Dear Editor,
[Re: Williams Park reprieve, Langley Advance Times, Oct. 26]
How did we get here? While politics has always been a blood sport, it seems the negative rhetoric has ramped up considerably in the past few years. Why are we no longer civil to our elected officials?
The Oct. 26 edition of the Langley Advance Times featured an article about the fate of Christmas in William’s Park being in jeopardy. The article reported that the Township Mayor and Council had received letters calling them ‘trash people’.
Unfortunately, this was because some had concluded that the mayor and his council were unwilling to help save this popular community event. This was not the case and thankfully, meetings were held and a workable solution for this year has been worked out.
I was a community activist in the 1980s and 1990s and while we didn’t always agree with the mayor and council of the day, we always had a civil discussion without the name calling. Either we came up with workable solutions, or we voted them out.
In my opinion today’s ‘attack dog’ politics and angry rhetoric is causing our society to decline, because it is discouraging young people from entering public service. While this seems to be especially true in the United States, we are fortunate to have young people serving on both Langley councils. But for how long? Will they get tired of the negativity and give up public service? I hope not, because we need them.
I may be naïve, but I think we need to go back to a time when despite how passionate we felt about an issue, we can be civil and respectful. We need to stop referring to our elected officials as trash or worse.
We can do better than this.
Lilianne Fuller, Langley
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