Mr. Teri Westerby

10/09/2026

The straight boy being called “gay” needs SOGI support, too.

So does the gay boy hearing his identity used as an insult.

Picture them in the same classroom.

One gets mocked because he cries easily, likes dancing or doesn’t seem “man enough.” The other hears the laughter and wonders what will happen if anyone finds out who he is.

One learns that he’s being a boy “wrong.” The other learns that being himself could make him a target.

Both are being taught to hide. Both deserve better.

SOGI means sexual orientation and gender identity. Everyone has these, including straight and cisgender people.

SOGI resources help educators support LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ students alike.
They give teachers tools to interrupt the insult, challenge the stereotype and teach children that someone’s identity is never a reason to humiliate them.

They also give the child repeating those insults a chance to learn another way. Children can learn kindness when we take the time to teach it.

If you’ve heard that SOGI hurts children, I understand wanting to protect your child. Every parent should be able to trust that their child will be safe at school.

But what I want you to do is look at what these resources help educators address: bullying, shame, exclusion and the pressure to become someone else just to be accepted.

A boy deserves to be gentle without defending his masculinity. A girl deserves to follow her interests without being told they’re “for boys.” LGBTQ children deserve to imagine a future where they are accepted and loved.

Taking away resources won’t change who those children are. It leaves educators with fewer tools to support them.

And it doesn’t remove a school district’s legal responsibility to protect students from discrimination.

Failing to address discriminatory bullying can lead to human rights complaints, legal expenses and compensation payments, pulling money and staff time away from supporting students.

Removing the tools doesn’t remove the obligation.

These children are already in our classrooms. Public education has a responsibility to serve every one of them, as they are.

They should be learning how to understand themselves and respect each other. They should never have to learn how to disappear to keep everyone else comfortable.

If our version of “protecting children” requires them to hide who they are, we’re protecting our comfort. Not their safety.

I hope this helps explain why SOGI resources support every student, LGBTQ or not, and help make our schools safer, more inclusive places where everyone can learn and belong.

10/08/2026

Leah Kelley has given me two gifts I will never forget: she stood beside me when others tried to tear me down, and she helped me embrace parts of myself I had been taught to see as problems.

I first came to know Leah through her work as an inclusive educator and author. She has spent years bringing that work into schools, helping educators and communities think more deeply about disability, inclusive education and what it means to accept students as the full people they already are.

Over time, Leah became a friend and a generous supporter of my own public and political work. But I came to understand the depth of her support most clearly after I was elected to the Chilliwack School Board.

There were moments when disagreement crossed the line into personal vitriol. When the attention became cruel and the weight of public office felt deeply isolating, Leah showed up for me.

More than once, she was simply there.

Her presence didn’t make the attacks disappear, but it reminded me that I didn’t have to face them alone. Sometimes the most meaningful form of support isn’t a grand speech or a solution. It is someone choosing to stand beside you when doing so may also place them in the line of fire.

That is who Leah is.

She doesn’t treat inclusion as an academic idea. She practises it in how she lives, teaches and stands beside people.

Leah also changed how I understand disability... and how I understand myself.

Through her friendship, her work and her book, 'The Person Who Arrives', Leah taught me that disability is not a bad word. It is not something that needs to be softened, hidden or spoken about in whispers. Disability is part of the breadth of human experience, and disabled people do not need to become less of themselves to be worthy of respect, opportunity or belonging.

She helped me stop looking at parts of myself as problems I needed to overcome. She taught me to embrace all of who I am.

And because she is Leah, she taught me much of that with a laugh.

She reminded me that self-acceptance doesn’t always have to be serious or heavy. There can be humour in it. There can be joy. There can be relief in finally realizing that you were never the problem in the first place.

Leah brings over 30 years of experience in Chilliwack classrooms, a Doctorate in Education and a career devoted to connecting disability studies with what actually happens in schools. As a neurodivergent and disabled educator, author, researcher and advocate, she brings together professional knowledge and lived experience.

Her work asks educators to meet every student as the complete person who arrives; not as a problem to manage, but as someone whose presence should shape how we teach, listen and build our schools.

That is exactly the perspective our School Board needs.

Inclusion is not asking students to fit themselves into a system that was built without them in mind. It is being willing to change the environment so every learner can participate, contribute and belong as they are.

As I prepare to step away from the Board, I want people at that table who understand the research, the classroom and the lived consequences of the decisions they make. I want someone who will recognize the full humanity of every student and work with families and educators, not simply make decisions about them.

I know Leah will show up for students because she showed up for me.

I know she will make room for every learner because she helped me make room for every part of myself.

That’s why Leah Kelley has my vote for Chilliwack School Trustee.

10/07/2026

I’m excited to vote for Lisa Morry for Chilliwack City Council.

Because long before her name appeared on a ballot, she was already doing the work of public service.

I have had the privilege of serving and organizing alongside Lisa in many corners of our community. We helped build the Downtown Chilliwack Community Market, worked together through Chilliwack Citizens for Change and shared the often difficult work of creating space for progressive voices in Chilliwack.

Through all of it, Lisa has been steady.

She has been one of the people progressive candidates in our community could count on—including me.

She offers more than an endorsement during an election. She gives her time, shares what she knows, encourages people when the work becomes difficult and remains committed long after the campaign signs come down.

That consistency has always meant a great deal to me.

Lisa has spent years organizing within labour movement. As a union officer at the University of the Fraser Valley and an executive member of the Fraser Valley Labour Council, she worked to build solidarity and help workers understand and speak up about the decisions affecting their lives.

As a former community journalist, she helped regular people tell their stories and made the decisions happening inside council chambers and school board meetings more accessible to the people living with their consequences.

Lisa also understands that policy is personal.

She has spoken openly about raising her children as a single parent while struggling with housing and food security. Those experiences didn’t leave her with abstract political talking points. They gave her a deep understanding of how systems can make people feel invisible and a determination to make those systems work better.

At the Downtown Chilliwack Community Market, we didn’t simply talk about food security. We helped build something that connected local farmers with families and delivered more than $100,000 in local food to people in our community over five years.

Through Chilliwack Citizens for Change, we have worked to strengthen progressive organizing and help more people believe that their voices belong in local politics.

That is the Lisa I know: thoughtful, informed, strategic and deeply committed. She isn’t interested in public service for the attention. She does it because she genuinely believes that we depend on one another and that good things happen when people work together.

Chilliwack City Council needs people who understand how governance works, but also remember why its decisions matter around kitchen tables across our community. Lisa brings both.

I know her values because I have watched her live them. I know her commitment because I have worked alongside her. And I know the kind of support she gives others because I have been fortunate enough to receive it myself.

That’s why Lisa Morry has my for City Council, and I hope she has yours too.

10/07/2026

I’m voting Katie Bartel for Chilliwack School Trustee.

I first met Katie because she was doing what I have now watched her do for years: showing up for her children.

It was at Chilliwack Pride. Katie came to volunteer because she wanted to support her kids and help create a future where they could belong in the community she had been born and raised in.

I didn’t know then that she would become one of my best friends or that she would help shape the kind of trustee I became.

Katie has taught me so much about what makes Chilliwack, Chilliwack. Not the polished version we put in brochures, but the real community: its history, its relationships, its contradictions, its enormous capacity for generosity and the places where it still needs to grow.

But one of the greatest things Katie has taught me is what it looks like to love someone loudly, fiercely and without apology.

Watching her fight for her children has healed something in me that I didn’t know was broken. There is something incredibly powerful about seeing a parent refuse to let the world tell their children they are anything less than worthy of safety, respect and belonging.

I don’t know if Katie fully understands what witnessing that has given me.

When I first joined the Chilliwack School Board, I knew I was arriving with an important perspective, but also with things I needed to learn. I wasn’t a parent, an educator or a student. If I wanted to serve those people well, I needed to listen deeply to those who understood the system from the inside.

Katie taught me so much of what I needed to know.

She helped me understand what families experience when they are trying to get support for their children. She helped me see what educators carry and how decisions made around a board table are felt by the students sitting in our classrooms.

Whenever the politics or noise threatened to pull my attention elsewhere, Katie helped bring me back to the people at the centre of the work: students, parents and educators.

Katie made me a better trustee.

She has also shown me what it really means to stand up for others. When something is wrong, Katie does not quietly step aside. She asks difficult questions, holds people accountable and keeps going, even when doing so would be easier for almost anyone else to avoid.

But her strength has never made her closed-minded.

Katie listens. She considers new ideas and makes genuine room for people to be heard, even when she ultimately disagrees with them. She taught me that listening and standing firm are not opposites. You can hear someone fully while still holding a clear boundary around what causes harm and what is simply not acceptable.

What began as one mother advocating for her own children became years of walking alongside other families, leading within PAC and DPAC, serving on district committees and pushing for a more inclusive public education system.

Katie already knows this system from the ground up. More importantly, she knows the people who depend on it.

As I prepare to step away from the School Board, I have thought deeply about who I trust to continue this work. Katie is one of those people.

I know she will keep students at the centre, because she taught me to do the same.

That’s why Katie Bartel has my for School , and I hope she has yours too.

10/06/2026

I’m proud to vote for Ghazaleh Nozamani for Chilliwack City Council.

Some people come into your life through community work and, over time, become the people you know you can count on.

That’s how I think about Ghazaleh Nozamani.

I first met Ghazaleh through Love Without Borders, the organization she created to help immigrants and refugees build new lives in Canada. What stood out to me wasn’t only the work she was doing, but the way she did it.

Ghazaleh meets people as people first. She listens to their stories without reducing them to what they have survived. She sees their strength, their skills and the future they are trying to build, and then she gets to work beside them.

Over time, she did the same for me.

Ghazaleh supported me when I ran for the NDP, and she continued to stand beside me through the highs, lows and difficult public moments of my time on the Chilliwack School Board.

Public life can sometimes make you feel as though people only see the title, the politics or the controversy, not the human being in the middle of it. Ghazaleh never made me feel that way. She saw me, believed in why I was doing the work and reminded me that none of us should have to carry it alone.

We have also stood alongside one another in moments of community and grief, including helping organize Dan Coulter’s community memorial. Again and again, I have watched Ghazaleh bring people together, make room for what they are carrying and turn genuine care into action.

That is why I don’t see Ghazaleh’s candidacy as a sudden step into leadership. It is a continuation of how she has already chosen to live.

Her own life has asked her to begin again more than once. After standing up for democracy in Iran and enduring imprisonment and torture, she rebuilt her life in Canada. She became a Red Seal tradeswoman and construction project manager, then used what she had learned to help other newcomers find stability, opportunity and community.

But the most meaningful part of Ghazaleh’s story is not only what she has endured. It is what she has chosen to do with it.

When I think about who I want making decisions at City Hall, I think about character. I want someone who sees the person before the label, listens before making assumptions, stays when things become difficult and knows how to turn compassion into practical work.

I know Ghazaleh is that person because I have experienced it myself.

On October 17, I will be proud to for Ghazaleh Nozamani for City Council. I hope you’ll take the time to learn more about her and consider giving her one of your votes too.

10/06/2026

I keep hearing versions of the same thing from candidates and elected officials lately:

“Bring academics back.”
“Focus on the fundamentals.”
“Get ideology out of the classroom.”

And I understand why that language lands.

If you’re worried about how kids are doing, and someone shows you a bad test score and says schools have lost their focus, it can sound like a pretty straightforward explanation.

But there is an assumption buried in there:
that academics left in the first place, and that something else replaced them.

That is the part I want to slow down and look at.

Because public schools already teach academic skills. They measure them. They track them. They report the results publicly. And when students are struggling, those results are supposed to help educators figure out who needs support, what they are struggling with, what might help, and whether it is working.

A low score can tell us something important.

It cannot, by itself, tell us why the score is low.

And it definitely cannot prove that schools “abandoned the basics.”

And look, I'm not trying to give an excuse for the results.

But I need you to understand that the assessment is how we understand the problem well enough to actually do something about it.

And this political framing is not hypothetical. Here in Chilliwack, current trustee candidates are talking about putting “measurable academic achievement” ahead of “ideology,” and provincial elected officials have also used language about removing “ideology” so schools can “get back” to other priorities.

I’m not posting this to tell you what to think. I’m giving you the tools to challenge the assumption for yourself.

So when somebody says “ideology” is getting in the way, ask what specifically they mean.

Then ask the most important question:

What would you actually change.. and how would that change help children learn?

That’s the conversation I think our schools deserve.

09/30/2026

CANADA KNEW. This history is painful. But we owe Indigenous children and Survivors the courage to tell it truthfully.

*Content warning: residential schools, child deaths and colonial violence.*

I think one of the hardest things about loving a country is accepting that loving it cannot mean looking away from what it has done.

Canada has a history worth celebrating. And, it has chapters that should break our hearts. Residential schools are one of them.

These are recorded parts of our history, not simply matters of personal opinion.

When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission completed its work, it had documented 3,200 deaths of children connected to residential schools. It also found enormous gaps in the records: in nearly a third of those deaths, the child’s name had not even been recorded. In almost half, there was no recorded cause of death. Indigenous children attending these schools died at dramatically higher rates than other school-aged children in Canada.

The research did not stop in 2015.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has continued going through millions of historical records, identifying children who died or never returned home. In 2025 alone, another 1,143 names were verified for the National Student Memorial Register. That work is still continuing.

And Canada knew children were dying long before any of us were alive.

In 1907, Dr. Peter Bryce investigated conditions in western residential schools for the federal government. Among the schools that responded to his inquiry, nearly one quarter of former students were already dead. At one school, the figure was 69%. Tuberculosis was rampant, and Bryce connected those deaths directly to the conditions children were living in the Residential Schools.

That is part of Canada's historical record.

The investigation at the former Kamloops Residential School is still ongoing. The original findings came from ground-penetrating radar and other evidence identifying probable burial locations; further investigative work has continued since then. We should describe that evidence accurately. But the history of children dying in residential schools does not begin or end with the number 215.

We have the records.

We have the government documents.

We have the testimony of Survivors.

We know children died.

And the death toll, horrific as it is, is not the whole story.

The residential school system was created to separate Indigenous children from their families, communities, languages and cultures. Children were taken from their parents, sometimes very young and far from home. Indigenous languages and cultural practices were prohibited. Generations of families were deliberately disrupted by government policy. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission described that project as cultural genocide. In 2022, Canada's House of Commons unanimously resolved that what happened in residential schools should be recognized as genocide.

That history would be profoundly wrong even if every child sent to one of those institutions had survived.

I don't think acknowledging that requires hating Canada. I don't think people living today need to carry personal guilt for something they didn't personally do.

But we do inherit the responsibility of deciding what we do with the truth.

And I understand why some of this is difficult to sit with. Most of us grew up being taught a much cleaner version of Canadian history. Realizing that something terrible was happening at the same time as the history we learned in school can be deeply uncomfortable.

We can make room for that discomfort.

What we cannot do is make the historical record disappear because it makes us uncomfortable.

Indigenous families carried this truth long before the rest of Canada was prepared to listen. That their languages, cultures, families and Nations survived policies explicitly intended to break those connections is something worth recognizing too.

Reconciliation was never supposed to mean agreeing on a comforting version of the past.

It starts with telling the truth about it.

So when you encounter residential school denial or minimization, you don't have to scream at someone. You don't have to humiliate them.

Bring the conversation back to the record.

Bring it back to the children.

Because Canada's history belongs to all of us — including the parts that hurt.

And if we want to build a better Canada from it, the truth has to be something we're brave enough to carry together.

09/29/2026

This is a great opportunity to meet local trustee candidates!

A local mom has organized a meet and greet for the school board candidates in partnership with DPAC. This is a great opportunity for you to come out and meet the us!

All candidates have been invited, and I will be there for sure 😊

▪️Saturday, October 10

▪️10:00 am - noon

▪️Serene Stay and Play Cafe
107-7491 Vedder Rd

Thank you to Hayley Tarrant and DPAC for providing Chilliwack with an opportunity to get to know the trustee candidates.

09/24/2026

I know. Another election is probably the last thing most people wanted right now.

We already have municipal elections on October 17, and now B.C. is heading into a provincial election on October 24, two years earlier than the regular schedule.

So... why?

The simplest answer is that having a *majority* and having a *clear mandate* are not quite the same thing.

The NDP still had enough seats to govern. They held the majority of the power. David Eby did not have to call an election to keep the government moving forward.

But a mandate is about something bigger. It asks the question:
"what direction are voters giving a government permission to take?"

A clear mandate was given in 2024, but a lot has changed since then.

B.C. is facing a serious trade conflict with the United States and threats to jobs and major industries. At the same time, the Official Opposition has gone through major internal upheaval. Conservative MLAs left or were expelled, a breakaway party formed, and Conservative leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned after just 113 days.

That component is critical to the decision behind this election, because an opposition has an important job to do. They must be able to challenge government, scrutinize its decisions and be prepared to govern if voters choose it.

Eby argues that British Columbians should decide how they want the province to respond to all of this. And I, somewhat chagrined, vehemently agree.

And yes, B.C. normally has fixed election dates. The next one was scheduled for 2028. But our system also preserves the ability to go back to voters early when circumstances change enough that a fresh mandate may be needed.

You do not have to agree that this election was necessary. There is a fair argument that the government already had a mandate and should have kept governing.

But the democratic principle is simple:
Political parties do not own the authority to govern. We lend it to them.

And when circumstances change, that authority must be put back in our hands to decide who we want governing in our name, and where we want them to take the province.

So on October 24, the final say goes back where it belongs:

with the people.

09/22/2026

School trustees are like the front door of your house.

The front door has a really important job. But it also has a really specific job.

When it works, you barely notice it.

When it doesn't, suddenly the whole house has a problem.

That’s how I think about school boards.

Being elected trustee does not mean you’ve been handed a political megaphone to use for whatever issue you care about.

You’ve been elected to a Board of Education. There is an actual job to do.

You help govern a school district.

You make decisions about the things a Board of Education is actually responsible for.

You work on budgets, policy and the direction of the district. You ask questions. You oversee the system. You work with six other trustees and make decisions together.

That’s the job.

And this isn’t just a suggestion about how trustees should behave. Trustees take an oath to follow the School Act and faithfully perform the duties of the office.

There is a mandate. There are responsibilities. There are limits to the role.

You don’t get elected and suddenly have a blank cheque to turn the Board of Education into a vehicle for whatever political issue you personally want to pursue.

You were elected to govern a school district.

And the province takes that responsibility seriously. If a Board substantially fails to perform its duties, seriously fails to comply with the School Act, falls into serious financial trouble, or creates certain risks to student achievement, an official trustee can be appointed to take over the Board’s responsibilities, and the elected trustees cease to hold office.

The job of a school board is not whatever the trustees decide they want the job to be.

It has a purpose.
It has a mandate.
It has a job to do.
Just like the front door.

You can paint the door. You can put a wreath on it. You can make it louder, brighter or more noticeable.

But at the end of the day, if it isn’t keeping the house secure, it isn’t doing its job.

This October, look past the noise. Pay attention to whether candidates understand the work of governing a school district.