That time when former school trustee Barry Neufeld called people the 'R' word
Considered an offensive ableist slur by almost everyone, former trustee was excoriated in the media for insulting three people at The Progress
(Editorial note: This story is about something that happened in November 2022. I have a personal distaste for a generally accepted policy in Canadian news media – which is not the case in the U.S. – of not repeating an offensive word in news stories about that offensive word. I find it at the very least confusing to the reader but also insulting to their intelligence. To tell people why something is offensive we shouldn't dance around what that word is. People don't curl up into a ball or melt away upon hearing or reading a word they do not like, especially when it is not directed at them. With that, I point out that I will use the actual R-word Neufeld called me below, so if that offends you, please enjoy this link instead of reading - PJH, Feb. 17, 2025)
Controversial Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld's was under fire in November 2020 for using an "ableist slur" to describe three employees of The Chilliwack Progress, including myself.
"Ableist slur" was how Black Press Media editorial director Ashley Wadhwani referred to the word "retard" in writing the story about this five years ago. She wrote the story since neither I nor a reporter also involved couldn't properly write a story about something that was partly about us.
There, I wrote it, "retard." Sorry. Take a deep breath. If you are OK, carry on. I won't use it gratuitously.
But when Neufeld called reporter Jessica Peters, publisher Tara Hiebert and yours truly "the three retards," it quickly garnered condemnation by provincial politicians and the public. He had a Global TV reporter knock on the door of his mobile home in the trailer park where he lives near Cultus Lake. I distinctly remember his gruff response to being asked about the matter on camera: "I was talking about adults." Whatever that means.
The offensive word was used in a public Facebook post on Nov. 19, 2020 targeting yours truly, Peters and Hiebert it was soon changed with the word "retard" replaced by "radical lefties" before being deleted altogether – but not before being screen-grabbed by many, including advocates for disabled people.
The social media post came a few days after Neufeld was given a community hero award by Chilliwack-Hope MP Mark Strahl for “going above and beyond to make our community a better place during the COVID-19 pandemic," which is hilarious because Neufeld is an anti-vaxxer who shared countless COVID conspiracy theories. Among them, Neufeld was censured by the school board after he questioned the gender identity of Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s top doctor.
After the "retard" comment was posted, an online petition started by a Chilliwack resident got some attention. Within 24 hours more than 1,600 people had signed the petition: “REMOVE BARRY NEUFELD.”
This was only the latest in a long line of times when Neufeld attracted criticism.
He has long raged against the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity program in B.C. schools, with calls for his resignation after making anti-trans comments in 2018. The BC Teachers’ Federation filed a human rights complaint against him, alleging his comments were creating an unsafe work environment.
B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming weighed in immediately after the slur post in a five-Tweet thread on Nov. 20, 2020, calling for Neufeld to resign.
I am once again appalled by the comments of Mr. Neufeld on social media and I am renewing my public calls for him to resign as a school trustee.
— Rob Fleming (@Rob_Fleming) November 20, 2020
It’s reprehensible that his offensive behaviour continues.
1/5 #bced
In addition to targeting the LGBTQ community, and peddling conspiracy theories about Dr. Tam and COVID-19, he is now targeting ableist slurs at individuals.
— Rob Fleming (@Rob_Fleming) November 20, 2020
It’s time for him to step down.
2/5 #bced
In a separate statement, the Chilliwack Teachers Association voiced their support for us at the local newspaper while condemning Neufeld’s actions.
“They are dedicated and professional journalists who are not afraid to stand up for decency and fairness and to speak out against bigotry and narrow-mindedness,” the statement read.
“The Chilliwack Progress is the oldest and one of the most successful community papers in B.C., and part of that success comes from the courage not to shy away from controversy.”
I'm just going to let that last sentence sink in for readers to ponder given the large number of controversial topics a certain media outlet not only shies away from but puts its head in the sand pretending don't exist.
The "retard" slur sent out was in response to a story by Peters about the increasingly divisive school board, specifically, when trustee Willow Reichelt revealed that Neufeld sent her a direct message during a school board meeting via Zoom. "Poor baby, do you feel unsafe?" was Neufeld's childish message.
The bullying worked and Reichelt revealed Neufeld's message, saying that she'd felt like she had been "punched in the gut."
"I got that feeling like the blood drained out of my body, it really affected me."
In that same news story, Peters reported how Neufeld used his trustee report time to, among other things, rant about SOGI-123 yet again saying that it was a hill he was willing to die on, which was prescient of him. He did die on it.
Personally, I'm of two minds on the Neufeld "retard" slur. It was insulting and childish and moronic. But that's who Barry Neufeld is. And he paid the price in that his use of that one word garnered outsized media attention, in my humble opinion.
I am not a "retard" by any measure, including whatever Neufeld thinks that word meant when he used it to describe me. He could have called me an epileptic or a Mexican and it would be similarly wrong and idiotic. So it didn't hurt my feelings and I'm pretty sure Jessica Peters and Tara Hiebert had no emotional response to the insult other than possibly schadenfreude seeing that a terrible human being was once again showing the world how terrible he is.
Unlike Reichelt who was the direct target of Neufeld's bullying as a work colleague and who used two different hyperbolic medical metaphors to describe the shock at being called "poor baby," I frankly didn't give a shit, pardon my shocking language, about being insulted.
So if the collective outrage wasn't about our distress, why was it so horrific, the use of that word? Disability advocates were among the most vocal critics of Neufeld after he used a word that became a slur after being used decades ago to describe people whose intellectual development was delayed, a word that is a synonym to the word in question.
Words are powerful. Meanings change. Usage evolves. Barry Neufeld was not talking about Tamara Taggart's child although the high profile broadcast journalist with a child with Down syndrome was outraged that he did so. It was not about who he was using that word to describe nor was it about people who in the 1970s might have casually been described using that word. The outrage was because of who the person saying it was.
As an elected official, communication needs to be held to a higher standard. As a school trustee, he was involved in overseeing the public education system with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students from Kindergarten to Grade 12. And as a human being, we shouldn't talk about people that way out of basic decency.
Barry Neufeld was and is a terrible politician, a terrible trustee, and he's a terrible human being. He is ignorant, thoughtless, vengeful, bigoted, close-minded and stubborn.
But did he deserve to be torn to pieces publicly for calling me and two other people – people who are educated, strong, mature, professional – "those three retards"? I don't think so.
Words can be powerful but not this one, not in this way. Maybe I'm wrong.
-30-
Paul J. Henderson
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