[Not] Protecting Education: The Cutbacks of School District #57

January 20, 2010 D. Collier 2 comments

During the 2009 British Columbia Election campaign, the BC Liberals repeatedly said that despite the hard economic times, they would protect education while in Government.

After getting out of yesterday’s School District #57 (Prince George) special meeting, there is only one thing I can say:

The BC Liberals lied.

At the special meeting, School District #57 administrators presented a “District Sustainably Committee” report, which recommended that the district:

  1. Close down 12 of 47 schools and re-purpose 2 schools to teach different groups of students. To top it off, some of these schools slated to close down are rural elementary schools; therefore elementary students will have to be bused into Prince George;
  2. Increase class sizes;
  3. “Cut district infrastructure” (a.k.a., for the most part, laying off staff).

None of these steps are very conducive to protecting education; however all this is to save $7 million in order to be able to deliver a balanced budget in the 2010-11 school year.

Why does the school district all of a sudden have to save $7 million? Because the BC Liberal government choose to pile more obligations to school boards, such as all-day kindergarten, carbon reduction requirements, and higher MSP Premiums without giving school boards the extra money to pay for them. Because the BC Liberal government choose to take away the Annual Facility Grant used to maintain school buildings. Well, I suppose at least the BC Liberals choose to give school boards a rebate on the HST.

Remember too that this is coming from a school board that had to shut down 14 schools in 2002, during the early Campbell BC Liberal government. Oh, and to make things even worse, the report suggests that School District #57 will have to cut a further $4 million in the future.

So what does this have to do with somebody that is not living in School District #57? Simple. A lot of other BC school boards are facing the same fiscal pressures as School District #57, and might have to take similar action. Heck, it’s already happening in Vancouver.

Of course, the BC Liberals still have time to protect education. They still have time to amend this year’s budget take responsibility for the extra costs that they have added to school boards. They still have time to prove that they didn’t lie during the election.

Categories: BC Liberals, British Columbia Politics, Northern BC

Well, What Do You Know? BC Boards of Education To Get HST Rebate

January 15, 2010 D. Collier 1 comment

It seems that the BC Liberals have finally decided to give Board of Educations, Post-Secondary Institutions and Hospitals a HST rebate so that these organizations are not spending more money on taxes and less money on their purposes.

One really has to ask the question: why wasn’t the HST designed and announced with these rebates in the first place? There is simply no excuse for this oversight. After all, the BC Liberals have been down this road before; they neglected to give rebates to boards of education and municipalities when the carbon tax was implemented, and then later organized a rebate for the tax.

Of course, there is a cynical answer: the announcement for the HST tax rebate was held back until now, just before the affected organizations will be announcing service cutbacks because of reductions to funding, to try to soften the blow for the BC Liberal government.

Categories: BC Liberals, British Columbia Politics

Johnnies-Come-Lately

December 8, 2009 D. Collier Comments off

There has been some snickering on the blogosphere today in regards to the Liberals calling for pension reform, a month or so after the New Democrats and Conservatives.

But has anybody else noticed that serious discussion of pension reform started in the provinces a year ago as a result of a joint Alberta-British Columbia report that recommended the creation of an Alberta-British Columbia pension system. Or the provinces are to meet in Whitehorse on December 17th to discuss the issue, with the implicit threat that if there is no progress on national pension reform, some provinces will go it alone and create provincial plans.

So really, it looks like the federal parties are not only late to a serious discussion on the issue, but dangerously late.

Categories: British Columbia Politics, Conservatives, Federal, Liberals, NDP, Non-BC Provincial Politics

BC Local Government Elections Task Force Composition Disappointing

December 7, 2009 D. Collier Comments off

At the 2009 Union of BC Municipalities Convention, the BC Liberals announced the creation of an Local Government Elections Task Force charged with making changes to the municipal electoral process.

Last Friday, the composition of that task force was announced, and I’ve got to say I’m really disappointed.

First of all, the 6 person task force is composed of 6 politicians: 3 provincial and 3 municipal. One would think that a Task Force dealing with this subject matter would have at least 1 person that has had the responsibility of organizing an election, not just competed in one.

Secondly, out of the 3 provincial politicians, 3 are BC Liberals. Again, one would think that this Task Force would have at least 1 BC New Democrat, for the reasons that: 1) the election process is supposed to be non-partisan, and 2) one would think that having a different perspective for a person who has run in an election would be useful.

Honestly, for a political party which I will admit has made positive forward strides in the area of municipal government in the past, I really expected a better task force from the BC Liberals, not this overly political, overly partisan group.

Categories: BC Liberals, BC New Democrats, British Columbia Politics, Local Government

The Tyee Confused On BC NDP’s Position on Campaign Financing Reform

November 30, 2009 D. Collier 2 comments

The Tyee reported during the second day of the BC New Democratic Party, the convention-goers rejected public financing, allowing for the continuation of political donations from big money, corporations, and labour.

However, that is not the case.

Earlier, the convention-goers did vote in favour of a resolution which, in part, called for:

… legislating campaign finance to take big money out of elections and put individuals voters at the centre of the political process. (Resolution B2009-01)

Then, what was the resolution that was voted against, and therefore responsible for the Tyee’s misconception? This one:

…That a BC NDP government will implement provincial political public financing laws that mirror those now in use during federal political campaigns. (Resolution B2009-02)

One can see how one would think that the BC NDP voted against public financing; after all the federal campaign financing system limits the amount that individuals can donate and prevents corporations and labour from donating. In fact, I am certain that the intent of the original resolution: to limit individual donation and ban corporate and labour donations.

However, most of the convention delegates read a little further into that resolution (too far, if you ask me.) Most of the delegates contended that this resolution would be calling for an near exact duplication of federal political donation laws, and then pointed out some of the administrative problems that have been faced by political parties while working under these laws. The conclusion of their arguments: why duplicate a flawed law when a made-in-BC law with all of the flawed fix could be made?

The wangling was confusing, but the desire of the BC New Democrat Convention is clear: they would like see reform of the campaign financing laws so that political donations from individuals are limited and donations from corporations and unions are banned, but they want to have it implemented in a manner differently than it was federally.

 

Categories: BC New Democrat Convention 2009, BC New Democrats, British Columbia Politics