Former MLA and educator honoured with Coquitlam’s highest award

It was a short ceremony for a lifetime of work.

Longtime educator Mary O’Neill and former MLA John Cashore were each awarded Coquitlam’s Freedom of the City Award earlier this month.

O’Neill spent nearly four decades in School District #43 as a teacher, counsellor, and principal at Centennial, Moody, Pinetree, Riverside and Charles Best. Working with the school district’s critical response team proved transformative for O’Neill, she said.

“The strength and dignity I witnessed in those moments taught me more about community than any textbook ever could,” she said. “That same belief that people are more than their worst moment led me beyond the school system and into restorative justice.”

O’Neill was a founding contributor to the restorative justice initiative Communities Embracing Restorative Action and works with the Talitha Koum Society, a Christian-based recovery society for women dealing with addiction.

Discussing the program with the Dispatch in 2021, O’Neill explained that while the program is Christian-based, “you don’t have to be Christian.”

Bible study at Talitha Koum is like a required course in school, O’Neill explained.

“You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to believe it. This is what we teach,” she said, explaining the idea that the soul is part of the whole person.

The society treats women, including some who have just been released from prison.

“Every single one of these women have had lots of trauma,” O’Neill said. “Yet they keep getting up every day and keep wanting to have things better.”

Speaking to council, O’Neill called her work with Talitha Koum: “one of the great blessings of my life.”

Looking over her life’s work, O’Neill said her approach has been simple.

“Love and trust God, be kind, and never be indifferent to the pain and needs of others.”

O’Neill thanked her family and colleagues, and discussed her hope that people in Coquitlam would choose compassion over judgment and community over isolation.

“This is an honour I never imagined receiving and certainly note one I accept alone,” she said.

After being elected Coquitlam-Maillardville MLA in 1986, Cashore began a political career that included work as Minister of Labour and Environment in the late-1990s.

Cashore was well-liked, recalled Mayor Richard Stewart.

“As the person who succeeded John as MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville, I will say that it was quite cold in his shadow.”

Before entering politics, Cashore was a United Church minister.

At 90 years old, Cashore reflected on his career.

“When people ask me what I did for a living, I respond by saying that I had the two jobs you can’t talk about at Thanksgiving dinner: religion and politics.”

Cashore called receiving the Freedom of the City, “a highlight of my life.”

“I share this award with my family and with my community,” he said.