Samantha Sanderson is very much against "unauthorized" video. There is no definition of "unauthorized" video, since this is a public meeting. However, respecting her wishes, I am providing the audio only. To assist in understanding the audio portion of her presentation, I have transcribed, word for word, what she said, below.
My name is Samantha Sanderson and I am speaking for a delegation of islanders who are here with me Robin Ferry, Judi Stevenson, Colleen Irwin, Deborah Diller, Ruth Tarasoff, and several who were not able to make it because of small children.
We’re here because we believe in the political process that is respectful of all community members and especially of those who take on leadership. We’re concerned that disrespect, rule-breaking and bullying are being used to intimidate the community. We’ve decided to speak up on behalf of values of respect, inclusion and non-violence and ask the trust to work with us to promote these values on our island. In a big picture, at a time when the world is facing danger and major changes like never before, it’s more important than ever, that communities pull together, reach for connection with each other and not turn on one another. And Japan is an example of a people who had chosen to pull together and not go in the direction of dysfunction.
We want to urge all of Salt Spring to join us in speaking up. This request has nothing to do with specific policies and decisions or even the processes we use to make them. It is about something more fundamental: how communities survive and flourish. What we are seeing concerns us deeply. Community leaders are a treasure. It is not ok with us and it makes no sense for elected leaders to be abused. It interferes with their ability to do a good job, which they’ve acknowledged, it promotes a culture of abuse that puts other leaders at risk and it scares the people from running for office. We see the current trend towards disruption of town hall meetings as unacceptable, yelling and threatening behaviour demoralize and diminish us all, and silence the people who often are the most important for us to hear. That is not democracy.
Bullying and abuse are not attempts to solve the problem, they are actions designed to disrupt the successful functioning of a group or organization, in this case our community as well as the trust. Problems never get solved this way and people who use these tactics are not the ones who are able to successfully solve any community problem or move the community forward in any positive way. What we know about bullying is that the behaviour will continue until many of us stand up, as we are doing today and say stop.
Our recommendation to the trust:
We want a community that treats its leaders well, where we don’t stand idly by when a leader is attacked, that expects its media to be an unbiased instrument in the successful functioning of the community, that sets a model of hope, intelligence and non-violence for its young people.
And we want to request for ourselves, of ourselves and the community, that we accept no rumours, as fact, we check out the fact, never that we don’t pass on rumours and even agree to discuss them until both sides are presented and the facts are clear. That we stand up against disrespectful behaviour toward any leader, whether we agree with their policies or not. That we unfailingly offer to people in the community whose views differ from our own the same respect we want for ours. And we let our local media know that we expect them to be principled and unbiased in their coverage of each and every community issue.
I’d like just to ask if there are people here, who actually support these values for our community to silently stand.