VIDEO: Campaign of vandalism, fear-mongering by Conservative thugs continues in the Eastern Fraser Valley
Strahl fiefdom has ruled over Chilliwack unchallenged for 32 years, now they are contaminated by MAGA-style divisive politics
Just afer 11 p.m. on Friday night as I was winding down the day, I got a message from my friend Zeeshan Khan who is the optimistic if unlikely federal election candidate for the Liberal Party in the riding of Chilliwack-Hope.
After violence to Zeeshan's signs and hate-filled messages scrawled on several NDP candidate Teri Westerby's signs, tonight (April 25, 2025), one of Zeeshan's large Liberal signs was lit on fire at the intersection of Yale Road and Prest Road.
A relative newcomer to Canada who has found a home and a place as a community leader, working at the school district in a role far below his education as a dental surgeon, Zeeshan is positive and optimistic to a fault. He is what Canada needs and he's showing it, yet the hate and division of so many on the far right is angrily on display.
Zeeshan shared the video and asked me what he should do. I told him simply to call police because that vandalism is a crime.
He is worried that his children will be scared when they see the video.
"It’s an attack on democracy," I told him.
Zeeshan responded the way he always does, calmly and with optimism where many of us would have outrage.
"I hope voters go and vote for a change on Monday," he told me. "Chilliwack deserves better. Signs don't win races but votes do."
He's absolutely right and it's unsurprising that Mark Strahl refuses to apologize for the behaviour of people who support his leader's populist Trump-style rhetoric, which inevitably leads to this sort of racism and homophobia.
Chilliwack-Hope is an electoral district owned by the Strahl family for 32 years. They can't fathom nor will they tolerate anything else. Godfather Chuck reigned from 1993 to 2011 when he retired, handing his crown to son Mark despite some naive outrage from a couple of local Conservatives who weren't allowed to vie for the nomination.
The problem for Strahl and his thugs is that Chilliwack is changing, so his extreme right-wing religious supporters and angry clowns with "Fuck Trudeau" stickers on their pickup trucks are saying "no" to change of any kind.
Will Strahl respond to tell his supporters to stand down and stop the violence? Of course not. He's not even campaigning publicly in the riding so why finally make a first public appearance apologizing for bigotry and violence?
A few days ago there was a Khan sign demolished in the Conservative heartland of Rosedale a few metres from two Mark Strahl signs and next to a homemade sign that said "SAVE CANADA VOTE CONSERVATIVE."
Several people posted about this attack on democracy but there was no apology or even a rebuke to the vandals from Strahl.
Worse by far was before that when seven signs by openly trans candidate Teri Westerby were vandalized with transphobic and homophobic statements in black spraypaint, and some lit on fire.
"Those are the painful, lingering types of slurs that we've heard for a long time and that's how I knew they were meant to scare all of us and we just weren't going to let that happen, not at all," Westerby said. "We aren't scared here."
No one is saying Mark Strahl personally is out there with a can of spraypaint or gas and matches, but the silence from him and the Conservative campaign emboldens and enables his supporters to continue this anti-democratic hatred, this attempt to cling to power in a riding where so many people are desperate to be free from this inept fiefdom.
Where so many people, ironically for his campaign slogan, just want change.
-30-
Paul J. Henderson
pauljhenderson@gmail.com
facebook.com/PaulJHendersonJournalist
instagram.com/wordsarehard_pjh
x.com/PeeJayAitch
wordsarehard-pjh.bsky.social