EMO -- Yesterday Borderland Pride shared on Facebook correspondence with Canada Post that said the community bulletin board in Emo has been reinstated after anti-2SLGBTQIA+ propaganda was posted a few months ago.
According to Douglas Judson, chair of Borderland Pride, the organization notified Canada Post on Nov. 22 that the post office “has repeatedly allowed the posting of hate literature targeting 2SLBTQIA+ people and specifically trans and non-binary people.”
Attached to the email is a photograph from the parental rights advocate group “Hands Off Our Kids,” that depicts a school-age child surrounded by pronouns and a caption that says, “Stop Confusing Us!”
Another example the organization presented to Canada Post was a photo of an envelope of brochures. The envelope read, “PLEASE educate yourself about SOGI 123 education. And let's work together to stop any action intended to sexualize children at the earliest age possible.”
According to the SOGI 123 website, they are an advocacy group that aids educators in British Columbia and Alberta with resources to make their classrooms more inclusive and safer for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
However, in response to the incidents, the Emo Canada Post retail office initially took down the community bulletin altogether.
Hearing of this response, Borderland Pride sent a second email to state their intention was not to remove the community bulletin but to ensure that Canada Post employees were monitoring the spread of harmful propaganda.
“We felt like their initial response was to impose a collective punishment and take away the service from everyone instead of rooting out the bigotry and enforcing standards. We felt that was a both-sides of an issue where there should be clear corporate direction. It also didn’t sit well with us in light of our experience of homophobia and transphobia in the community and, in particular, with its elected council," Judson said.
“In a small community where most people go to the post office every day to check a PO box, information hubs like this are important for outreach, particularly to seniors and others who are not online and have barriers to other platforms.”
In receiving the Borderland Pride email, Emo Canada Post office has reinstated the community bulletin board.
Newswatch asked Canada Post about safety standards and their policy for monitoring the community bulletin inside Canada Post offices.
Canada Post media relations spokesperson Lisa Liu said their “local staff monitor postings and Canada Post management reviews any complaints about posted material.”
She also said Canada Post allows bulletin boards in its retail facilities to be used by government, charitable and non-profit organizations.
Liu referred to Canada Post’s anti-racism and anti-discrimination charter as a benchmark for employees to gauge the organization’s policies about discrimination and human rights violations.
For Borderland Pride, reinstating the community board was a necessary step to ensure that patrons of the post office can keep up-to-date on community events.
The Pride group hopes better control measures are put in place on what can be posted.
