Mr. Teri Westerby

08/11/2026

Happy 44th birthday to one of my best friends, Katie Bartel,!

For years, Katie has been beside me in the work of making Chilliwack a more inclusive community. From joining Chilliwack Pride to helping lead it, and from advocating for families in our schools to consistently standing up for inclusion, diversity, and every student’s right to belong.

Katie is also one of the people I trust most. We have the kind of honest, thoughtful conversations that challenge me, encourage me, and remind me what is possible when people lead with both courage and compassion.

I trust Katie with the future of our school board. And, more importantly, with the future of the students and families it serves. She understands that leadership begins with listening, that advocacy requires action, and that every decision should be grounded in what helps students thrive.

So, for Katie’s 44th birthday, I’m asking you to join me in giving her campaign a birthday boost: donate $44, if you can, and help elect Katie Bartel to the Chilliwack Board of Education.

Happy birthday, Katie. I’m so grateful for your friendship, your leadership, and all the ways you continue to show up for this community.

07/24/2026

What makes you feel like you truly belong at an event?

Is it being welcomed at the door? Seeing yourself represented? Knowing the space is accessible? Being invited to share your ideas, participate, or step into something new?

I used to think community events were mostly about showing up.

You arrive. You watch. You clap. You go home. And honestly.. I hate that. I don't really feel comfortable at events where my only reason for being there is my own entertainment, especially if it's crowded and noisy.

But for me, the events that I love and am drawn to the most are events that invite us out of the audience and into the story.

They give us a chance to contribute, to be seen, to build confidence, and sometimes to discover a part of ourselves that had never been given room before. Events that build a sense of belonging.

But real belonging, for me, does not just say “You are welcome here.”

It says, “We need what you bring.”

That is how I see events being a place to build community. But not every event is like that. In fact, most aren't.

But when everyone who is invited learns that they matter, they do more than attend an event. They build community. Connection. Compassion. Self confidence. And most of all, they build a sense of belonging to the spaces they are in, because they contributed to them.

And afterwards, they take home the memory. They become part of the fabric of our shared history. Who each of us are now lives inside the lives of one another. We hold the memory of each other.

This is how we build bridges.

That's how compassion grows.

Through love and connection.

So, what helps you move from feeling like a guest to feeling like you belong? And what stops you from attending an event?

Let me know in the comments!

07/22/2026

21 years of marriage equality.

Twenty-one years ago, LGBTQ+ Canadians were still discriminated against in law.

Our love, our relationships, our families and our futures were treated as illegitimate, unworthy and somehow less Canadian.

Sound familiar?

The law changed, but we still hear the same tired arguments about our identities, our families and whether we truly belong.

And here's the truth: I am so damn happy to be married to my wife. To have a home, a career and a future where my life and my marriage are recognized as equal.

But I was already 18 years old by the time that became true across Canada.

Today, I get to live a life I could never have imagined as a child. Canada didn't just suddenly and generously decide to give q***r people permission to exist. Haha.. no. Today, we are all more free thanks to the generations of people who stood up, came out, organized, challenged unjust laws and refused to accept less than equality in our own country.

That power is still ours.

We are here. We are building families, leading communities, creating change and shaping the future of this country.

Our country.

We are not going backward.

The future belongs to every q***r child who deserves to grow up knowing that love, belonging, leadership and a good life are possible for them.

We fought our way into the future.

Now we keep moving forward, together.

***r

07/22/2026

07/21/2026

iYKYK

07/21/2026

No, the government has not “given up on SOGI”

The BC Conservatives’ claim is not supported by what has actually happened.

B.C.’s legal protections for q***r and trans students remain in place.

School districts have not been instructed to abandon SOGI-inclusive education.

The government’s own 2026–27 service plan still directs the education minister to work with stakeholders on the SOGI anti-bullying program.

The B.C. Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in public services, including education, based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

Provincial standards also require school boards’ codes of conduct to explicitly address those protected characteristics.

While the specific SOGI 123 resources are optional, protecting students from discrimination is not.

If some politicians want to celebrate the end of a funding agreement as though they have successfully removed q***r people from public education, they are welcome to enjoy their imaginary victory.

Q***r students will still be in class on Monday.

You could delete every lesson plan, pull every Pride flag from every classroom and erase the acronym from every government website. Q***r and trans students would still arrive at school the next morning.

SOGI cannot be cancelled because q***r people cannot be cancelled.

Read more on my website.

07/21/2026

Part of me is tempted to let the anti-SOGI crowd believe they have won.

Let them take their victory lap. Let them congratulate themselves.

If believing SOGI has disappeared means they finally stop shouting outside schools about resources they have probably never read, perhaps educators can get back to the actual work of supporting children.

Unfortunately, facts still matter (to most of us, anyway).

The BC Conservatives claimed they “forced” the provincial government to “give up on SOGI” and “defund SOGI 123 after years of political pressure”.

The B.C. government responded that SOGI 123 had not been defunded at all.

Neither statement gives British Columbians the complete picture.

As a transgender man, coming out coach and elected school trustee, I believe power begins with clarity.

Families deserve to understand what was cut, what remains and what every student should still expect from their school.

Read more on my website.

07/11/2026

The LEGAL right.