Councillor Skelton-Morven's social media campaign theme takes aim at challenger Andy Chugh

The spotlight for much of the weekend was on themes of Reconciliation and Community engagement and action coming out of Friday's National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. 

However for Councillor Skelton-Morven, the weekend also brought delivery of a political message  forwarded through a social media post.  

A somewhat incendiary missive that challenged competing Council candidate Andy Chugh towards his commitment when it comes to addressing Canada's past history and efforts on reconciliation.

The thrust of Mr. Skelton-Morven's reproach of Mr. Chugh, comes through Skelton-Morven's review of a video from Canada Day of one year ago, where the current City Councillor accuses the challenger for a Council seat of taunting those who at the time were grieving over the Kamloops residential school revelations of a year ago.

The news from Kamloops and other communities of last year did make for a much subdued approach to the usual observance of Canada Day one year ago.  

A community march in support of the residential school children and survivors marked the day locally, with the usual  Canada Day event having been previously cancelled owing to COVID precautions of the period. 

The  theme for many in the community one for personal reflection and solidarity. 

Now considering the social climate of that moment in time,  it seems a curious choice for Mr. Chugh (who has yet to address the accusations from Mr. Skelton-Morven ) to embark on the flag waving theme one year ago. 

Though the incumbent City Councillor does not appear to have actually made any attempt to ask Mr. Chugh to explain that period, to speak to his accusations of taunting, or to use his social media forum for what could have been a moment of education towards reconciliation.

In Mr. Skelton-Morven's post, he makes note that Mr. Chugh has spoken to reconciliation themes providing a screen shot of one of  the council candidates past themes to the topic.

It would appear however,  from his Facebook observations that Mr. Skelton-Morven dismisses those comments and instead has served as the judge and jury for public opinion to his presentation. 

The Councillor calling the video theme a protest, something that remains unproven, but sending the message wide through his own social media campaign for re-election. 

His comments in the thread of follow up conversations serving to reinforce his narrative, rather than to seek for better understanding and an opportunity to put into practice some of his own themes on reconciliation.

The weekend social media messaging follows a week of campaign themes and commentary on  Reconciliation for the incumbent councillor who has taken to describing himself as the Wolf of Third Avenue and comes following the Election Forum of one week ago at the Lester Centre. 

For what it's worth to the discussion, at the Election Forum of last week (see 45 minute mark of the video), Mr. Chugh noted how he didn't believe in tokenism, observed of the lack of action on past promises which need tangible action. 

He called on government, industry and indigenous partners to work together towards mutual benefit.

 He also spoke to the need for more consultation with Indigenous nations in a large areas of shared interest, called for action on the Truth and Reconciliation Recommendations and further work towards more education an action on the Highway of Tears.

The forum did offer the incumbent councillor the opportunity to challenge Mr. Chugh on stage towards the topic at hand,  with Councillor Skelton-Morven having made frequent use of his interjection cards through the night on a range of other topics.  

He passed on that opportunity, instead using his time on the Reconciliation question to speak on themes towards continued bridge building and to preview the City Council roll out announcement of the Reconciliation framework for his contribution to the topic.

With City Council tonight introducing the document of which Mr. Skelton-Morven was a participant towards  (which you an review here), the opportunity for the Councillor to expand further to the document and maybe his recent social media messaging, will be available should he wish to add to his commentary.

More notes on the Civic Election campaign can be reviewed here.

A note on comments for this item:

Normally we allow comments to move forward that offer constructive discussion to the themes  we have raised and in some cases on this topic, that has been the case. 

However some of the other commentary has not really served that goal and thus erring on the side of caution, we'll be keeping the comments closed in this instance.

With that, we would recommend to those who did submit the thoughtful pieces to take those notes to the respective social media pages in question here. That to share them directly where they would surely add some value to the conversation.