Calls for a Chilliwack MLA to resign after reports he closed his office during a rally

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – We’ve already heard demands for the education minister to step down during the teachers dispute, but he is not the only Liberal MLA being urged to call it quits.

A call is coming from a local newspaper editor for Chilliwack-Hope MLA Laurie Throness to resign.

Mike Archer is with the Chilliwack Today. He says a reader brought the paper a picture of Throness’ constituency office, showing a sign posted that read: “In order to reduce confrontation and ensure worker safety, this office will remain closed during picketing activities.”

Archer says unless Throness can show the picketing threatened his staff’s safety, the MLA is just trying to politicize what the demonstrators were doing.

“My stance is that by directly tying the picketing activities outside of his office to the safety of his workers, he has blurred the lines between reality and fiction because… my position was unless he can point to and give evidence that that picketing actually threatened, by its existence, the safety or security of his staff, then he is just making a political statement and trying to [politicize what] the union or the parents — because it turns out it was parents and children outside — were doing. And I think that was completely dishonest,” says Archer.

He adds failing to identify why Throness’ workers were unsafe crosses a line where his constituents can no longer trust him.

Archer says he isn’t aware of any signs of aggression at the rally, and claims things were being done quite differently at another MLA’s constituency office in the Fraser Valley.

“Darryl Plecas over in Abbotsford — who’s also a Liberal — took a completely different approach, which was to open his office, serve coffee and cookies to the protesters, and spend 45 minutes discussing the issue with them.”

A number of calls were made to speak with Throness, but those calls have not been returned.