Mayor asked to step down, but he insists he is staying

Les Armstrong apologizes again, at a special Wilmot Township council meeting Friday, for sharing a ‘White Lives Matter’ video

WILMOT TOWNSHIP — Mayor Les Armstrong said he will not resign after residents asked him to step down from his position at a special council meeting Friday morning.

Residents spoke directly to Armstrong and repeatedly asked him to resign after he formally apologized for the second time this week for sharing a “White Lives Matter”

video on his Facebook page.

“Do you really want to be known as the racist mayor?” Gita Schuster-Ashley asked. She said she was offended as a resident of this region, and as a woman married to a Black man and a mother to Black children.

“I’m telling you that the only action you will be taking is a letter of resignation you

will be serving to your community,” Schuster-Ashley said.

Armstrong called the special council meeting Friday to apologize to the township and his fellow council members.

After hearing an hour of delegations, Armstrong responded to calls for his resignation with a prepared statement: “I’ve given this considerable thought, and I’ve chosen not to resign. Instead I am determined to show you through my actions that the sincerity of my apology is genuine. That I can learn to do better, that I can make amends to the people I serve.”

This statement came after residents told Armstrong his repeated apologies have been insincere.

“He did not apologize to members of our African Canadian community, or to me,” Schuster-Ashley said, referring to Armstrong’s apology at Wednesday’s meeting as well as a private conversation she said she had with him this week.

The video shared by Armstrong was originally posted by a Facebook Group called Conservative Nation. The 10-minute video is hosted by two Black men who say the Black Lives

Matter movement is a lie and it collects donations that are passed along to Democrats.

Armstrong initially defended his actions, and said earlier this week: “the whole idea is to get a conversation going that needs to be kept going until we resolve the problem of racism in this country and the world.”

Armstrong’s apology on Friday morning was similar to the one he read at a Region of Waterloo council meeting: “I have been ignorant and am incredibly sorry for my actions.”

Wilmot council members told Armstrong he needs to take ownership of his actions and learn from them. Armstrong responded that he knows he needs to undertake education and plans to do so.

This has been a difficult week for residents of Wilmot as Indigenous people and their supporters were heckled by members of an alt-right hate group at the site of Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue in Baden.

The statue had red paint dumped on it Sunday, National Indigenous People’s Day, and again later in the week after it had been cleaned by volunteers. The statue was cleaned again, but this time some of the cleaners were members of an altright hate group known as Urban Infidels. On Friday afternoon, the statue was hit by red paint once again.

The statue of Macdonald is part of a larger statue project called Prime Minsters Path and has been controversial for many years. A proposal to create an outdoor museum with the statues was rejected by Kitchener council, so Wilmot decided to take them in.

It has been criticized for glorifying past prime ministers such as Macdonald, who is known both as a founder of Confederation and also as the author of deeply harmful policies for Indigenous people, including forced attendance at residential schools.

The presense of alt-right hate group members in Baden became intertwined with Armstrong’s decision to share the “White Lives Matter” video as residents drew comparisons between the two incidents.

“By the time you apologized, it was much too late,” said resident Nigel Gordijk, who is married to councillor Cheryl Gordijk.

“It left a stench in the air that attracted white supremacists. White supremacists now feel there is a place for them right here,” he said, referring to the incident at the site of Macdonald’s statue.

Gordijk said as a person of colour, he no longer feels safe in the township he calls his home.

“I did not invite those people to come here. I cannot tell anybody they cannot come here and express their opinion,” Armstrong said.

Cheyanne Thorpe is an Indigenous woman who said she was one of the people heckled by members of the alt-right hate group in Baden earlier this week.

“They told us to go back to where we come from, and other things of that nature. And as much as you want to sit there and shake your head Mayor Armstrong, your comments, your overall underlying statements, they speak many more volumes than you ever could.

“And the fact that you are not willing to publicly denounce these individuals, and the fact that you are not willing to take action against these individuals ... is disturbingly appalling to me.”

Gordijk and others said they knew Armstrong personally, and asked him when and why his personal views became “radicalized.”

“You gave that odious view legitimacy,” Gordijk said of Armstrong’s decision to share the “White Lives Matter” video.

Friday’s council meeting was an emotional one for many delegates and council members alike. In an unusual move, council allowed delegations to return to speak again after Armstrong said he would not resign.

Schuster-Ashley returned to the virtual podium to tell Armstrong his response was not good enough and his apologies were insincere, to which Armstrong replied: “Obviously you are not going to accept anything I say. Whether you want to believe it or not, I am sincere.”

Coun. Jennifer Pfenning said she has received many messages from residents this past week. She said they were statements of outrage and hurt and calls for resignation.

“None of us have authority over each other as members of council,” she said.

“I can say that I can answer for myself and I will say that I will do everything I can to help heal the divisions in this community that have been brought on by this.”

Armstrong has been a member of council for 25 years, and has been mayor for the last nine. He is a former Waterloo Regional Police officer and served most of his policing career in New Hamburg.