Editor:
I am a Canadian visitor to Canmore. After reading the July 9 edition of the Rocky Mountain Outlook I was shocked, to put it mildly, to read on your front page (Unanimous decision on affordable housing) that Councillor Sean Krausert said “there have been threats levelled against councillors and the mayor” that they will not be voted for in the next municipal election.
When I read “threats” my immediate thought was of property damage or personal harm ... how ridiculous to discover that the threats meant loss of votes. Isn’t that what democracy is about? I would definitely inform my politicial representatives if I disagreed with their position and did not intend to vote for them in upcoming elections.
Your editorial in the same issue states that “it’s disappointing, to say the least that, as Councillor Sean Krausert pointed out, some residents have stooped so low as to threaten orchestrated efforts to see the present council is not elected again.” And yet you printed an open letter to Blake Richards in which the letter writer clearly states she will not be voting for Mr. Richards in the upcoming election. Is that to be considered a threat to Mr. Richards?
Using the term threat to describe what is clearly an acceptable part of the democratic process is at best convoluted and leads this distant observer to question the political agendas of both the councillor and your publication. In reading the article and editorial a second time, it seems the intent of the ‘threat’ claim is to vilify what seems to be a legitimate opposition position to an ongoing public debate.
If elected officials can’t handle opposition to their views, perhaps it’s time to consider other options to occupy their time.
Mike Owens,
Almonte, Ont.
