Film awards pander while schools suffer
Editor:
Re, “Bollywood bash full of bad optics,” Richmond Review, Feb. 1.
This situation is worse than bad optics it is a disgusting case of pandering to an ethnic community at the expense of more pressing needs in our province.
We have families trying to find help for their loved ones with mental health issues but there are no resources available, there is no extra money for school boards desperate to give our children a proper education and no help for the poor and the desperate in our towns and cities.
We have our own B.C. film industry on life support as money has dried up and many are unemployed or leaving the province to go to Ontario and Quebec to find work. Yet our provincial government can find $11 million of taxpayer’s money to fund something called “The Times of India Film Awards” but can ignore these other much more pressing needs.
I believe Christy Clark has dug her own political grave with this decision and will take the Liberals down with her. This is not the first time we have seen a politician try to curry favour with an ethnic community. Just a few months ago Richmond’s federal MP Alice Wong decided to eat shark fin soup in front of the Chinese media only. The local papers received many letters to their editors from outraged citizens, many of them Chinese, complaining of Wong’s insult.
This type of behaviour by politicians encourages people to promote their own culture and language at the expense of Canadian culture and instead of integrating and enriching the fabric of our country we see communities living separately as though they are different states, thus highlighting the weaknesses of multiculturalism and why Europe has declared it a disaster.
Alan Halliday
Richmond
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