Dear editor:

This is an open letter regarding the news story about Niagara Catholic school trustee Natalia Benoit, “NOTL Catholic trustee suspended for Nazi and Pride flag comparison,” (The Lake Report, Jan. 25).

I may find your positions absurd but I find it abhorrent that an elected body can suspend a member.

As S.G. Tallentyre wrote in “The Friends of Voltaire” in 1907: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Those who elected you should have their representative’s voice at the board.

You referenced authoritarianism. If member by member exclusion is passed by the majority, the strength of pluralism disappears into that hole. Shame on your fellow members.

Good of The Lake Report to report on it, reinforcing the importance of local media.

John MacBeth
NOTL