that’s pretty inflammatory, especially considering what we’re seeing across the world where there are real extremists doing horrible things,” he said.
He also took exception to Larson’s characterization of national park supporters as “the crazy people out there.”
“It’s completely irresponsible and just plain mean to call people you disagree with ‘crazies,’ suggesting they have mental illnesses,” said Chandra Herbert. “The MLA needs to take a big step back and just accept that there are going to be people who disagree with her and that’s okay. You can learn from that.”
He notes that the government, unlike Larson, has listened to pro-park people and not thought of them as extremists, because otherwise it would not have put out the Intentions Paper.
Some of Larson’s harshest words have been directed at Doreen Olson, co-ordinator of the South Okanagan-Similkameen National Park Network (SOSNPN).
In various media interviews, Larson said members of her committee couldn’t be named because this would subject them to harassment. And she singled out Olson as someone who would be phoning to harass them.
“That’s ridiculous because I simply wouldn’t be harassing those people,” Olson responded. “I doubt that I would even have contacted them.”
Olson said she is pleased that Larson has disbanded the committee, which Olson doesn’t believe could have reviewed the public submissions objectively.
“It’s about time that she did that,” said Olson. “I think that people of the area were getting quite angry and wanted to know what was going on.”
Larson told a CBC interviewer recently that Olson only objected to the committee because she wasn’t invited to sit on it. But Olson said she wouldn’t have wanted to be part of a secret committee and she objected to the process.
Asked what she thought about Larson’s suggestion that people like Olson are “crazy people,” Olson chuckled.
“I think there’s a lot of crazies around here then,” she said.
She pointed out a scientific poll released last spring found that between 65 and 75 per cent of people, depending on the area, support a national park.
As for Larson’s suggestion that people writing letters to the paper are extremists, Olson strongly disagreed.
“That’s quite shocking because if you’re not allowed to speak up, there’s something wrong with democracy,” said Olson. “Does that mean we should all just sit around and not say anything?”
Olson said she thinks Larson is taking the issue personally.
Former Osoyoos mayor Stu Wells, who supports a national park, said Larson’s committee was unfair and seemed intended to allow Larson to claim she consulted local people.
“She’s finally done the right thing,” Wells said in response to Larson’s decision to disband the committee. “It was really, really a mess. There was just so much conflicting information between her and (Environment Minister Mary) Polak. It was really hard to understand what was going on. It was just filled with unfairness.”
Wells noted that none of the named committee members were supporters of a park or came from Osoyoos and said these omissions were “glaring.”
“I thought it was very unfair to the citizens of Osoyoos,” Wells said, noting that Osoyoos town council has passed unanimous resolutions supporting the park on several occasions.
“When I looked at the structure of the disbanded committee, there were two people in strong opposition and two people struggling to find neutrality,” he said.
Wells noted that even if Oliver realtor Beth Garrish, a committee member, tried to be neutral, it would be difficult for her because she has business clients in Oliver where the strongest opposition to the park comes from.
“One of the keywords in this new age is ‘transparency,’ and there certainly wasn’t any transparency there,” Wells said, referring to the secret process.
Wells agreed with Chandra Herbert that an MLA should not be calling people “crazy.”
“We look to our elected politicians to be leaders,” Wells said. “There certainly was no leadership exhibited through this whole process. We in Osoyoos deserve it and there’s a lot of people in Oliver that are also pro-park. Leaders shouldn’t be showing their bias as blatantly as Linda has.”
The MLA, he said, “should take a step back and reevaluate what she’s doing because the residents of the riding deserve better.”
At least, he said, the Christmas break will give Larson a chance to pause, catch her breath and to “change feet.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
MLA Linda Larson has called supporters of a national park reserve “crazy people” and said people who frequently write letters to newspapers are “extremists.” Some of her strongest attacks have been directed at park advocate Doreen Olson (pictured). (Richard McGuire file photo)
Former Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells chats with Spencer Chandra Herbert, the provincial NDP environment critic, in a photo taken in October 2014 when Chandra Herbert visited Osoyoos to discuss the national park issue. Both are critical of MLA Linda Larson’s comments calling national park supporters “crazy people” and “extremists.”. (Richard McGuire file photo)
