Dear Mr. Hawes: March 10, 2011 – Randy Hawes too confrontational, offensive, closed minded and not knowledgeable enough for mining cabinet say First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining (FNWARM) wrote Christy Clark asking her to consider replacing Randy Hawes with a “less confrontational and offensive, more open minded and knowledgeable mining minister.
“Mining Minister Hawes is part of the problem, not part of the solution.” Over the past year Mr. Hawes has gone out of his way to criticise and insult traditional First Nations cultures to accuse us of not caring for our children, to pretend there is no real problems with mining, and to preach to us on behalf of companies,” said Chief Sellars
Chief Baptise is said: We hope that Ms. Clark will be able to grasp what Mr. Hawes clearly cannot.
March 14, 2011 – Randy Hawes was demoted to backbench.
“Hawes skillfully buried the bar of integrity and his constituents suffered.” – Abbotsford Today
“Randy Hawes’ claim to fame has been his ability to run blocker for the gravel industry in their headlong rush to convert Sumas Mountain from a pristine wilderness into a moonscape.”
“According to Liberal MLA Randy Hawes, gravel mining is just as much about public safety as it is about making money. Since a moratorium on river removal was lifted by the federal government in the late nineties, this real estate agent turned politician has emerged nothing short of a crusader for gravel mining in the Fraser Valley.”
All of the above are direct observations about you, Mr. Hawes.
Obviously, your negotiating and mediating skills were not working . Have you learned anything since?
Mr. Hawes; just because you can does not mean you should run for mayor. When you were elected mayor you jumped into provincial politics in the middle of your tenure which was costly to the taxpayer’s of Mission. I don’t recall you offering to pay the taxpayers’ back. As you have said, there is a “best before date” when you received the back hand from Christy Clark. Your comment “I’ve not run out of ideas. It seems I’ve run out of people in Victoria to listen to them.” You should listen to your own advice. You also stated that “the Liberals under Christy Clark have been campaigning rather than governing for the last couple of years.” When have you ever stopped campaigning? As a career politician, if you are not campaigning for yourself, you are pushing your political ideology through others by your personal endorsement of your handpicked candidates for provincial (Tony Luck), municipal politics (CRMG) or wherever you can get an audience to listen “your ideas”. Now you have decided to save the people of Mission from the CRMG group who were so strongly endorsed by yourself and others. A herd of monkeys could have been elected and done a better job than the group who were replaced by this current council.
The people of Mission have endured the costly mistakes of former Mayor and Council members who in their wisdom did not feel hiring a project manager for the Leisure Center upgrade was necessary which cost an estimated $8,000,000.00 over run. Mission has a habit of electing people into Council without really giving much thought or knowing who these people really are. And that is their fault. I am not taken in by the insincere superficial handshake with the “Hi, how are you?” as some people are. A hand shake is an empty gesture by politicians who have limited skills and lots of empty promises. Unfortunately, we have too many enablers in our community and not enough critical thinkers.
Your negotiating and mediation skills have not worked very well for you, so how will you apply them if elected Mayor? What is your vision for Mission? Mission has become a strip mall community being led by people who have limited vision. You were a part of that. Has that changed?
You stated that the current council is disrespectful and disunited. Mr. Hawes, how is telling a citizen in a most demeaning manner that they don’t know what they are talking about, respectful? Is that your idea of being respectful to a citizen? Are you going to be respectful to every citizen regardless of their political ideology? How are you going to unite this community? Your record as a politician tells me that won’t happen in my lifetime. So gather up your enablers Mr. Hawes, and good luck.
C. Evens