Dr. Karina Zeidler
for School Board
Remarks at VOTE Socialist candidate launch event, July 17, 2022 in front of the Jericho Hostel
I am proud to announce that I’m running for the Vancouver School Board, as part of the VOTE Socialist slate of candidates for the Vancouver municipal election.
The VOTE Socialist Party is a wonderful team of committed, principled socialist activists, who are going to bring some human decency to our local government.
My biggest priority in this campaign is safety in schools, which is why, I’m specifically running to bring the Mask Mandate back to Vancouver schools, along with all the other necessary protections - to keep people safe from getting sick with covid.
Schools should not be places where kids go to get sick, over and over again.
In this campaign, I’ll be demanding that all other school board candidates state their position on making schools safe: Do you favour a mask mandate, or do you favour disease and discrimination?
I am not the only one who thinks it is discriminatory not to have a mask mandate in schools. So does our human rights commissioner, Kasari Govender, who wrote in her letter to Dr. Bonnie Henry in March, that lifting the mask mandate would, “do disproportionatel harm to those who are already marginalized […] immune-compromised people, older people, indigenous and racialized people, people with disabilities, and low-income people.”
Well, the Vote Socialist Party is not going to abandon those people, or anyone else. We are not going to let anyone be excluded from school or any other part of society.
Why? Because it is morally wrong to do so.
I am proud that VOTE Socialist bases its policies on the demands of left wing grassroots organizations like Defund 604, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and the Vancouver Tenants Union.
It’s time to really listen to the people on the ground who are affected by the relentless destruction of colonial capitalism, and it’s time for us to DO the things that grassroots organizations are demanding that we do.
We have to build thousands of units of public housing.
We have to provide free and safe drugs to people who use them, so that thousands of people, people that we love and are a part of our communities don’t die every year.
We have to make Vancouver accessible for everyone, especially people with disabilities and people with low income.
We have to actually really give land back to indigenous people who have been robbed of their homes, and their rights, by Canadian colonial capitalism.
And to pay for all these things, we have to defund the notoriously violent, racist, and far too powerful Vancouver Police department.
And tax the rich.
I hope you’ll join me, by volunteering to help VOTE socialist, or by donating to our campaign.
I’m Karina Zeidler, and I’m asking you for one of your 7 Vancouver School Board Trustee votes. And this election day, October 15, I’m asking you to Vote Socialist!