In the 2019 Burnaby South byelection won by federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, federal Liberal candidate Karen Wang sent messages on Chinese-language social media platform WeChat that said she was the only Chinese candidate, while Singh was “of Indian descent.”Wang stepped down from the race when the post was reported in English media.
Falcon, who has previously called himself a supporter of “safe injection sites,” said Wednesday that his party supported “supervised consumption sites,” and he had spoken to Wat about her comments.
“I think that she would be the first to tell you that she didn’t express it as perfectly as she intended to,” Falcon said, adding that he believes Wat — who is the B.C. Liberals’ Shadow Minister for multiculturalism, anti-racism initiatives, arts and culture — misspoke and made an “honest mistake.”
“I’m very comfortable she has not formed a new position or (was) suggesting that we have a different position as a party.”
B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau said she is more concerned that the incident signals intensifying partisanship in the Legislature, taking attention away from dealing with the drug crisis itself. Wat’s comments first surfaced in English media through the B.C. NDP caucus’s YouTube and Twitter channels.
“Unfortunately, when we see that become more and more of the so-called debate that we are having, which is trying to pitch parties against each other and wedge them, this doesn’t do well to serve the people of this province who we are supposed to be serving,” Furstenau said.
Black said that a politician can’t lose sight of their job of representing their party’s views, especially in a multicultural society where communication is increasingly through languages other than English and French.
“You must represent ideas that you do not necessarily believe or that your audiences may not find comfortable and that’s the burden of leadership,” said Black.
Multicultural Meanderings 