Today it’s Queen E. Annex, tomorrow maybe your favourite park
An interesting reference to selling ‘public’ land to “appease third party interests” was part of the closing lines in a Queen Elizabeth Annex parent’s letter to the Courier the other day. The linking of the school closure to selling off public lands, including “your favourite park,” raises some interesting questions. It is very likely that the letter writers did not mean to explicitly identify the Musqueam Reconciliation Agreement, but the similarity in the language with the fight against the agreement by park and golf course supporters shows a familiarity with the issues and implies a moral linking of these issues -selling the school and losing the park as being clearly on the ‘bad side of the equation. At the very least the letter points to one community’s sense of connection and feeling of being under attack and their capacity to mobilize and connect. First they lose ‘their’ park, now they are losing ‘their’ school.