News Features

Vancouver’s youngest civic politician told the Georgia Straight that Premier Gordon Campbell has slapped the gay and lesbian community in the face by appointing B.C. Liberal Langley MLA Mary Polak to provincial cabinet.

“It keeps jumping into my head while I am thinking about other things,” COPE park board commissioner Spencer Herbert said by phone. “I think it is very scary that you have got somebody who is the [new] minister for healthy living [and sport] that doesn’t support—or at least has shown in her past that she does not support—healthy living for gays and lesbians, and does not support healthy living for sexual education.”

Polak, who grew up in Cloverdale, was a trustee with the Surrey school district a decade ago when it first sought to ban three books on same-sex marriage from primary schools in Surrey. The ban was finally overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in December 2002.

Herbert is seeking political office in 2009 for the NDP in the newly created West End riding. He is also engaged to his partner of eight years, Romi Chandra, who is known for his advocacy for gay and lesbian rights in communities large and small across the province. Herbert said the two of them have seen Polak up close, which led him to conclude: “I don’t think she is moderate.”

“I remember debating Mary Polak in the Surrey school-board parking lot about how the stance that she was taking was really going to endanger student life,” Herbert added, “and…with the number of people we have known in our life who either attempted suicide or committed suicide because they have no support, for a government body to claim they were acting in the interest of students in that case when really it was to benefit the social conservatives and religious right was scary.”

Polak said she stands by her actions with regard to the books.

“I think it is unfortunate that in the heat of controversial issues, labels and names get attached,” Polak said by phone from Victoria. “I am quite confident that anyone who wants to review my record on the matter of the three books will find that I have never been known to hold antigay or homophobic sentiments. I would be one of the first to decry those.”

She added: “I have a very libertarian view when it comes to how public education and the state ought to operate. In my view, the state always has to be very careful not to stray into areas of private morality. Whether or not it is the topic of same-sex families or schools talking about religion, it is that same kind of determination.”

Polak said she would not describe herself as a social conservative, adding that her federal Conservative membership “has probably lapsed”. She said she did work on the 2004 leadership bid of Belinda Stronach, who later crossed the floor to the federal Liberals.