Straight Talk

Coquitlam mayor Richard Stewart condemns posting of swastikas along Central Valley Greenway

by Charlie Smith on June 5th, 2019 at 6:19 AM
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      Once again, a symbol of Nazi Germany has shown up in a public area in Metro Vancouver.

      A Twitter user who calls himself DVN Actual posted images of a sign with two swastikas along the Central Valley Greenway.

      It's a popular 24-kilometre cycling route connecting Vancouver with New Westminster.

      The image drew a heated reaction from Coquitlam mayor Richard Stewart.

      "I hate graffiti in general, and the hundreds of thousands it costs taxpayers in damage to community," wrote Stewart on his Facebook page. "But I’m thoroughly offended and disgusted by THIS graffiti. 

      "On behalf of City Council and our residents I condemn this mindless and senseless act, and the hate it is intended to convey," he continued. "I stand with our local Jewish community, and our residents from every race, creed and culture in opposing this cowardly act."

      This isn't the first time that Stewart has been quick to criticize far right extremism. Back in 2010, he showed up at a rally in New Westminster to counter an event organized by notorious U.S. racist and former Downtown Eastside resident Craig Cobb.

      The Nazi regime in Germany systematically murdered approximately six million Jews during the Holocaust.

      One million of them lost their lives in the Auschwitz complex of concentration camps; another 925,000 were killed at Treblinka 2; and 800,000 perished in Jewish ghettos, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

      As a result of Nazi wars of aggression in the Second World War, the museum estimates that seven million Soviet civilians were killed, including 1.3 million of its Jewish residents.

      Another 1.8 million Poles and 312,000 Serbs died from these wars.

      The Nazis also killed around 196,000 to 220,000 Roma, 250,000 people with disabilities in institutions, nearly 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, and possibly thousands of homosexuals.

      The Nazis included the LGBT community in its category of "repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials", of which at least 70,000 were murdered.

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