Bylsma shows why the fight for equality not over

Back in December, West Lincoln Mayor Dave Bylsma smiled for the cameras as he helped raise a special flag outside township hall to mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

This month, he looked just as happy as he and others raised the Age-Friendly Niagara Network flag to honour Seniors Month.

June is Pride Month. So why isn’t the Pride flag flying this month outside township hall?

“The flag will likely fly yet this June. But only after an honest debate at council,” Bylsma said in a note to this newspaper.

We wonder, how much “honest debate” was required before disabled people and seniors were allowed to fly their flags there?

We have a good idea of where Bylsma stands in the debate, after his controversial radio interview on CKTB this week.

Bylsma dislikes “identity politics,” he said, when asked about the absent flag. “We have 30 years of identity politics that shows this is not the solution.” Yet it seems to depend on the identity.

Seniors, good. Disabled people, good.

People who are LGBTQ+? We need to debate this. “There are always going to be injustices, correct,” he told the radio station.

“But in terms of rights, what are they, what are anyone who’s flying a flag whether that’s Black Lives Matter in America or the Pride flag, what are they still fighting for?

“Is it necessary? Or have they won?”

For the record, the Pride flag is a peaceful symbol of inclusiveness that recognizes a community that hasn’t always felt included and still doesn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Bylsma’s narrow-minded question answers itself.

Because of people like him, yes, it is still necessary. And no, they haven’t won (though the only thing the LGBTQ+ community is trying to ‘win’ is to be treated the same as everyone else).

When he was first asked about this a week ago, Bylsma told our sister newspaper Niagara This Week that Pride Niagara’s request for the flag raising “came to me and was missed.”

He called it an oversight, that it should have gone to the township clerk, and “I thought it was more of a regional initiative.” The clerk later apologized to Pride Niagara on behalf of the township.

“There is a chance the flag could fly. I haven’t ruled it out yet,” the mayor said.

He seems to be out of step with some members of his own council.

This Week reported Ward 3 Coun. William Reilly said he was “disappointed” and called it “an easy fix.”

Another member, Ward 2’s Christopher Coady, said he was “frustrated, disappointed and outraged that we are even having to have this conversation in 2020 … inclusion is such a basic human right.”

How can Mayor Bylsma, or anyone, look around and criticize “identity politics” and question whether LGBTQ+, Black or Indigenous people have anything left to fight for?

They quite clearly do as systemic bigotry continues to be inflicted on these communities in Canada.

Bylsma said he supports the slogan All Lives Matter, and not Black Lives Matter. Of course, all lives matter but that implies equality for all, an equality that does not now exist.

It’s easy to say these groups have nothing to fight for, if you are blind to history and ignore the world beyond your own doorstep.

We would expect a person in Bylsma’s position to see things with a little more empathy but he has clearly demonstrated that the fight for equality for all persons is not over and must go on.