Mayor reveals he’s bisexual to meet gender policy
The mayor of Invermere says his bisexuality is the “minority status” that allowed him to challenge and defeat a female disability advocate for the B.C. NDP’s nomination in Columbia River-Revelstoke.
Gerry Taft made the disclosure to local media in his riding, saying he didn’t want debate over the NDP’s contentious gender equity policy to overshadow his candidacy in the 2017 provincial election.
“I live with my partner Nozomi and my young son, but I identify as bisexual,” he said in a media statement published by the Columbia Valley Pioneer.
“This has always been a private matter; as a result, I have never made a public declaration about my sexuality. I’ve never felt that I had to. I am choosing to disclose now because it will allow us to turn our attention away from the equity mandate towards the issues that really matter to this region.”
Taft is seeking to replace incumbent MLA Norm Macdonald in the May 2017 election. The NDP’s gender equity policy states any riding vacated by a male NDP MLA must have a female candidate or a member of an “equity-seeking” group, such as a racial minority, First Nation or LGBTQ.
Taft claimed minority status in his paperwork to officials at NDP headquarters, but refused to tell the riding association, his rival candidate or the public what minority group he represented. Nonetheless, he won the party nomination in a vote Saturday.
Defeated candidate Spring Hawes, a former Invermere councillor who uses a wheelchair, had questioned whether Taft’s candidacy met the spirit of the gender policy. She wondered how a policy that was supposed to give underrepresented minority groups an increased voice in the legislature was honoured by a candidate who wanted to keep his status confidential and wasn’t willing to champion or advocate for the people he represented.
Taft had countered the NDP said he could keep his status confidential and had never planned to go public with personal information that few people in his community knew. But he said he decided to speak publicly after it became clear Hawes and others would continue to insist on an explanation.
The NDP gender equity policy has been passed by party members at several conventions, but remains internally divisive. Some members feel it’s a necessary step to increase diversity while others say it hinders the party’s ability to select the candidate most likely to win in an election.