On June 3, 2017, the “Three Elected Officials (“3EOs”) as Trustees Grove and Grams and Director McIntyre sign themselves, issued a News Release attacking Ms. Brenda Guiled. This because she made a video analyzing the “Roads” aspect of the Urban Systems Consultants Report and the incorporation Committee promotion of it.
I am a Civil Engineer and I must say that I am impressed by the depth of the analysis Ms. Guiled presented. In contrast, the 3EOs became very agitated by the blasphemy of a citizen reviewing critically the assertion of the Consultants and the Committees (“C&C”) the 3EOs had created to decide the future of the Island, lest we falter if left on our own to plot the course of our society. This, well after the Vatican apologized to Galileo, thereby dispersing illusions of infallibility.
The 3EOs, themselves ex-officio members of the two Committees, could neither defend Their C&C Road assertions nor they could refute the Guiled analysis. They say they got together with ex Committee members, for inspiration, but still they could not figure out a way to confront the figures Guiled has amassed. Thus perplexed about how to handle irreverent Ms. Guiled and scared as they were, they rushed to the Minister of Community Sports and Cultural Development of the Government of British Columbia begging for an “addendum report”, whatever this may be.
Evidently, “they”, the 3EOs and their C & C, would not let the people watch the incorporation debate unfold freely, without being uncontrolled by themselves. Unable to withstand exposure of “errors” and perplexed as they became, sought “a peer review” of the C & C, like they has done with the lovely RAR, under similar circumstances of public reaction.
In Para #2, of their News Release, the 3EOs affirm their dedication to “critical analysis and comment on the Incorporation Study Report and its contents”, as well! Lest we miss their dedication to free speech and fair process, I presume.
Then they lead us to recognize their devotion to the proposition that “Rational and civil debate advances knowledge of the implications, blah blah blah”. No they do not attempt to reconcile their professed affinity for free expression and democratic debate with their forceful pursuit of the suppression of Ms. Guiled’s remarkable contribution to the debate.
Para #3. Unwilling to stand alone opposite Ms. Guiled, they solicited assistance of un-identified “members” of the defunct Committees to see how they could survive Guiled’s arithmetic. The phantom Commitee members and the 3EO arrived at the learned decision that “An addendum report is the appropriate mechanism for dealing with these issues and other claims made in the [Guiled] presentation.”
This because, they “explain”, Guiled’s “presentation [is] being circulated within the community and [they] believe it contains false assumptions and material inaccuracies.”
That they cannot point to anything wrong in it, it does not matter to them, they know it is terribly erromneous, and they want an “addendum report writer” to substantiate their “beliefs” and suade the electorate back to the true route determined by the C&C and the 3EOs.
Para #4 carries really drastic stuff: “The author of the presentation [Guiled] has made defamatory statements against Urban Systems ...” the 3EOs authoritatively write. These are the 3EOs who, after long years of “organizing” Committees and hiring Consultants, feel feeble and in need of an “addendum report”, to tell them how to cope why Guiled’s contribution to the incorporation messy affair the 3EOs with their C&C have created. Now, they unabashedly call Guiled a “liar” - for lying is the essential prerequisite to a “defamatory statement” which the 3EOs are arbitrarily declaring Guiled guilty of.
The 3EOs,“stewards of the process” as they see themselves being, “utterly reject” whatever they insinuate Guiled did without identifying anything “false” she presents in their diatribe – it figures.
In closing, I would like to remark that the 3EOs refer to the “author of the presentation” but they omit mention the name “Guiled”. This is what ad hominem practitioners, those who “shoot the messenger to escape the message” do when they target people of high credibility.