Politics, Re-Spun

BC NDP Convention Minus 5 Days: Why We’re the Natural Governing Party of BC

I had this amazing daydream a few weeks after we failed to win the election last May.

The NDP is the naturally governing party of BC, so when the legislature was to open earlier this fall/summer, the NDP MLAs should stroll in there and behave as if we actually represent the poorest 95% of British Columbians, which we do, and we should do our best to represent them.

And truly, the MLAs are taking it to the streets this session, for sure. Being critics, challenging the government on its priorities and process are reflective of the masses who have been suffering for this whole decade.

But we really should embrace a humility and a public service mode to recognize that we represent the values of most citizens and we should act as if we are governing. It’s just that we can’t pass legislation.

This goes along with this idea I have that behaviour in parliament is a joke, with all the “grand traditions” of idiocy and compromises to actual debate that so many people claim to be an unquestionable tradition.

But honestly, I have never seen a school board, NGO or even city council meeting operate like our provincial leaders. But reforming the operation of the Westminster Parliamentary System is on my list of long-term reform goals.

In the short term, we start with the reality that most working people in this province are being abused by the government. Tiny lures of tax cuts are combined with user fee increases.

Token, cynical concessions to the poorest British Columbians are matched by massive service cuts.

In the end, the intentional defunding of the BC government is designed to undermine the progressive tax system, reduce the tax burden of the rich and bilk the middle class.

The NDP is rich in convention-passed resolutions framing our party’s beliefs. They exist to represent working people in the province and do not cater to the richest 5% that the Liberals worship.

I would direct you to BC NDP policy on our website, except that it is only available in the internal section where party activists can log in to view the resolutions passed by conventions over the last 30 years. This policy needs to be on the outside of the website for members, the public, the Liberals, the media…EVERYONE…to see it so that we can say to the world that we follow our policy.

Not doing so reduces our credibility, which we saw in abundance in how we lost the last election. Our members chose to not vote and risked Campbell getting in again to avoid voting for us. It doesn’t really get any worse for a political party than that.

My first goal upon being elected to the provincial executive is to make sure everyone knows what we stand for. I’ve read our policy documents. I read our campaign platform during the last election. But you shouldn’t have to take my word for it that we represent the majority of British Columbians.

But beyond internal party problems, why don’t most citizens vote for us when we actually represent them?

Well, why did millions of poor Americans vote against their economic interest this decade by supporting Bush as he abused them like Campbell is abusing the working classes of BC?

Fear.

The neoliberals have scared the pants off of citizens with the idea that an NDP government would bankrupt everyone.

Since someone in the NDP is still afraid of the phrase “fast ferries,” the party in general has not spent this decade having monthly lunch meetings with the dozens of progressive economists in BC to bone up on economics. It’s not like the CCPA hasn’t been coming up with innovative alternative budgets every year!

We should be able to clean the Liberals’ cobweb logic. What kind of justification in the universe is there to build BC Ferries in Germany while our industry languishes?

And if you get our your mental calculator and zoom into Burrard Inlet on Google Earth, you can make your little camera zoom from where the fast ferries are parked, and glide over the water to the new convention centre and every second you can tick away the dollars. The new convention centre cost overrun basically matches the fast ferries. So what are we afraid of?

There seems to be a rule in politics to never apologize for the past, never to admit mistakes. Maybe because we’re afraid that the other side will point out that we screwed up.

Well we did screw up. The fast ferries don’t fit BC’s geography. And we knew it.

But who knew it? A bunch of people who aren’t in the party right now. I disagreed with the boats back then and I do now. Integrity means admitting mistakes. What do we owe former party leaders who screwed up? We owe ourselves and our children more integrity than we owe loyalty to the past.

Here’s another mistake. As much as the party had some valid criticism of the Liberals’ specific carbon tax legislation, the Axe the Tax campaign failed almost from the beginning, in part because of the awful coincidence that gas prices went through the roof around the time of the introduction of the tax, making a criticism of a 2 cent tax petty.

Oh yes, the NDP has affirmed policies supporting a carbon tax consistently for this whole decade. So the other reason why the campaign failed was because our party actually wants a large and effective carbon tax, despite the feelings of whoever decided on that campaign.

So. Where does this leave us?

We have lots of policy that most citizens would embrace:

• framing the economy to serve human beings and not maximizing offshore corporate shareholder wealth
• investing in human services and not cutting healthcare and education
• reframing all government policy so that it fits a grand regulatory plan to avert climate breakdown, since we only have a few years left to turn our economy around before we’re past the point of no return
• everything else we love about social, human, economic, environmental and political justice and equality…something the Liberals hate as they pander to greed and elitism.

So we need to post our policy and be proud of it.

We need to acknowledge that the fast ferries were a mistake and reflected bad decision-making among people who haven’t been in the party in a decade. We need to throw them under the bus. Right now.

We need to recognize that good policies designed to avert climate breakdown reflect our values and we need to educate people and bring them along to recognize how domestic food security and bioregional economic development are critical to cutting down on carbon usage. Oh yes, and peak oil is either here now or close by so we need to pro-actively get off oil.

Sounds simple.

Apparently it’s pretty hard though, but that’s just not good enough for me.

So, I’m running for one of the 6 Vice-President positions of the BC NDP to do these “simple” things and sift through whatever rationalizations have kept the party from working with integrity.

In the end, whatever explanation exists for why the party has screwed up the carbon tax, fast ferries and a myriad of other problems, none of them hold water. Why? Because they’re justifications for compromises designed for us to win the election.

We haven’t won an election this decade. So with some pretty simple hindsight, our tactics have failed and are continuing to fail.

If we keep the same tactics and expect a different result, we’re mad.

I’m not mad. And clearly, neither are the members who didn’t show up to donate time, money and their vote to getting us in power.

It’s time for the BC NDP to behave according to its principles so we can properly represent the values and interests of the majority of British Columbians who should feel eager to support us.

If they don’t it’s not their fault, it’s ours.

And I’ve had enough of that.

Shirley Bond’s Marie Antoinette Complex

shirleybond The heat wave continues-imagine being loaded on an Air Canada flight and then sitting on the tarmac in the heat for an hour – yup it was me!10:45 PM Jul 29th from web

Shirley Bond should keep using Twitter so we can see a better sense of her lack of empathy and perspective. Former Minister of Education and Deputy Premier, now Transportation Minister Bond, you’d think, would get some training in how not to offend the poorest 95% of British Columbians with her tweets…and how to update her Twitter profile to recognize her demotion in the cabinet shuffle.

Since her government refuses to choose to fund health care properly, BC’s health authorities are $360m in the hole. I personally know people who will suffer physical and mental trauma because of this. Many of us do.

Choosing to not fund education will mean hundreds of teacher layoffs and thousands of classes over the legal class size limit: a law the neoLiberals themselves enacted.

I’ve sat in hot planes on tarmacs. But I’m not responsible for massively increasing the misery of hundreds of thousands of British Columbians. So she gets no sympathy from me.

And while she doesn’t say “let us all eat cake,” the reverse is “weep for my suffering despite all of yours that I have caused.”

Give me a break.

Canadians Need a Real Education in Politics

Ipsos/CanWest just released a poll that shows that Canadians need far more education about how politics is supposed to work in a parliamentary system.

Here’s what they found [see below for some of the ambiguous juicy quotes]:

1. a large minority think Igg would do a better job of running the country
2. a slim majority think parliament isn’t working
3. a slim majority think Harper is doing a good job of managing the issues

The conclusion from Ipsos? Most support Harper and are wary of Igg, so they don’t want an election.

That’s the best they could hobble together from the ambiguous data available.

Here’s the real answer that also supports the inconclusive data: Canadians don’t understand the relevance of the following–majority governments, minority governments, what parliament is supposed to do, what de facto coalitions do, what real coalitions could do, why majority governments are tyrannical, and how “issues that are most important to Canadians” have anything to do with the operation of government…especially minority governments.

The two parties that have governed Canada, with the polling firms and corporate media are incapable and uninterested in properly informing Canadians about the parliamentary system and all the other features of how politics actually occurs in Canada.

Why? They have a vested interested in manipulating perception for electoral purposes.

Democracy, informed civic participation and intelligent planning for the short and long term future are not the object of the Liberal Party, the ReformConservative Party, the polling firms and the corporate media.

When people start to learn about why we are being so poorly represented by the governing establishment, we have an actual hope of making democracy work while we watch the perfect storm of peak oil, climate breakdown and the implosion of neoliberal capitalism and globalization.

Education is the key.

Without it, we are at the mercy of people continuing to jerk us around.

The polling Ipsos paradox:

While many (53%) Canadians ‘agree’ (21% strongly/32% somewhat) that ‘our parliament isn’t working’, a new Ipsos Reid poll conducted on behalf of Canwest News Service and Global Television reveals that a majority (53%) ‘agrees’ (20% strongly/34% somewhat) that ‘Stephen Harper and the Conservatives are doing a good job of managing the issues that are most important to Canadians and should continue to govern’.

via Majority (53%) Say Harper Conservatives Doing ‘Good Job’ and Should Continue Governing as Only 39% Believe Ignatieff Liberals Would Do ‘Better Job’.

Politics, Re-Spun on Coop Radio, 5.4.09, a Vista Video Podcast

Gordon Campbell Fires Himself During the Leaders Debate

I was thoroughly astonished at how effectively Gordon Campbell maimed his political career during the leaders debate. But really, I shouldn’t be because of his utter inability to have any meaningful breadth of vision as a leader.

I can understand why the Liberals are hiding out and not attending all candidates meetings. Their record is so bad, that being perceived as arrogant and dismissive by not showing up is less damaging than having to answer to–or actually not answer to–their record.

But while Campbell is clearly afraid of having his empathy-free personality exposed in a debate with his NDP opponent Mel Lehan, he couldn’t hide from the leaders debate.

And since his no-contest plea to drunk driving in Maui in 2003, after spending years hiding in an undisclosed location with his ego-inflating RCMP security detail, he has clearly lost whatever populist appeal he had in the 1990s as an opposition MLA. I’ve recently looked at the leaders debates going back into the 1990s and he’s certainly lost even that edge. Unfortunately he hasn’t lost that nervous hand thing where he holds his hands in front of his belly, palms facing forward, holding a non-existent soccer ball. In the 1990s, a friend suggested his hands looked like they wanted to strangle someone, but I have always believed Campbell thinks it makes him look pensive.

And tonight he showed us all some of the worst elements of his character while Jane Sterk took adequate shots at the front-running parties and Carole James calmly and empathetically addressed issues, asked fact-based questions of Campbell and showed real maturity in the face of Campbell’s addiction to all things economic, and his chauvinism and condescension.

“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”

One of Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign epiphanies was all about getting elected on this: “it’s the economy, stupid.” Gordon Campbell, being obsessed with neoliberal economics, privatization, and reducing regulation, taxes, the government and all things public, spent much of the debate talking about how an issue or question affects the economy, no matter how far he had to drag the idea over.

Sure the Liberals have polled well on the economy, but he has drunk the neoliberal Kool-Aid so deeply that he still sees the global recession as a means to actually continue advancing his neoliberal agenda! It’s like Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine is his play book.

He knows that the recession is caused by neoliberalism and he loves it. It means more of the same.

What he isn’t hearing is that actual human beings enslaved by this global neoliberal economy are suffering under it since the economy doesn’t currently exist for them. And it scares them. So every time Campbell talks about how everything has to do with the economy, he just names their fear even more. Fear-mongerers like Campbell hopes this translates into votes. But hope and optimism and positive suggestions for a better province and world negate that negativity.

There were plenty of examples of Campbell’s obsession with economics. During the debate moderated by Russ Froese, he criticized Carole James for not having business experience. The assumption is that government is a business. That’s actually an ideology skulking around inside neoliberalism called New Public Management. But there are other more philosophically sound ideas of what a government is than that, the Social Contract, for one.

The pathetic thing about Campbell’s criticism is that elsewhere in the debate he reinforces what is commonly known about him, but seldom analyzed with his claim of being a businessman: he has spent the last 25 years in political life in municipal and provincial politics, so he himself has very little business experience. Whoops. George W. Bush may actually have more than him!

But to get a true sense of how economistic Gordon Campbell is, we only need to listen to the easiest softball question any politician could hope for, in the leadership category: what are three reasons why we should vote for you–and please answer without attacking or referring to your opponents. Sounds awesome. First, Carole James waxed eloquently about her resume and skill sets. To wrap up the trio, Jane Sterk did an good job of explaining sometimes vague experience, but right in the middle, Gordon Campbell failed his job interview:

“Well, Katy, that’s one of the more difficult questions I’m sure all three of us have had to try and answer. First let me say this, I think this is a very critical time in our economy. I think it’s important for us to have people with some business experience who can help deal with that. I think it’s important to have real leadership as we move forward and take advantage of the Pacific Century. That excites me. I also think that it’s important for us to have a government that’s willing to deal up front with the hard decisions we have to make with regard to climate change.”

Beyond the fluff of this nebulous Pacific Century, he went on talking about how the NDP did nothing to stop the pine beetle in the 1990s and why a new relationship with First Nations is important. 

But the beginning of his answer showed just how rarely he thinks about what public service really means–and he’s the premier! And he clearly wasn’t listening to Carole James inadvertently yet utterly destroy his lack of imagination, insight and breadth of personality just before him as he claimed that all three leaders couldn’t answer that question easily.

Still, if we are to take his current dubious First Nations policy seriously as a reflection of his leadership self-concept, we need to also remember that he stormed into office in 2001 and promptly embarked on a province-wide treaty referendum that was panned as purely racist and horribly worded to ensure the government could do whatever it wanted. Now that’s a sign of a special kind of horrible leadership!

Later, in responding to his neglect of the poor by not increasing the minimum wage for 8 years, Campbell again dragged out how the average wage in BC is $22/hour. My eyeballs swell with pressure every time he says this because he assumes we will all think we’re ok with that so we don’t need to care about the poor. But I wrote about that annoyance more here and I can’t go into it again or else I’d have to vomit.

And during his closing comment of the entire debate, the very first thing he said was that this election is about the economy and leadership. It’s clear that he doesn’t even have a vision of his own leadership and the issue around the economy is not whether the neoliberal government should continue to maim us during the recession, but whether we’re fed up with an economy that abuses people so that we can build an economy that actually serves people.

And to close, from the economy he invokes his fear-mongering hobby by threatening thousands of jobs that are at stake if the NDP forms government. Sure, BC is leading Canada by thousands in jobs lost in the last several months, but he’s hoping we’re not paying attention to that right now.

The trouble is, we are paying attention to that right now.

Chauvinism and Condescension

Aside from his reframing of everything into an economic lens, Gordon Campbell’s dark and dirty side came out during the debate as well.

Gordon Campbell’s first slip into condescension–or rather, insight into his character–came when Carole James asked him to justify his tough on crime stance with the cuts to prosecution and corrections officers in his February budget.

Campbell: ”I think, Ms. James, you should understand...I know this is a big job and it’s hard to get it–a handle on it, but the fact of the matter is we’ve added additional prosecutors to fight crime and fight the gansters, BLAH BLAH BLAH,” and at that point nothing else he said mattered.

He just called her stupid!

And it wasn’t like she said anything stupid. She was just asking about line items in his own budget. Of course he had no answer, so he just verbally slapped her on the top of the head. Eight years of bullying policies seem to fit nicely with his personality.

The second condescending gouge came when the three leaders were talking about addressing crime. Campbell was all about the variety of retributive justice and policing interventions. Carole James was talking about policing as well as the prevention programs while Jane Sterk spoke against a policing-only strategy, supporting prevention programs and decriminalizing illegal drugs. 

To this, Campbell mumbles in response to the alternative perspectives, “it is a multi-faceted approach that is required of us.” 

This is one of those phrases people use to let their audience know that they are, again, too stupid to understand the complexities of it all. Yet Cambpell has only a single-faceted policing/prosecution strategy, while both of the other leaders have a multi-faceted approach. So on top of his habit of insulting people to get them to shut up, he wasn’t listening to what multiple approaches actually sound like.

It also means that Campbell is either unaware of the social determinants of crime, or he doesn’t care about them. It’s all about the hammer for him.

The next example of Campbell’s chauvinism and condescension came when Carole James asked him whether he’d fund his pet hammer projects by transferring money from other areas like auto safety or community safety. After the question, the moderator, Russ Froese, said open debate time was up and Campbell would have to answer the question during his rebuttal time.

Campbell laughed.

Sure it could have been the nervous laughter of a child unable to adapt to a tense situation. Or more likely it’s the typical behaviour of someone who enjoys demeaning others in the legislature. Unfortunately, he let that slip during a debate that more than a few people would be watching. It simply made him sound like someone who doesn’t have the time for this nonsense.

It is also at this point that Campbell starts answering questions and issues by speaking to “Russ” by name. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but with two female leaders attacking him, it sure looked like he was seeking a connection with the other male on the stage. It might be out of insecurity. It might be because he is playing to a male voter demographic that happens to dominate his party’s base. It might be to marginalize the women on the stage by establishing the dialogue as a male-to-male context, thereby making the women interrupters. 

Then, in a flagrant violation of the respectful tone of the debate so far, when talking about healthcare, Gordon Campbell got truly ugly.

His government pledged to build 5,000 new long-term care beds for seniors. It turns out they built almost 5,000 assisted living beds, which are useful but are far from the same level of intensive service of long-term care. Then George Abbott, in one of his first public bids to distance himself from the Campbell regime for a leadership run coming soon, ultimately agreed that they didn’t actoually build 5,000 beds, instead it was about 800.

So Carole James asks, “I’d like to ask Mr. Campbell, is his health minister telling the truth or are you?”

It was a classic catch-22. Campbell was screwed. So he did the best thing he could think of, attacking Carole James by saying, “no, you’re not.” And if you saw it, you’d know it was as transparent an attempt at dodging a tough question as Campbell could provide. And it had the added bonus of petulance and absurdity as her question was based on Campbell’s own health minister’s admission of facts.

Then on the environment, Campbell tried to spin his woefully inadequate climate change program with airy nonsense and unicorn tears by saying our grandchildren will thank us for making the hard choices and “building a bridge to the future,” whatever that means, when the climate intervention program will fail miserably based on what scientists say is required. 

Then Carole James replied to his nonsense by saying he is inconsistent on the environment with a pathetic carbon tax along with pushing for offshore oil and gas drilling, irresponsible fish farms, firing park wardens and reducing environmental protection. And during this description of Campbell’s duplicity, a man with a microphone turned on just laughed. 

I doubt it was Russ Froese. If it was Campbell, such a laugh is useful for dismissing the legitimacy of someone’s criticism. But in stating those blatant hypocrisies in Campbell’s approach to all of the environment, there’s nothing illegitimate about the criticism. The laugh just sounds like a desperate attempt to avoid the reality.

So, in an era where electoral reform will likely sweep BC’s electoral system out of the 19th century, it is stunning that the leader of the governing party would allow himself to exhibit such despicable behaviour in public. But then again, for someone who has been in hiding since Maui, he seems to have forgotten that the soon-to-be passe rude and dishonourable behaviour in the legislature is part of the reason why people will vote for change this month.

And it’s not useful to let that nasty behaviour show up in public!

It made him look even more misanthropic than he already is, especially when Jane Sterk was attacking the polarized blame game of BC politics and Carole James was presenting an enlightened, human-centred vision for what the BC government should make the economy do for people.

So in just over 59 minutes, Gordon Campbell’s failure to relate to human beings, his obsession with the economy, and his rudeness, condescension and chauvinism will be a strong likely explanation for significantly increased voter turnout, a new electoral system, and an end to his days as premier.

Some Early Justification for NDP’s Gender Policies

I saw today three examples that support the need for the BC NDP’s affirmative action candidate policies. As much as it has been and will continue to be controversial, today alone justifies it for me.

But first, being in an anti-no-spin zone, my take on this issue is affected by being a white male, with university degrees, raised in an upper middle-class suburban Judeo-Christian, English-speaking home. So of course I lose out on typical affirmative action policies, and I’m fine with that.

As an NDP member and as someone who attended the last convention and voted for the affirmative action policies, it is not because of some kind of male/white/oppressor guilt. It is because breaking generations-long sociological trends can take generations without some intervention.

Not everyone was ready to stop owning people 240 years ago, nor was everyone ready to let non-whites drink out of whites-only public drinking fountains 40-odd years ago. We could have waited for multi-generational educational programs to make the glacial change necessary, while watching old bigots slowly die off.

Honestly, I don’t have that kind of patience.

And when David Chudnovsky decided to not run again as my MLA, I was saddened at what would be the end of his accomplishments and his future potential in the ledge. But I also know that over a dozen women were approached to consider running for his seat, and every single one of them had the qualities to be a successful MLA. But how many of them would have considered it if men were allowed to run? That we’ll never know for sure, but ask around and you’ll find that a few probably wouldn’t have.

So what did we lose with the new policy? People of my demographic weren’t able to run and that left us in the end with Mable Elmore and Jinny Sims to choose from. Quite a fantastic choice. Each signed up over 500 new members in the riding and were an example of on-the-ground democracy in action for 6 months leading up to the nomination meeting. It was an embarrassment of riches since either would be a fantastic MLA.

As far as I can see, Vancouver-Kensington will not suffer under this policy and I expect that with hard work and dedication of already dozens of committed volunteers and staff, the NDP will keep the riding, for many many reasons.

So what happened today to further vindicate this policy for me?

The Victoria Times-Colonist perpetuated sexist reporting yesterday in remarking on how Carole James “looked comfortable in a brown suit and silver earrings as she began her campaign.” The story neglected to comment on how comfortable or uncomfortable Gordon Campbell looked wearing his business suit. Perhaps the premier was wearing jewelry too, but we’ll never know now, nor will we know if that made him more or less comfortable.

Then in the comments section of a Vancouver Sun piece today on the carbon tax, this unenlightened soul wrote about Carole James “Has anybody else noticed that Carole James starts every sentence with the same two words (Gordon Campbell)? Thank you for repeatedly reminding us that Gordon Campbell is our current premier. I do believe I shall vote for him in May. Now run along in your Hillary Clinton-esque pant suits and go celebrate your much-anticipated 2nd place finish with your union buddies.” No spin necessary here. If you don’t get my point, you can stop reading right now.

And finally tonight on Vaughn Palmer’s Voice of BC show there was discussion of the new candidate policy and how it is being received. To wrap the short conversation on that topic, Palmer mentioned that the Liberals have about two dozen female candidates, to which he added, “and that’s not bad for them.” Two dozen is just about right when you look at their list.

Wow. What an astonishing accomplishment getting around two dozen of 85 candidates to be women.

I don’t mind spinning this if it isn’t obvious. No one expects much from a radically right wing party like the neoLiberals in terms of authentic representation, particularly in representing the majority gender of the province. So Palmer is giving a nod to the efforts of the neoLiberals for accomplishing that much anyway. And he’s absolutely right when he said that’s not bad for them. It isn’t bad…for them. But they are a party that is as far from egalitarian in policy and procedure as we have ever seen in BC. And if they are any kind of benchmark we should be seeking, then we are criminally deluded.

In light of these three instances alone, and even without how wonderful it was to choose from two fantastic contenders in Vancouver-Kensington, as a member of the demographic unable to run for the party nomination, I do not begrudge the policy at all and I’m glad I voted for it at the last convention.

Further, I expect it will change the face of the ledge and legitimize in bigots’, cynics’ and anyone’s mind that women can do the job.

And while all the arguments about negative consequences and precedents of affirmative action policies still have merit, a little tweaking now and again can vindicate itself substantially. And I know that the ends justifying the means are not always a strong argument to promote, but inaction is itself a choice with political ramifications. After all, in the STV referendum we are tinkering with our 19th century electoral system that was designed for two broad-based parties that fight for seats. Our population and society don’t reflect that party norm today, and frankly the two parties did a poor job of representing everyone 140 years ago anyway.

So while there will continue to be great arguments against this policy, I’ve found great peace in supporting it so far and I look forward to the day when my idealism is better realized and we can do away with this tweaking because our political culture will have become less bigoted.

The BCTF Says to Take 5 People When You Vote

YouTube – BCTFvids’s Channel.

The BCTF’s YouTube videos [above] are pretty powerful. One of the best ideas in them is for each of us to make sure we take 5 people to vote for public education.

Do a quick mental survey of people you know, those that are politically curious, those that tend to avoid political topics.

Send them this link to pro-education videos and ask them if they’re registered to vote. Then be their democracy guardian angel.

Too many people will end up not voting, but the world is run by people who show up, especially in a democracy that is struggling with legitimacy in our electoral system. Let’s make sure that the people we know who care about solid policy that respects what a healthy future requires, actually cast a ballot.

And many grade 12 students are eligible to vote. Do you know any of them? Ask if they’re mad as hell yet. If they’re not going to take it anymore, make sure you help them along to being registered and vote.

Carole James Masters Bill Good’s Show

On the day before Gordon Campbell cynically drops the election writ into a province that he usually refuses to respect or answer to, BC NDP leader Carole James visited the Bill Good show and hits serial home runs, proving she’s for more able to be premier than Gordon Campbell.

Despite his show often sounding like a hazing ritual, Bill Good actually peppers guests with hearty, relevant questions that ensure lightweights show up as such. BC’s next premier put fastball after fastball out of the park.

As much as I’d like the NDP to run on a platform of temporal mechanics, simply erasing 8 years of Gordon Campbell carnage Carole James is running on a pragmatic platform, recognizing that as government they won’t be able to change everything the neoLiberal onslaught has wrought.

But that won’t stop the NDP government from doing what leaders ought to do: ensure responsible behaviour, not embrace extreme laissez-faire operations to the detriment of everything but global corporate profits.

James committed to keeping the Port Mann bridge and South Fraser Perimeter Road capital projects. The bridge will reflect the progressive HOV and transit elements that the NDP pushed for despite the neoLiberals’ goal of privatizing the whole thing. She also stressed alternative routes and new funding for Translink to allow it to remove the last fare increases. Why? Transit actually matters.

What she didn’t mention on the radio show was that the NDP platform commits to repealing Bill 43, BC’s very own 21st century “taxation without representation” bill that allows the Translink board to operate with billions of our tax dollars without being accountable to any political level. It’s the VANOC theft model run amok.

James also acknowledged that there would be 3 years of deficits before a 4th year balanced budget instead of Campbell’s 2 years of deficits. She justified it by saying this plan puts people first by giving relief to middle income people and small businesses. This radical model was astonishingly successful in that socialist bastion of…the United States of America where 6 months ago, Barrack Obama did the same thing, while not giving breaks to the hyper-rich. That seemed to go over quite well and it will here too!

More evidence that the NDP government actually plans to govern rests in her desire to make sure there is an actual business plan for the new roof on the 26-year-old BC Place Stadium instead of it being a vast money pit like the convention centre, whose cost overrun exceeded all the fast ferries of the last NDP government. So much of the neoLiberals pulling out that tired argument again.

More good news came with her commitment to help communities assess whether a closed school has value to the community before selling off the land, part of Campbell’s mass forced-privatization regime.

She also opposed the neoLiberals’ arbitrary ruling to keep BC Hydro from developing any new power in favour of private power development and purchasing contracts designed to bankrupt BC Hydro–an easy way to avoid privatizing it. Pledging a moratorium, then more thorough holistic environmental review is only common sense, but not possible to an ideologically-driven neoLiberal government obsessed with destroy public ownership of anything.

Finally, forests. What a scene of absolute carnage from the neoLiberals. The NDP’s plan is to tax raw log exports to encourage domestic value added production. They’re also commited to tenure reform to provide innovative mills with access to fibre, and renew silviculture and reforestation.

These kind of sound stewardship plans highlight how the neoLiberals’ goal was not concern for developing the economy of the province they are elected to manage, but to seek hyper-efficiencies on a global level on behalf of global corporate elites. This kind of global free market mania has led to the crisis in capitalism we are witnessing now.

And look who’s suffering from this capitalist meltdown: citizens, workers, the poor. Who’s getting bailouts? Massive corporations. With an Ipsos poll last week showing that Canadians are split on even bailing out the Canadian auto makers at all, people have realized that governments like Gordon Campbell’s neoLiberals clearly aren’t in it for us. They’re in it for the corporate agenda that begs for public tax dollar bailouts when they crash their own business models. That kind of extortion is repulsive to more and more people, as we are now seeing it for what it is: cynical, irresponsible and unjustifiably risky corporate behaviour since they expect citizens to bail them out–with corporate bonuses–even as we are losing homes and jobs.

The BC NDP has realized this and frankly, it hasn’t had to alter its policies to meet the needs and desires of voting British Columbians, because the NDP, all the way back to its CCF roots, realizes that people matter and a healthy economy that meets humans’ needs is better than economic slavery to global corporate greed.

So well done, Carole James. Bill Good was full of fastballs, but you connected on them and put them all over the centre-left field wall.

Is Controlling for Race Inherently Racist?

I think so.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v5/content/poll/pollResultHub?id=131895&pollid=131895&answerid=&poll=GAMFront&save=&show_vote_always=no&hub=Front&subhub=VoteResult&vote=145079&button.x=16&button.y=9&button=Vote

Here’s why.

The advantages to having demographic information out in the open far outweigh the disadvantages, said Prof. Fullan, who is also professor emeritus of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

“We said we should use the information to make all schools better, but I understand the fear,” he said in an interview yesterday.

Prof. Fullan believes in setting targets for test scores, and in the idea of statistical neighbours, whereby schools with similar demographics can be compared with each other.

via globeandmail.com: Data on schools website divides parents, educators.

Let’s start with this poll. The last time I saw such a close race was the Quebec separation referendum over 10 years ago. This is the vote tally as of 11:30pm tonight. Apparently it was also evenly split earlier this afternoon.

The poll shows that over 4,000 people agree with Michael Fullan that the demographic make-up of a school in the form of parents’ immigration background is a significant enough variable in determining which school’s product they purchase.

The Ontario government removed income and education levels from the presentation of information. That is a rather damning self-indictment. They initially included it because it fit the profile of what they wanted educational consumers to consider when making their purchases, then they removed it. Perhaps people couldn’t stomach the blatant reality that some would choose a school based on the wealth of parents, but clearly, that does go on.

Essentially, what we’re dealing with here is the Ontario government’s tacit support for a class based public service. Pick some variables that determine the class you want your children to associate with, then publicize the data for informed choice. Society should not be condoning or supporting such class-based decision-making. Period.

In BC, we’re well aware of the criminally narrow range of high-stakes testing that our students suffer to generate Foundational Skills Assessment scores for the hyper-libertarian, unregulated market-worshiping Fraser Institute to use in ranking schools. The whole process is obscene and celebrates active ignorance of the breadth of what it takes to evaluate our multi-faceted human beings in the K-12 education system and the system as a whole.

And now in Ontario, the government is essentially controlling for race in the statistical analysis that parents unjustifiably wish to make. When we talk about immigration background, we’re talking about the polite way of describing parents’ race. I have a hard time thinking that if Michael Fullan tried to float this concept as an academic project past OISE’s research ethics board, he would have been roundly rebuked–at least I’d hope so.

The government is inciting a firestorm of bigotry by enabling people to be able to move their students from schools with too many of the wrong kind of classmates, with people defining wrong in whatever mildly to severely racist tone they wish.

This is the height of social and political irresponsibility. In an era of economic crisis when local communities will increase in importance for enhancing individual and regional socio-economic resilience, inserting this wedge that will split communities is simply reprehensible.

And since I’ve only taught high school and have never been a professor emeritus at OISE, I’m totally open to hearing all these great arguments in libertarian social engineering that Michael Fullan feels far outweigh the provincial government condoning race-based divisive education policy.

“Lord Stern on global warming: It’s even worse than I thought”

“Sea levels are likely to rise twice as fast as predicted in the last UN climate change report in 2007.”

via Lord Stern on global warming: It’s even worse than I thought – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

As governments continue to craft optics-friendly greenwashing plans while ramping up highways construction, etc., I keep reading reports that estimates from as little as 2-3 years ago were too conservative as new data shows accelerating climate change effects.

Nero fiddled and we’re worried about how to afford a new car during this economic crash!

Stupid.

Remembering Fondly the Professionalism of Teachers

Every once in a while I lament how drastically the public education system degraded over my 11 year high school teaching career. The system in the early 1990s was a dream compared to how it ended for me 4 years ago, with Gordon Campbell, Christy Clark and the gang robbing me of what I expected to be a lifelong career.

So when I read this piece today about the activities at the BCTF AGM, I just started nodding. I used to enjoy attending AGMs over spring break to discuss the state of the profession and ways of improving the public education system. It’s nice to see that is still happening.

I remember distinctly the last few semesters I taught. With changes in evaluation [I won't even go into how much I hate the FSAs and other standardized tests], we ended up in a no-win situation.

School districts had to meet arbitrary, “objective” accountability contracts for improvement. This led to students being discouraged from taking skill-appropriate courses, struggling students encouraged to not take provincial final exams to keep the scores up, that sort of thing.

We were suddenly not allowed to give zeros for incomplete assignments or deduct late marks. This idea I actually agreed with. The process meant that students had a chance to complete assignments sincerely with integrity. That was the idea. The problem was how to help students know the importance of time management and meeting deadlines. But those were non-content skills that should not be reflected in the evaluation of students’ work.

So many schools used the GSN system for evaluating work habits: good, satisfactory and needs improvement. I embraced no late marks, but I let my students know that good work habits meant actually handing in all but maybe 1 or 2 assignments. Missing more assignments than that was satisfactory and after missing a significant number of assignments, they’d get an N. This made great sense because poor time management and deadline meeting skills were work habits issues, after all.

I’d send home assignment reports to parents indicating missing assignments with a reasonable, extended period [with a deadline] to hand in outstanding work. After setting such a deadline, I was entitled to not accept outstanding assignments. Only then would the assignment get a zero.

The blowback came from several fronts. GSN evaluations had real consequences. Often athletes wouldn’t be allowed to play with Ns. Honour roll rules required no Ns; this also had implications for post-secondary admissions and scholarships. Parents would complain that their students were missing extra-curricular opportunities. Coaches complained that key players were benched. Administrators were complaint departments putting out blowback fires and began to hassle teachers who followed the new grading regime and used work habits marks as intended.

So we had a new grading system, but the institution did not display the integrity to follow it through by supporting its own work habits evaluation system.

Enter the standardized testing [non-] solution for a problem manufactured to halt the flow of an education system.

This kind of professional hypocrisy was one of the things that I didn’t miss when I finally resigned.

Since I left teaching, my profession has championed profound social and political causes: draconian labour relations from the government, to confronting “that’s so gay” hate rhetoric.

Every March when I read about the BCTF AGM, I nod, thinking of how proud I am to have been a teacher, a member of a profession with such integrity in the face of assaults from a neoLiberal government and misanthropes pretending to be educational leaders.

Principals ‘dumbing down’ B.C. schools, teachers say

Complain they’ve been ordered to allow rewrites, never give zeros, accept late work

By Janet Steffenhagen, Canwest News Service March 15, 2009

VANCOUVER — B.C. teachers complained Sunday that school principals are ordering them to never give zeros when marking class assignments, to accept late work and to allow students to rewrite tests as many times as it takes for them to get good marks.

Such orders are being delivered in many schools around the province by principals who have embraced a program called Assessment for Learning, and it’s undermining teachers’ professional autonomy in the classroom, delegates said at the annual meeting of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation in Vancouver.

“When principals say you have to retest over and over and over again, that is a violation of professional autonomy,” Burnaby teacher James Sanyshin told the three-day meeting.

It’s as though B.C. principals recently attended a “can’t-give-a-kid-a-zero conference,” another delegate added.

Some warned the imposition of top-down assessment practices is “dumbing down” public education and will ultimately result in more families turning to private schools.

Burnaby delegates were particularly incensed, saying teachers are in the best position to evaluate student performance and they should decide what assessment tools they will use. The BCTF says principals are using Assessment for Learning to boost student performance and graduation rates in their schools.

It’s being presented as a cure-all and a best practice, Burnaby teacher Frank Bonvino said, adding: “It’s good that these new theories are being discussed … but it’s got to be up to the individual teacher to decide how or if or when they’re going to implement these things in their classroom.

“Sometimes when I hear administrators talk about best practices, I think … that’s just a buzzword they use for ‘teachers’ autonomy is going to get screwed,’ ” he said. “At the end of the day, you have to have control and you have to be comfortable with what you’re going to teach in the classroom.”

Union vice-president Susan Lambert said student assessment has become a political issue in schools because of standardized tests and a requirement for schools to show continual improvement in student achievement. “There’s huge pressure on [principals],” she said. “You set a goal for your school and if you don’t meet that goal, you’re seen as a failing principal.”

Delegates also approved plans for an aggressive, year-round media campaign to promote public education over private education and to increase pressure for more public-school funding.

But creative action must be the priority leading up to the May 12 provincial election if teachers hope to make education a vote-determining issue, union president Irene Lanzinger told delegates. That’s because the government’s so-called “gag law” restricts advertising by the BCTF and all other third parties.

“We need to make news, use new technologies and engage our members like never before,” said Lanzinger, who is unopposed in her bid for a third one-year term as president. “We all need to make sure the public and our members know how important this election is.”

Delegates plan to protest today in downtown Vancouver.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

via Principals ‘dumbing down’ B.C. schools, teachers say.

No One Is Illegal – Ignite resistance ~ Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!

No One Is Illegal – Vancouver » Blog Archive » Ignite resistance ~ Canadian multiculturalism is not enough!.

In a world where the deregulated global market capitalist regime is imploding, there is wide open space to re-frame the local, national and global economy in a socially and economically just way.

An off-shoot of this progressive agenda is the celebration of authentic community where people/consumers/citizens can get out of their cocooned homes and participate in the cultures of community.

What better way to do it than in this event?

Details:

SATURDAY MARCH 21. rhizome cafe, 317 e. broadway

* 6:30 – 7:30 pm: artists of colour showcase. please bring $ and support their creations! (tshirts, crafts, prints, posters, art and more) Free food served during artists showcase (on us and Rhizome)
* WITH: Louis Cruz, Tania Willard, Afuwa Granger, Riadh Hashim, Angela Sterritt, Gord Hill, Kat Norris, People’s History of Kanada posters, Café Ramona and products made by Zapatista Mayan women, and more.

* 7:30 – 9:30 pm: wicked performances and inspiring words includes spoken word, storytelling, children’s songs, hip hop, comedy, musical performances, and talks! Enjoy dinner and drinks from Rhizome’s delicious menu
* WITH: George Ciccariello-Maher from OAKLAND!, Kat Norris, Aysha and Sahara, Carnegie Community Action Project Choir, Hari Alluri, Reem Alnuweiri, Ros Salvador, Sinag Bayan Filipino Cultural Collective, Priscillia Mays, Gupreet Kambo, Alaaeldin Abdalla, and Lindsay Bomberry.

Keep Reading Your Community Newspapers, Or Else

Despite the sexiness of the internet, print is not dead. If you are not spending more time reading your community newspaper, you are on the wrong road, for yourself and for the health of our society.

Granted, decades ago television supplanted newspapers as the dominant source of news and information for the majority of North Americans. And now the internet has passed newspapers.

The Pew Research Center in the United States is one of the most respected research organizations because of the balance of their approach to tracking political, social, economic and cultural trends and patterns.

Late in 2008 they reported that 40% of Americans get their news mostly from the internet, up from 24% just 2.5 years ago. Newspapers have slipped to 35%. Canadian trends usually follow the Americans.

There are many reasons for this shift, largely obvious, but they don’t reflect the whole story.

Certainly internet media sites have improved their capacity to deliver information with far more appeal and better organizational tools for users. The Air America radio network, Alternet.org, Rabble.ca, BC’s TheTyee.ca and other progressive online media have been well served by new technologies like podcasting and people’s need to look outside corporate media to find critical information and analysis on this decade’s radically right wing governments in BC, Canada and the United States.

At the same time, increasingly concentrated corporate media ownership, with increasing ownership by foreign corporations, has led to cost cutting through centralizing reporting and firing breathing journalists. Corporate media often prefers to often just be the de facto communications department of right wing governments by reporting as “news” often verbatim press releases.

This has led to the dilution of meaningful content in newspapers, declining paid subscriptions, and full-page ads on the front page of newspapers. People notice the decline. Even daily newspapers have been dumping papers for free in public spaces to be able to claim their circulation is high despite decreasing subscriptions and actual paying consumers. Declining circulation leads to declining ad revenue: a debilitating revenue feedback loop. Large North American cities are losing their status as two-newspaper towns as large dailies close.

But the other side of the story is about the necessity of a free press in a healthy, functioning democratic society: an increasing rarity with such corporate concentration of ownership.

While the internet has risen in prominence, television is responding with enhancing relevance. On the progressive side, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have drawn more viewers. Even CNN’s reporters have become more critical than soon after 9/11. Farid Zacharia would never have been able to get a show on CNN 6 years ago.

Sadly, the same kind of improvement in critical capacity has not emerged in Canadian television. CBC TV’s high profile pundit panel consists of centre, centre-right and right wing commentators, with no progressive voices.

But community papers are a vibrant resistance front against ignorance, apathy and right wing governments preferring to elude the spotlight.

During our global economic crisis and increasing oil prices, globalization of goods and services will decline. People will be buying local more, supporting bioregional agriculture and production.

In a world of global corporate media ownership, people still long for news, commentary and analysis that affects them and not just some nebulous World Economic Forum policy from Davos, Switzerland.

Indeed, in the global economic, environmental and energy crises we are entering, it is the community itself that will be the our way out. People of all political stripes on the prairies, and where Gordon Campbell cynically calls BC’s heartlands, have known this for generations.

Community papers have breathing journalists who see what happens on their streets, in their closing mills and in spin-off sectors throughout their regions. They see how people live and breathe and how suffering shows up. There is far less centralization and homogeneity of reporting.

And as long as community papers are financially viable it is their publishers’ and editors’ duty to enhance their content since global corporate media owners and the internet’s capacity to inform people about life outside their communities provide just one scope of information.

Community papers do recognize the role they play in reflecting and influencing the fabric of local society. They have to make sure what they publish is worthy of reading.

Similarly, people need to realize they have a part to play in ensuring a free press can exist. They can do this by reading their local papers, demanding quality analysis, engaging in community discussion about issues in the paper and supporting local advertisers.

There are a handful of community papers in the province that excel in quality journalism and commentary. There are many more that sometimes rise to a significant level, but there are many more that are not reaching that standard. This needs to change.

It is the public’s job to demand more from their local media. The public must complain about press releases from city hall or the health authority showing up as news without analysis and contextualization. We must be vigilant in writing letters to editors. We must contact journalists and editors directly to tell them when what they publish is good, and when and how it can be better.

The effectiveness of a free press in a democratic society is eroding, and that is not accidental. But it doesn’t have to decline. And while it is very hard to force the CRTC to break up concentrated corporate media ownership across the country, it is far easier to walk into the office of your local paper with some Timbits for the staff and your opinions about your community, what is working and what needs improvement.

Directors of right wing think tanks can always get meetings with the editorial boards of large corporate media. But on a community level, the leaders of community groups, activists, all citizens need to realize that they deserve to have the ears of their local media.

After all, community media is about us, the community. And the more we insist that it reflects our lives, the more robust our media will be.

And if we let our community newspapers become Pablum or die, that will be our fault. Our society deserves a freer, more vibrant press. We need to do our part in ensuring that.

Challenging the Myth of Non-Partisanship and the NPA’s Stability

Two nights ago during dinner, one of the candidates for the Vancouver Park Board phoned me. He is running with the Non-Partisan Association, the NPA…a group that I have written before [see "The Lie of Non-Partisanship" from July 8, 2005 at http://PoliticsReSpun.org]. In fact, the NPA is anything but non-partisan, being all conservative and neoliberal. And it turns out that partisanship is the theme of this article.

Now, I won’t go into who from the NPA ranks phoned me the other night, mostly because I block out trauma, explaining to him that I would never in a million years vote for the NPA. He was jovial, wanting to engage with me despite our differences of opinion: a total waste of time.

He said he phoned me because my sister gave him my number and that I would consider voting for him, so he should call me. Right. I have no sister. Maybe the woman he said who came into his store and gave him a phone number wrote it down incorrectly and this hapless fellow phoned me. Or maybe the NPA candidates are cold-calling people in the phone book because that’s where they’re at now.

The phone book seems to me to be the best explanation. It reflects how desperate the NPA is, poised to lose all their seats on city, school and parks boards as they are, what with the COPE-Vision-Green coordinated slate. Well done Mayor Sam Sullivan, destroying the NPA brand in but one term.

But the synchronicity arrived this evening at dinner time when a pollster phoned. It was Innovative Research Group, another group I’ve written about before [see "Racist Survey Questions on a Survey about Multi-Culturalism" from October 15, 2007 at http://PoliticsReSpun.org]. A year ago I wrote about one of their omnibus online polls that asked me many things, including to rank how I felt about a variety of racial groups living in our multi-cultural Canada, on a scale of 0-10 on whether I have a favourable or unfavourable impression of each race. I included a screenshot of those poll questions in my article last year.

Tonight’s IRG poll asked about my awareness and voting intentions in the Vancouver election. And while the poll wasn’t as offensive as last year’s, it did ask one question that bothered me: was I concerned about the number of Vision and COPE school board candidates who have been education union members.

The poll didn’t at all ask how I felt about the number of business owners or candidates with corporate connections in any of the parties. This reflects an ongoing, ingrained mentality in our society that there is a “normal” group of people, and then there are the special interest groups, like unions. This is the same mythology that the NPA has perpetuated for decades, pretending that they are neutral, objective or somehow not beholden to any ideology or group. This is nonsense. Everyone has a bias. Pretending you don’t is a lie.

And while it was far from clear that the NPA commissioned tonight’s IRG poll and loaded it up with that union question, the presence of the question indicates a mindset that special interest groups are treated as marginalized.

Now with the global economic meltdown in full swing and former US Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan testifying before Congress this week that deregulated, neoliberal capitalism doesn’t work, I think that questioning people with corporate connections should be fair game.

An interesting twist came this evening when I swung by the website of Innovative Research Group: http://InnovativeResearch.ca. It turns out they’ve gone off the radar. Here’s a screenshot of their website tonight:

When you click on the image you can see that their entire website consists of one page saying “Welcome to the future home of www.innovativeresearch.ca. This Page is currently under construction.”

Maybe it’s semantics, but honestly, they used to have a full website functioning at that location. Thanks to the marvels of the Way Back Machine, you can see various incarnations of their past websites at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://innovativeresearch.ca. There could be lots of reasons why they’ve gone under the radar, no longer promoting the coverage of their polls or letting people easily contact them. But their lack of presence, especially because they used to have one, just looks fishy to me.

Shirley Bond is Desperate for Re-Election

If anyone has any pretense about being an effective school board trustee in British Columbia come this November 15th, read this piece from our Education Minister.

If you do not fly into a focused righteous rage at the insanity of it and your mission to destroy the provincial government’s anti-human, anti-social agenda, step out of the way for those who will.

As Bond pretends to have nothing to do with boards of education closing schools, my jaw hangs in shock at her gall and offense to anyone connected with the 177 schools closed under their watch since 2001.

Boards of education are arms-length blockers for a government out to privatize education as they gathered $10 billion in surpluses in the last 3 years. To avoid doing the nasty work, the Education Ministry strangles the budgets of school districts forcing them to enact Campbell’s “tough choices” in his “new era.”

Neighbourhoods of Learning is a fascinating solution to the problem her government created, but it is a solution implemented in the 1990s by the NDP government. The fact that it is showing up now indicates its effectiveness and the fact that Bond et al have realized they are behind in the polls with an election looming. Absolute cynicism.

Neighbourhoods of Learning as a broad philosophy could have been used to put in more subsidized childcare space to empty classrooms to avoid closing any schools. Since the ministry knows the declining enrolment is but a blip, when numbers rise again and our facilities will not be able to accomodate the capacity, expect provincial subsidization of private school infrastructure, just like last October’s announcement of provincial subsidization of private child care infrastructure. It’s all part of the crisis creation in the privatization agenda.

Shirley Bond: desperate for re-election, about to receive her termination notice.

Source: Nanaimo Daily News

Boards, not government, decide to close schools

Published: Friday, September 12, 2008

I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify some misconceptions that may
have been created by an editorial on education that appeared recently in
your newspaper.

Our government has not, in fact, directed boards of education in British
Columbia to close or sell schools. Those are decisions that have been made
in good faith by locally elected school trustees — the people we believe
are in the best position to make them.

Over a decade of declining enrolment has led boards to close under-utilized
school spaces in various parts of the province. However, I must point out
that the trend of school closures did not begin under this government, nor
is it limited to B.C. Declining enrolment is a nation-wide occurrence and
many provinces are considering solutions that include incorporating more
community usage of school buildings so that valuable assets don’t sit empty.

The Neighbourhoods of Learning concept announced by our Premier last week is
just such a plan – encouraging the development of community solutions to
fill excess space in our schools and create community hubs where services
are co-located within underutilized space.

This is not a new direction — our government has encouraged community use
of underutilized space through the School Community Connections program
since the beginning of our mandate and our rapidly growing StrongStart B.C.
program has continued in that vein. Our recently announced school closure
and disposal policy requires boards to consider such usage, as well as
potential space needs for early learning programming, in their future
planning.

It should also be noted that despite a decline of more than 50,000 students
since 2001, our government has increased overall education funding by 23% –
to a budget this school year of nearly $5.7 billion. That clearly dispels
claims of underfunding made by the president of the Nanaimo teachers’ local
that appeared in a recent letter to the editor in your newspaper.

Per-student funding in the province has risen to an estimated $8,078 this
school year, up nearly $1,900 per student since 2001. We have the highest
budget for education in B.C.’s history, despite a significant loss of
students over the last decade.

Shirley Bond
Minister of Education