To: New Westminster City Council
We respectfully petition the City of New Westminster regarding the inequitable treatment on the former segregated section for racialized and marginalized groups within the Douglas Cemetery during the current development of the memorial cemetery park over the entire site.
As the un-decommissioned cemetery’s segregated layout reflects a painful chapter in our province’s past, during which burial practices were shaped by racial discrimination, it remains a site of significant cultural, historical, and genealogical importance. Today, the unbalanced treatment towards different sections of it risks perpetuating the very inequities the memorial park is supposed to help us confront and heal.
We therefore urge the City to provide the leadership to:
- Provide equal designation, % coverage and memorialization for all sections of the cemetery.
- Engage descendant families, stake holder groups and community historians in planning and decision-making.
- Ensure park design, interpretive signage and memorial plaque wordings acknowledge the full history of segregation, honoring everyone interred regardless of race and religion.
- Commit to transparent public reporting on all plans related to this cemetery to uphold our shared values of dignity, inclusion, and historical truth.