Image: Supplied by Lewis Point / Chilliwack native and software developer Lewis Point, who is from the Skowkale First Nation, will run for a seat on the Chilliwack school board in this fall's election.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Fall election

Chilliwack native and software developer Lewis Point, son of the former Lieutenant Governor of B.C., to run for Chilliwack school board

Sep 13, 2022 | 10:27 AM

CHILLIWACK — As the son of the former Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, Chilliwack native Lewis Point carries a fairly distinguished family heritage.

His father, the Honourable Steven Lewis Point, worked as a lawyer and provincial court judge and is now the 19th chancellor of UBC.

While Lewis has carved out his own career path first as a police officer and later, a software engineer and software developer, he is cognizant of his namesake and what his father’s legacy represents.

“We approach that as carefully as we possibly can,” Point said of his father’s positions in society. “His policy is that we, his family, simply do the work and if you put in the time and effort in life, good things will happen. The greatest asset my parents have ever given us as children is that they’ve worked hard.”

Hard work and dedication have brought him to a place in life where the 49-year-old father of five and grandfather of five plans to reinvest in the Chilliwack community and run for a seat on the Chilliwack school board in this fall’s municipal election.

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Point, a member of the Skowkale First Nation, attended Sardis Elementary before graduating from Sardis Secondary.

“I was here when they built the Chilliwack mall,” he noted with an inflection of humour in his voice. Later, seeking to make a difference in the community, he successfully trained to become a Aboriginal Fisheries police officer. But his first labour of love, computers and technology, led him in a different direction that would eventually establish his career trajectory.

“I’ve always loved computers,” Point said. “I’ve been using computers since I was eight years old, after watching Star Wars in 1977. After I worked as an Aboriginal Fisheries officer, I had to find a way to survive. I went back to computers, a field that I loved.”

Point worked as a software engineer for Microsoft in Seattle for seven years before answering the call to come back home to his native Chilliwack. He began working for the Stó:lō Nation in its information technology wing and continued for 12 years, building a computer system that includes customer relationship management, human resources, mail management, payroll time cards, and more. He constructed a similar IT system for Lytton First Nation, and says his software program is being used by over 200 First Nations bands.

With that kind of industrious career as his backdrop, Point says he wants to see a more robust skill set implemented in Chilliwack schools.

“I’m hearing about 18-year-old students who can’t read script handwriting that they don’t actually teach,” Point said. “Now I’m hearing that they don’t do exams or tests as often, or if you fail a grade, you still pass. Back when I was in Chilliwack schools, we had provincial exams and tests. You had to pass your courses. I was one of those kids who read five chapters ahead. I had to know the information to prove it on the tests. You had to work hard to get that.”

Point says he wants to see students graduating with a more robust set of skill so that they’re better equipped.

“One of the things my father tried to do is get books into the hands of children,” Point said. “It’s all about giving children skills, a core set of skills. Teaching standards are not where I feel they should be when it comes to reading, writing and arithmetic.”

He says he’s also concerned about certain content that’s being disseminated in classrooms.

“If a 10-year-old can’t watch an 18-plus movie at the movie theatres, why would something like that be allowed in classrooms,” Point added. “Schools are a place where children are supposed to be safe so that parents can go to work and do their job and provide for their children.”