Skip to main content

Open Letter to the Producers of CBC’s Surrey Mayoral debate on Oct. 9
From Dr. Pauline Greaves, Proudly Surrey Candidate for Mayor

Dear CBC;

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Dr. Pauline Greaves I have a BA, BED, MA in Criminology, and a PhD in Education Administration.  I have worked in Social Services and Education I have held positions such as Executive Director of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center, Director at UBC Women’s Center, Director of Policy with the Elizabeth Fry Society, and Counsellor with the Ottawa Youth Services Bureau. I have taught in the K-12 system and am currently teaching in Higher Education in the department of Business and Management.

I have advised governments and was the Deputy Director of the Commonwealth Education Programme where I advised and set policies for fifty-four Ministers of Education. Most importantly, I was appointed to the Diversity Committee, one of the committees of Surrey’s local government.

I am also a candidate for the position of Mayor in the City of Surrey with Proudly Surrey.

This week, CBC Radio hosted a Mayors debate in Surrey. I was invited to attend this debate by CBC, and I gladly accepted. I was subsequently uninvited.

While we in Proudly Surrey reject the idea that one’s entitlement to participate in a debate should be based on one’s curriculum vitae, I draw your attention to these facts because they demonstrate that, by excluding me from the Surrey mayoral election debate, the CBC were following neither the letter nor the spirit of their putative criteria for inclusion.

Inclusion in a debate should be based on factors such as a substantive and comprehensive policy platform, popular support in the community and fielding a slate of candidates of sufficient size to form government. My team, Proudly Surrey, and I clearly meet these criteria.

It is clear that I could have contributed substantially to your debate, providing information, perspective and principle in which the debate was clearly lacking with its demographically and politically narrow selection of candidates. This demographic narrowness is every bit as concerning as the ideological and political narrowness of the debate; in this day and age, does Canada’s national broadcaster really wish to be known for excluding the only female candidate, especially one who could substantively challenge many of the falsehoods and nonsense purveyed by the debate’s male participants?

I also believe that your decision to uninvite me based on your published criteria has severely damaged the perspective of the citizens of Surrey, and here is why.

  • As a public entity “Canadian federal Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster for both radio and television” you have a responsibility to the community in general to provide a nonpartisan, independent perspective and not influence who people vote for  By only including three men (candidates) you have in fact told Surrey voters that these candidates were the only important individuals that is worth their consideration.

As a woman of colour one of my positions running in this election was to work to bring Surrey together where the diversity of the population would contribute to the richness of the community and the city rather than keeping them divided.My platform if you had cared to ask, is to get the community working together, where the focus is on inclusion not exclusion.

The other priority of my platform is to reach out to the various minority groups who traditionally do not vote and to encourage them to actively participate in this very important democratic process.It is important that their interests are represented and reflected in who are elected to provide leadership at city hall.

As a possessor of a CRTC broadcast license, as well as Crown Corporation I feel that you are in breach of your obligation and duty to the residents when it comes fairness of representation and inclusion in an important process.

The criteria used to decide on who would be invited are without merit and only serve to support the status quo.  The following are my responses to your selection criteria.

Incumbents or mayoral candidates representing incumbent parties
(those holding seats at city hall). 
Based on the first part of this criteria no one or all candidates should have been selected because there are no incumbent running for Mayor.  Based on the second part, only Tom Gill should have been interviewed as both Doug and Bruce are running under new parties.
Candidates who have held past elected office on city council, or at the provincial or federal level.
I find this criterion to be very elitist (exclusive and discriminatory) as it implies that you would only invite previously elected candidates regardless of their record, which would imply that no new candidates would ever have a chance to speak on the interests of their community.   This is why members of minority groups do not feel that their voices and/or interests are being represented at City Hall.  We live in a very diverse city but if this is not reflected in any of the decisions at City Hall or on an electoral debate panel then what message is this sending to these communities as to their importance and inclusion in matters in Surrey.
Candidates with demonstrated civic engagement experience as evidenced by work with a civic electoral organization, or inclusion on a city committee.

I would like to point out that I am a member of the City of Surrey Diversity Advisory Committee and have been for 3 years.  Again, by this criterion my voice on inclusion should have been an important one.

I spend a lot of time talking to people about the importance of inclusion and why it is not just about recognizing diversity but about accepting and embracing inclusion be it socio-economic, access and the promotion of equal opportunities for all, not just for a few.

Those with demonstrated voter support based on polling results (where available).
Only one publicly released scientific poll has been conducted on the Surrey Mayoral election; it was conducted in June by Mario Canseco’s Research Corp. It found Proudly Surrey tied for second place at 27% of the popular vote. So, as with the above criterion, your network chose to violate its own stated criteria in order to exclude me.
Candidates with defined platforms on a substantive array of civic issues/whose electoral organizations are running a comprehensive slate of candidates.

On this criterion, Proudly Surrey was and is far ahead of the other slates.  I would direct you to review the policies and issues that have been addressed by the Proudly Surrey Slate and before any other organizations were able to find members.  We have an extensive number of civic issues that many of the current candidates have embraced as their own.

A visit to the Proudly Surrey website would have clearly shown that Proudly Surrey do have a comprehensive slate of candidates.  We are the only slate running candidates for Mayor, Councillors and School Trustees; and based on this criterion the other three slates would have been excluded.

Broadcast considerations around airtime and debate format.

I do understand this as a criterion, however this does not apply to me as I was invited and confirmed to participate and then dis-invited.  What you had were three men who primarily talked to themselves and talked about their records. What is clear is that CBC knows how to organize debates with more than three participants. The Broadcast Consortium of which you are part, at the national level, has organized five-person federal leaders’ debates. In these debates, the decision to include the least-popular party (e.g. Elizabeth May’s Greens and Alexa McDonough’s and Audrey McLaughlin’s NDP) was taken partly because this was the sole means by which the Consortium could include what it deemed a necessary female voice.

It is my opinion that the outcome of this debate only serves to convince residents of Surrey to become more disillusioned about voting by falsely creating the impression of a lack of choice.  Sometimes optics count because then people can see that there are individuals in their communities that are concerned about them and are prepared to represent their interests.

At the end of the day, it is about inclusion and the participation of the many not just a few.