Coquitlam school district readies for spring break trip to China; maintains close ties with former Confucius Institute

A few Tri-Cities teachers are set to spend their spring break in China.

For the first time since the pandemic, School District #43 is slated to send a delegation including teachers to visit China as part of a cultural exchange, explained the school district’s assistant communications director Ken Hoff.

Details of the trip, including cost estimates, have not been finalized, Hoff stated. Previous trips have cost about $8,000 per person.

The trip should: “develop staff capacity to view their students through a multicultural lens so that they can better support all learners in our community,” Hoff wrote in an email to the Dispatch.

Former Vancouver School Board chair Patti Bacchus was critical of the spring break cultural exchange, writing on social media: “When will these folks learn that sometimes free is way too expensive?”

The school district has faced scrutiny for its relationship with the Chinese Language and Culture Institute, formerly known as the Confucius Institute. However, the district doesn’t share those concerns, Hoff noted.

“The district does not have concerns about possible undue influence in our context,” he wrote.

The institute, which is partly funded by the Chinese government, has provided Mandarin instruction and cultural programming in Coquitlam for more than a decade.

According to documents obtained by the Globe and Mail for an investigative article in 2020, Walton Elementary used a textbook which included a map showing Taiwan as a province of China. The school subsequently switched to another textbook.

Speaking to the Globe and Mail at the time, Hoff emphasized the school district was in charge of the curriculum and there had been no attempts to influence the district’s decisions.

The article also referred to LinkedIn records which showed that at least two instructors worked in mainland China shortly before starting work at the Coquitlam institute.

School District #43 was also featured prominently in Doris Liu’s 2017 documentary In the Name of Confucius.

The documentary chronicled acrimonious meetings at the Toronto School Board over the school district’s relationship with the Confucius Institute.

In an interview with Liu, the now-former school board chair Chris Bolton described a comfortable relationship with the institute as well as trips to China.

“We’ve been wined and dined, certainly over there,” he said in the film, adding that accommodations were covered.

The documentary also featured an interview with School District 43 superintendent Patricia Gartland.

Upon arriving in Coquitlam, Liu was greeted by the school district’s then-marketing manager Bob Lajoie.

“We were very lucky in the beginning. We received about a million dollars worth of books and materials from Hanban,” Lajoie told Liu, referring to the institute’s executive branch.

“We visit China four or five times a year,” Gartland said to Liu during their interview.

The district submits an annual spending report, Gartland explained.

“If all of that fits in with the guidelines, then we can receive $100,000 in a year,” she said.

The superintendent dismissed concerns about the institute.

“We never had any concerns of any kind and I don’t understand why there’d be any controversy. I think it’s xenophobia,” Gartland said in the film.

When asked about receiving money from a government that doesn’t respect human rights, the interview turned somewhat contentious.

“I don’t agree with what you’ve just said,” Gartland replied. “We can receive grants from any source and if we receive it from the government of China we’re proud to do so.”

Liu then asked Gartland about partnering with a government that discriminates based on religious beliefs.

“I will not continue if you want to keep talking about this,” Gartland said.

At that point, Lajoie interrupted, turning to Gartland and saying: “Let’s just go. That’s enough.”

“I don’t know if I want to give her my permission form now,” Gartland commented.

“Do you want to withdraw it?” Lajoie asked.

“Excuse me, I cannot do that,” Liu told Gartland.

Gartland laughed and seemed to reach for the paper. “Yes you can,” she told Liu.

After Liu refused, Lajoie told her: “You’ll hear from us on another level.”

The documentary also featured interviews with former Confucius Institute instructor Sonia Zhao.

A Falun Gong practitioner, Zhao said she was concerned the institutes effectively exported China’s persecution of followers of the spiritual practice.

Zhao said her contract with the Confucius Institute specified she wouldn’t practise Falun Gong.

She also noted that certain topics, such as Tibet and Taiwan, were off limits for institute instructors.

“If I couldn’t avoid mentioning these, then I had to change the topic,” she said in the documentary. “If students chased me for an answer then I was told that I must say that Tibet and Taiwan belong to China.”

Hanban director general Xu Lin is also featured in the film. In what appears to be a television interview, Lin discussed criticism that the institutes could erode China’s educational sovereignty.

“We send the teachers. We send textbooks. What they learn is the Chinese language. We haven’t lost education sovereignty,” she said. “It’s like the foreign universities work for us.”

Over the past decade, several schools cut ties with the institute. McMaster University severed its relationship with the Confucius Institute over discriminatory hiring practices. New Brunswick’s education minister dubbed the program Chinese propaganda while removing the program from 18 schools.

Toward the end of Liu’s documentary, Toronto school board trustee Howard Kaplan defended the relationship.

“What country in the world has clean hands?” he asked. “Do we refuse material from the United States because we didn’t like the war in Iraq?”

Michael Copeland, president of the Toronto Canada-China Friendship Association, said concerns about the institute were silly.

“This is not a Trojan horse. It’s a gift. And don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” he said.