Unqualified Nominee to social work board

A woman by the name of Heather Stilwell has recently been appointed to the BC College of Social Workers. This is a disappointing appointment that will drag British Columbia back into the past, not further into the future. Miss Stilwell is or has been a member of five separate anti-abortion groups, and has spent decades trying to take away a woman’s right to choose. She was also a former leader of the Christian Heritage Party, which emphasizes extreme right wing social viewpoints. Of course, this is the nominee of BC Liberal Minister Mary Polak, so there isn’t as much surprise about the nomination, considering the two of them worked together as members of the Surrey School Board to try and ban books depicting same-sex couples in a positive manner. Her tenure on the Surrey School Board was categorized by her extreme positions. Perhaps her most damning work on the school board was her vote to ban sex education and condom distribution in Surrey classrooms. Studies have shown that sex education and easily obtained condoms reduces the rate of accidental pregnancies and STI transmission, but those facts mean nothing for Miss Stilwell, whose right wing agenda would rather pass on ignorance to students, rather than giving them the tools they need to make informed decisions regarding their sexual health.
The nominee has taken other controversial positions in the past, positions that will not resonate with the majority of British Columbians. Among her more outstanding beliefs are the ideas that global warming is not real, going so far as to pass a motion that if Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is shown in classes, videos which dispute global warming must also be shown, regardless of their scientific merit.
Members of the College are appointed to the board for a single year, but in a year much can be done to reverse the gains our society has fought for decades to achieve. Write to Minister Polak and tell her that it’s not acceptable for her to nominate her unqualified friends to sit on a board that determines the work of our social workers. Give us a nominee and a board that will do its work without a hidden agenda Minister, not one that can impose your own right wing worldview on the rest of us.