The mayor of the District Municipality of North Cowichan, Al Siebring, is expressing concern towards “vile” and “racist” comments being made online regarding COVID-19 cases among members of the Cowichan Tribes First Nation.
In a message posted on Facebook, Siebring said, “I’ve been extremely concerned with some of the posts I’ve been seeing in the past few days with respect to the COVID outbreak among the Cowichan Tribes community. Ok… I’m beyond ‘extremely concerned.’ I’m disappointed. And I’m pissed off.”
Last week, Cowichan Tribes ordered community members to shelter-in-place after seeing a spike of COVID-19 within the First Nation. Cowichan Tribes Chief and Council has indicated there have been 45 positive cases as of Sunday since the start of an outbreak, which began back on New Year’s Day.
“Some of the posts I’ve seen are vile; filled with racism and an ‘us/them’ mentality. They are fear-based, and they are inappropriate,” reads the post.
He continued by saying, “This whole thing has prompted some very inappropriate responses from the broader community, including demands that off-reserve employers fire any First Nations workers who may come into contact with the broader community purely on the basis their membership in Cowichan Tribes. That, folks, is racism. Plain and simple. And it’s wrong.”
Siebring points out that it is unfair for non-Indigenous people in the community to treat the First Nation members with the assumption that they had COVID-19.
“NOT ONCE during that 10 month period did we ever hear of Tribes members looking at every non-indigenous person with the assumption that they had COVID. We didn’t hear any calls for all white people to stay away from their jobs until the pandemic is over. I didn’t see a single social media post or news article where Cowichan Tribes members were complaining that it was ‘those white people’ who were spreading the virus all over the Island,” reads the post.
“And yet, now that the numbers have changed, that’s the kind of rhetoric we’re starting to see. Folks, we are better than this. And it has to stop.”
Siebring is hoping the community will step up and call out any racist behaviour or chatter on social media moving forward.
The North Cowichan mayor ends his “rant” by asking people to be kind and not promote divisions in our community.
Cowichan Tribes is the largest First Nation band in British Columbia and had been without a COVID-19 case until January 1.
CHEK News
