Letter to the Courier-Islander:
From the Courier-Islander, Dec. 4, 2009:
"...rather than going to the time and expense of a referendum for taxpayers' permission to borrow the money, the city has launched the Alternate Approval Process. Under that process, the borrowing is considered approved by the taxpayers unless 10 per cent of those on the voters list, or 2,332 people, formally sign forms by January 4, 2010 demanding the city go to referendum or drop the proposal."
Until a few days ago I thought the council we elected a year ago was looking after our interests quite responsibly. Now I'm not so convinced.
$2.78 million dollars added to our tax bill and no referendum? Is Council delusional?
I don't know if I'm for a runway extension or not; there simply hasn't been enough discussion of the issue. But surely we have to have the discussion. And, thanks to Council, that means 2332 people have to sign the forms by January 4, 2010.
Last time we participated in one of these schemes, it was the cruise ship terminal that was going to boost our local economy. Thanks a lot, Council, for apparently not learning anything from that experience.
Letter to the Mirror:
Is it not somewhat appalling that the Campbell River City Council proposes to add $2.78 million to our tax bill to pay for an airport runway expansion that we are unlikely to need and haven't discussed at all?
Yes, there is federal money on the line, and provincial money as well. But why do we need a longer runway when Comox, which has the second-best airport in western Canada, is only 45 minutes away?
If we want to have the discussion, 10% of the electors, or 2332 of us, need to fill in one of the forms, available from City Hall, that ask for a referendum. And we have to submit these by January 4, 2010. Otherwise the money will be borrowed, and we'll have to pay.
Has Council learned nothing from the cruise ship terminal fiasco? Do they still think that, "if you build it they will come?"
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Boys' school
Boys are falling behind in the city's public schools, says the Toronto board's new Director of Education, who released yesterday an aggressive plan to launch an all-boys academy next fall and introduce 300 boy-friendly classrooms across the board.
"When we take a look at who we suspend, when we take a look at who's underachieving, it's disproportionately boys," said Dr. Chris Spence, who joined the board this year.
"I want us to explore better ways to serve our boys because I believe with differentiated support ... our schools will be safer and perform better academically."
I took this from the National Post, but it could have been from the Star, or the Globe, or possibly any daily across the country. Obviously the story touched a chord.
And why not? Dr. Spence’s is a seductive proposal. If we accept that there’s a problem, then it makes a kind of intuitive sense that isolating this problem so that it can be dealt with, solves it. It’s the kind of thinking that produces an all-black school in Toronto, or an aboriginal school in Saanich, or, for that matter, special schools for the mentally and physically handicapped.
The notion that it is beneficial to isolate classes of students in order to have them achieve their best makes me more than a little uneasy. It reminds me a lot of what one of my colleagues in London asserted in the staffroom one day – no room for doubt – while I was on exchange there: “Of course, comprehensive education doesn’t work.” Although I was a visitor to their system, I felt obliged to point out that he’d just denigrated all of North American public education. But that didn’t make a dent in his absolute certainty; people’s certainties are not so easily shaken.
And the boys’ project might just raise the academic achievement of some of the participants, although probably not for the rationale given. An illustrative anecdote: when my dad was a teacher in Victoria, he was part of a project to try to increase choice for elementary parents and students by introducing a more linear, instruction-based, discipline-oriented “traditional” school they could opt for, as well as one that would emphasize more child-centered, artistic, “progressive” methods. The latter was called “Sundance”, and is still in existence (it describes itself as “a small and gentle public elementary school"); I’ve forgotten the name of the former, which was ultimately less successful in catering to a clientele, and I gather relatively quickly reverted to being indistinguishable from the norm. In both cases teachers from across the system were asked to apply, and staffs were carefully selected.
It may not surprise you to learn (although I think my father, who very much favoured the Sundance model, was somewhat surprised) that both schools were equally successful academically in their first years. But it was predictable: it is one of the axioms of contemporary education that good administration and good teaching plus good parental and community support, makes the particular method of delivering a curriculum of secondary importance, if not pretty much irrelevant. (The fact that one school still survives and one doesn’t had to do with parental support, and is not a comment on the academic success of the students.)
So why would people like me care if this Toronto project appears to be a success? Well, that’s because there are dangers. Here's another instructive anecdote, by way of illustration: when middle schools became vogue, we in Canada very quickly started looking for models. Consequently, one year my district sent, at considerable expense, about 20 teachers to a conference in New Orleans to be indoctrinated, even though we had already been operating a quite-successful middle school in Campbell River for years, and had developed considerable local expertise. The “Middle School Philosophy” that was subsequently imported made a lot of experienced and effective teachers very unhappy, created a lot of upheaval, and ultimately did nothing to enhance student learning in our district.
Public education is pretty much constantly reacting to the educational enthusiasms of the moment, and if this project is considered successful, there will be calls and movements to emulate it, even thought it's a fantasy, based on a misapprehension. There’s no reason to think a widely-promulgated series of all-boy schools would solve anything. Here’s neurobiologist Dr. Lise Eliot quoted in the Globe:
"When we take a look at who we suspend, when we take a look at who's underachieving, it's disproportionately boys," said Dr. Chris Spence, who joined the board this year.
"I want us to explore better ways to serve our boys because I believe with differentiated support ... our schools will be safer and perform better academically."
I took this from the National Post, but it could have been from the Star, or the Globe, or possibly any daily across the country. Obviously the story touched a chord.
And why not? Dr. Spence’s is a seductive proposal. If we accept that there’s a problem, then it makes a kind of intuitive sense that isolating this problem so that it can be dealt with, solves it. It’s the kind of thinking that produces an all-black school in Toronto, or an aboriginal school in Saanich, or, for that matter, special schools for the mentally and physically handicapped.
The notion that it is beneficial to isolate classes of students in order to have them achieve their best makes me more than a little uneasy. It reminds me a lot of what one of my colleagues in London asserted in the staffroom one day – no room for doubt – while I was on exchange there: “Of course, comprehensive education doesn’t work.” Although I was a visitor to their system, I felt obliged to point out that he’d just denigrated all of North American public education. But that didn’t make a dent in his absolute certainty; people’s certainties are not so easily shaken.
And the boys’ project might just raise the academic achievement of some of the participants, although probably not for the rationale given. An illustrative anecdote: when my dad was a teacher in Victoria, he was part of a project to try to increase choice for elementary parents and students by introducing a more linear, instruction-based, discipline-oriented “traditional” school they could opt for, as well as one that would emphasize more child-centered, artistic, “progressive” methods. The latter was called “Sundance”, and is still in existence (it describes itself as “a small and gentle public elementary school"); I’ve forgotten the name of the former, which was ultimately less successful in catering to a clientele, and I gather relatively quickly reverted to being indistinguishable from the norm. In both cases teachers from across the system were asked to apply, and staffs were carefully selected.
It may not surprise you to learn (although I think my father, who very much favoured the Sundance model, was somewhat surprised) that both schools were equally successful academically in their first years. But it was predictable: it is one of the axioms of contemporary education that good administration and good teaching plus good parental and community support, makes the particular method of delivering a curriculum of secondary importance, if not pretty much irrelevant. (The fact that one school still survives and one doesn’t had to do with parental support, and is not a comment on the academic success of the students.)
So why would people like me care if this Toronto project appears to be a success? Well, that’s because there are dangers. Here's another instructive anecdote, by way of illustration: when middle schools became vogue, we in Canada very quickly started looking for models. Consequently, one year my district sent, at considerable expense, about 20 teachers to a conference in New Orleans to be indoctrinated, even though we had already been operating a quite-successful middle school in Campbell River for years, and had developed considerable local expertise. The “Middle School Philosophy” that was subsequently imported made a lot of experienced and effective teachers very unhappy, created a lot of upheaval, and ultimately did nothing to enhance student learning in our district.
Public education is pretty much constantly reacting to the educational enthusiasms of the moment, and if this project is considered successful, there will be calls and movements to emulate it, even thought it's a fantasy, based on a misapprehension. There’s no reason to think a widely-promulgated series of all-boy schools would solve anything. Here’s neurobiologist Dr. Lise Eliot quoted in the Globe:
This idea that boys and girls learn differently is misleading. They clearly have different interests and somewhat different needs as far as physical movement. But the idea that the process of learning how to read or do arithmetic is fundamentally different for boys and girls is wrong and probably even dangerous.
There has been a big push for single-sex schooling. I spent a lot of time looking at the research, comparing single-sex schooling to co-ed education. It's not very compelling.
It is very difficult research to do, but the data we have thus far suggest if there is an advantage, it is for girls. The largest body of data from many countries – Canada, the U.S. Britain, Australia – suggests boys do not benefit from single-gender education compared with co-ed. It leads to the conclusion that both boys and girls do better with girls in the classroom, that girls sort of settle a classroom down and provide good role models.
The only reliable solution for the statistically-significant fact that boys are falling behind girls in their basic skills is a public education system that makes good teaching both possible and realistic. Let’s put our money and effort into that.
There has been a big push for single-sex schooling. I spent a lot of time looking at the research, comparing single-sex schooling to co-ed education. It's not very compelling.
It is very difficult research to do, but the data we have thus far suggest if there is an advantage, it is for girls. The largest body of data from many countries – Canada, the U.S. Britain, Australia – suggests boys do not benefit from single-gender education compared with co-ed. It leads to the conclusion that both boys and girls do better with girls in the classroom, that girls sort of settle a classroom down and provide good role models.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Our first elected female BC Premier is...
All the polls agree: the BCLiberals have, since last May's provincial election, taken a huge credibility hit. Their numbers are down significantly, presently more than 10 points behind the BC New Democrats.
And Carole James, leader of those New Democrats, trails her party by about the same margin.
This pretty much re-enforces a feeling many of us have had since before the last election: Carole James is not destined to become the first elected female premier of BC.
It's not really her fault that she lacks the necessary charisma. She has been an effective, credible, and extremely hard-working party leader, who has remade a party that was down, at one point, to its last two MLAs. She has run two competent, if pedestrian, election campaigns. And her stump speeches have improved enormously; the last time she was in Campbell River I even saw her strike some sparks.
If she were a man she'd probably be premier by now. (There has been only one elected female Premier in the history of Canada, Liberal Catherine Callbeck of PEI, and she lasted less than one term. It's obviously one very tough sell.)
Unfortunately (fortunately!) the next election is four years away, and that's enough time for any party to re-invent itself. I predict the Liberals will do just that, and we'd better think about it ourselves as well, or we're pretty much guaranteed to lose another one.
Here's a scenario:
1 Within a year of the conclusion of the Olympics Premier Campbell discovers some pressing reason for why he cannot complete his mandate. (Would you believe a Senate appointment by Prime Minister Ignatieff?)
2 In the subsequent race all the right-wing male contenders for the job are trumped when Carole Taylor is persuaded to come out of retirement and wins in a walk. The press, as usual, rolls over for her. (That's charisma!)
3 By the time the next election rolls around - in May of 2013 - the public sector unions will be smarting from the effects of a 4 year wage freeze. Will the public sector unions be prepared to play footsie with Carole Taylor again? Probably not. Will the public be in the mood for a salary-restoring contract? Probably not. Will the economy have recovered? Probably not. Would a Carole James-led NDParty win against a Carole Taylor-led BCLiberal Party in such a climate? Probably not.
4 Et voila! Premier Carole Taylor, first elected female Premier of BC.
And Carole James, leader of those New Democrats, trails her party by about the same margin.
This pretty much re-enforces a feeling many of us have had since before the last election: Carole James is not destined to become the first elected female premier of BC.
It's not really her fault that she lacks the necessary charisma. She has been an effective, credible, and extremely hard-working party leader, who has remade a party that was down, at one point, to its last two MLAs. She has run two competent, if pedestrian, election campaigns. And her stump speeches have improved enormously; the last time she was in Campbell River I even saw her strike some sparks.
If she were a man she'd probably be premier by now. (There has been only one elected female Premier in the history of Canada, Liberal Catherine Callbeck of PEI, and she lasted less than one term. It's obviously one very tough sell.)
Unfortunately (fortunately!) the next election is four years away, and that's enough time for any party to re-invent itself. I predict the Liberals will do just that, and we'd better think about it ourselves as well, or we're pretty much guaranteed to lose another one.
Here's a scenario:
1 Within a year of the conclusion of the Olympics Premier Campbell discovers some pressing reason for why he cannot complete his mandate. (Would you believe a Senate appointment by Prime Minister Ignatieff?)
2 In the subsequent race all the right-wing male contenders for the job are trumped when Carole Taylor is persuaded to come out of retirement and wins in a walk. The press, as usual, rolls over for her. (That's charisma!)
3 By the time the next election rolls around - in May of 2013 - the public sector unions will be smarting from the effects of a 4 year wage freeze. Will the public sector unions be prepared to play footsie with Carole Taylor again? Probably not. Will the public be in the mood for a salary-restoring contract? Probably not. Will the economy have recovered? Probably not. Would a Carole James-led NDParty win against a Carole Taylor-led BCLiberal Party in such a climate? Probably not.
4 Et voila! Premier Carole Taylor, first elected female Premier of BC.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
More cultural artifacts
In the rain, up through a very narrow, winding valley along Highway 6 from Spanish Fork, just south of Salt Lake City, over the Wasatch Range, ultimately towards the blazing red buttes of Arches, Canyonlands, and Moab. The highway is designated, according to a sign posted at the rest stop at Tucker, as a “Blue Star” highway, dedicated to US military personnel of the past, present, and future.
And this “Blue Star” highway is part of a patriotic movement, rather than a mere local curiosity:
The Blue Star Memorial Marker Program of the National Garden Clubs, Inc. began in 1945 to honor the men and women serving in the Armed Forces during World War II. The name was chosen for the star on flags displayed in homes and businesses denoting a family member serving. Garden clubs pictured a ribbon of living memorial plantings traversing every state. The designation of Blue Star Highways was achieved through petitions to the state legislatures and cooperation with the Departments of Transportation. A uniform marker was designed to identify the Highways.
The Blue Star Memorial Program grew to extend thousands of miles across continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii. All men and women who have served, are serving, or will serve in the Armed Forces of the United States are included.
The next day, which is the last day of the Memorial Day weekend, we arrive at the KOA in Romeroville, New Mexico. They have a special on: veterans get a reduction. The lady knows we’re from Canada, but doesn’t hold that against us: am I by any chance a veteran?
I joke, “I don’t suppose being a retired reserve naval officer in Her Majesty’s Canadian Forces counts?”
Take that, Port McNeill, home town of Willie Mitchell!
We’re there on the Memorial Day weekend, when even some of the thousands of churches in Utah are flying flags, and it seems altogether appropriate that we should be climbing towards the high point of the road, a pass called “Soldier Summit”.
And this “Blue Star” highway is part of a patriotic movement, rather than a mere local curiosity:
The Blue Star Memorial Marker Program of the National Garden Clubs, Inc. began in 1945 to honor the men and women serving in the Armed Forces during World War II. The name was chosen for the star on flags displayed in homes and businesses denoting a family member serving. Garden clubs pictured a ribbon of living memorial plantings traversing every state. The designation of Blue Star Highways was achieved through petitions to the state legislatures and cooperation with the Departments of Transportation. A uniform marker was designed to identify the Highways.
The Blue Star Memorial Program grew to extend thousands of miles across continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii. All men and women who have served, are serving, or will serve in the Armed Forces of the United States are included.
----------
The next day, which is the last day of the Memorial Day weekend, we arrive at the KOA in Romeroville, New Mexico. They have a special on: veterans get a reduction. The lady knows we’re from Canada, but doesn’t hold that against us: am I by any chance a veteran?
I joke, “I don’t suppose being a retired reserve naval officer in Her Majesty’s Canadian Forces counts?”
But it does, and she thanks me for my service, before showing us to our site, driving her quad with the McCain/Palin poster on the back.
----------
Fort Sumner, New Mexico, is an unprepossessing small town, which features a couple of gas stations and, thanks to the Pecos River, the only trees or greenery for miles.
Take that, Port McNeill, home town of Willie Mitchell!
American Corrections
Maybe American prisons just advertise better, or maybe our travels took us past a concentration of them; whatever the reason, on our trip from Vancouver to Austin we saw, or saw direction signs to, no fewer than a dozen prisons, and probably more. None of these were in Canada, although I know there's at least one major prison somewhere in the Fraser Valley.
One couldn’t avoid the impression that, for many of the communities we passed through, incarceration is an important - in some cases the most important - industry.
Imagine my delight then, to have this confirmed on line, as I was checking the name of one prison I thought I remembered passing, high in the mountains of Colorado:
More than half the jobs in Fremont County stem from the corrections industry. Yet, despite living in close proximity to these 13 different prisons, area residents and visitors soon discover the diversity of the Royal Gorge Country is what makes it such a great place to visit, live and work.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Flags
July 1 was Canada Day. As is increasingly the custom, even here on our island off the left coast, it was marked by a good deal of flag flying.
In ranchland Texas the driveways frequently sport a Texas flag on one side and a Stars and Stripes on the other. This appears to be something of a theme in Texas generally, and I gather has something to do with the inalienable right of Texans to either secede or divide into four states, if they want to. Sort of like Quebec, except that the language in Texas is Spanish, and most Spanish-speakers in Texas just want to be Americans who speak Spanish.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Election backsplash
So what about that voter turnout? Is the fact that only a reported 48% (or 52%, according to some) of eligible voters went to the polls significant?
I just wonder how much the lists distort the picture. Here are just three anecdotes which may (or may not!) be illustrative:
A man we know has two names, one his legal name and the other the one he goes by. So he appears at the same address twice, but votes once.
A couple has moved since the last election. They registered at their new address with Elections BC. Consequence? They appeared on the voters’ list twice.
We received 5 cards at our address. One was for eldest daughter, teaching in Turkey. Another was for middle daughter, who has, since registering for the last election, joined her husband in Texas. Youngest daughter got one card at our house and another at the address in Campbell River where she actually lives when she’s here, so that’s the address she presented when she voted. Consequently, only 40% of the registered voters at our address voted in our poll.
Maybe before we work ourselves up over this point we should make sure the base statistics are reasonably accurate.
I’m rather more concerned about the demographics, as they proved out in this campaign. The average age of our campaign team, financial contributors, and volunteers cannot have been much under 60, and the Liberals, judging from everything I saw on my radar were even fewer and older.
That’s obviously not sustainable.
Obama’s campaign proved this trend isn’t democratic destiny, but I don’t see anything on the horizon of the NDP (or the Liberals, or even the Greens) that suggests it’s about to change in BC.
Which takes me to the subject of electoral change. I’m not positive it would connect more younger people to our democratic institutions, but it obviously couldn’t hurt. Most British Columbians, me included, think it’s well past time BC had some Green MLAs (and a Marijuana Party MLA or two wouldn’t hurt either).
So why did I vote against BC-STV? Because the more I thought about it the more unworkable it seemed. Because David Schreck’s research convinced me that where it’s in force STV doesn’t do most of the things its proponents argued for, including making room for more women in politics, or giving voice to minority opinions, or even reducing the influence of political parties. The only system that can guarantee those laudable goals is MMPR (mixed member proportional representation) with a vote threshold of about 5%, so that the clowns don’t get to run the circus.
So I’m proposing a plank in the next campaign which obliges the NDP, if elected government, to change our electoral system to MMPR as a matter of confidence (meaning there will be a new election if it’s defeated). And no cop-out referendum either: change we can believe in.
For a change.
(By the way, how ironic is it that the Liberals elected more female MLAs than we, the party of affirmative action, did? How ironic is it that Leslie McNabb in Comox was widely derided in her local papers for being an affirmative action candidate rather than the best candidate the NDP could put up, and that this certainly cost her votes and maybe the election as well, given a weak and novice Liberal opponent? Ouch.)
I just wonder how much the lists distort the picture. Here are just three anecdotes which may (or may not!) be illustrative:
A man we know has two names, one his legal name and the other the one he goes by. So he appears at the same address twice, but votes once.
A couple has moved since the last election. They registered at their new address with Elections BC. Consequence? They appeared on the voters’ list twice.
We received 5 cards at our address. One was for eldest daughter, teaching in Turkey. Another was for middle daughter, who has, since registering for the last election, joined her husband in Texas. Youngest daughter got one card at our house and another at the address in Campbell River where she actually lives when she’s here, so that’s the address she presented when she voted. Consequently, only 40% of the registered voters at our address voted in our poll.
Maybe before we work ourselves up over this point we should make sure the base statistics are reasonably accurate.
I’m rather more concerned about the demographics, as they proved out in this campaign. The average age of our campaign team, financial contributors, and volunteers cannot have been much under 60, and the Liberals, judging from everything I saw on my radar were even fewer and older.
That’s obviously not sustainable.
Obama’s campaign proved this trend isn’t democratic destiny, but I don’t see anything on the horizon of the NDP (or the Liberals, or even the Greens) that suggests it’s about to change in BC.
Which takes me to the subject of electoral change. I’m not positive it would connect more younger people to our democratic institutions, but it obviously couldn’t hurt. Most British Columbians, me included, think it’s well past time BC had some Green MLAs (and a Marijuana Party MLA or two wouldn’t hurt either).
So why did I vote against BC-STV? Because the more I thought about it the more unworkable it seemed. Because David Schreck’s research convinced me that where it’s in force STV doesn’t do most of the things its proponents argued for, including making room for more women in politics, or giving voice to minority opinions, or even reducing the influence of political parties. The only system that can guarantee those laudable goals is MMPR (mixed member proportional representation) with a vote threshold of about 5%, so that the clowns don’t get to run the circus.
So I’m proposing a plank in the next campaign which obliges the NDP, if elected government, to change our electoral system to MMPR as a matter of confidence (meaning there will be a new election if it’s defeated). And no cop-out referendum either: change we can believe in.
For a change.
(By the way, how ironic is it that the Liberals elected more female MLAs than we, the party of affirmative action, did? How ironic is it that Leslie McNabb in Comox was widely derided in her local papers for being an affirmative action candidate rather than the best candidate the NDP could put up, and that this certainly cost her votes and maybe the election as well, given a weak and novice Liberal opponent? Ouch.)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
North Island: reflections and gossip
May 13, 2009
The 2009 Provincial Election campaign is in the can, so here are the news, as Edith Josie used to say:
1 signs of an election...
As those of you who read my blog after the municipal elections last November will know, I like to watch the sign campaign unfold.
Ours (Jim’s crew, Deanna’s phoners to identify locations) was textbook, in my opinion the best ever: the signs came out early, there were lots, they looked good, and best of all, we had hardly any on public land or vacant lots. You couldn’t miss the clusters of NDP signs driving into town from the south along the old highway or along Alder, a dominant manifestation of organization and enthusiasm.
By contrast, several days after our first wave had emerged, the vacant lots started to sprout large, ostentatious, Liberal signs. Marion Wright’s photo on them didn’t do her any favours; in fact, they made her look kind of frumpy. The ones identifying Liberal households, when they did finally start to appear were very light on the ground and of the bag variety. They never achieved any significant numbers. Liberal signs implied, “Lots of money, no workers”, which was likely the case.
2 sowing and reaping
What’s up with the teachers of Campbell River?!
Last election quite a number worked on Claire’s first campaign, and I’m told some even helped out financially. Of course, having been seriously screwed over by the government, they had lots of incentive.
This time? Not so much. Their retired colleagues, people of my generation, had their hands all over Claire’s campaign, but I can count on one hand the number of Campbell River teachers who volunteered and on two the number who contributed financially. It could well have been the worst showing ever, and that takes some serious apathy.
The CRDTA leadership was totally absent (in fact, when Shelly asked to use teacher email to encourage her colleagues to get involved, she was rebuffed!), and of course the BCTF, as per tradition, was one of the very few unions not to contribute either locally or provincially. As far as I know, there wasn’t even the traditional central campaign to urge BCTF members to volunteer for the party of their choice.
And what about the BCTF campaign to promote public education? The gag law pretty much pulled its teeth, and although they joined other unions to challenge the law and won, by that time the victory was largely symbolic.
When after the election the government, pleading poverty, screws them over again, will they expect their MLA to forget their lack of support?
Count on it.
3 North Island Libs
I wonder if we’ll ever find out why the Liberal campaign was so limp.
Of course the $70,000 spending ceiling can’t have helped (even we would have had no trouble spending more!) but where were the volunteers distributing leaflets and knocking on doors? Where was the office? Where, for that matter, was the candidate?
Early in the campaign Sandy fielded a call from the Liberals. A south-Asian voice. “Oh, and where are you calling from?” said Sandy. “Uhhh...my office,” said the woman after an obvious and uncomfortable pause. “Maybe you could tell me where I could find Marion Wright’s office,” Sandy then said. “I’ve been looking for it, and I haven’t seen one.” The lady couldn’t tell her.
Our workers spotted Ms Wright at various fundraising and social events around Campbell River, but we had no reports of her campaigning either in Campbell River or elsewhere in the riding. A quick perusal of First Nation websites shows the Liberal candidate shmoozing with various local aborignal leaders, so maybe that was the campaign. To me it’s remarkable that there were no visiting Cabinet Ministers during the campaign, and that the Premier showed only once for a very brief whistle stop right at the end. Pretty weird for a riding Rod Visser lost by under 700 votes last time, and which every newspaper report listed as a “swing” riding.
4 the candidate and the cousin
You had to wonder if the Liberals liked having an aboriginal candidate but really didn’t want to encourage a Marion Wright win.
Three tangential observations on that note:
a) it was never mentioned in public but reasonably well-known that former MLA Rod Visser and Marion were “an item”, and had been, according to rumour (supported by observations), since well before (another rumour, supported by the fact that his daughter now goes by her mother’s maiden name) Rod’s very nasty divorce.
b) Sean Holman reported that the Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Authority, chaired by Marion Wright, had been closed down for lack of effectiveness after it had seriously overspent its budget. So much for any claim to fiscal prudence, or for getting things done.
c) The closest the campaign got to nasty was when Christine Hunt, our Northern Organizer and Marion Wright’s cousin, asked Marion at the all-candidates’ in Port Hardy to comment on a forensic audit being done on the Fort Rupert Band’s books (they’re both members) for the time when Marion was the elected Chief. We’d known about the rumour, had already decided not to go there, and clearly Christine shouldn’t have put the question while in our employ. Consequently, Paul, in his Campaign Manager capacity, went to Marion’s office next day to apologize on behalf of the Claire Trevena campaign. But Marion insisted that Claire apologize in public and fire Christine. She made that demand loudly in Port Hardy and again next day at an all-candidates’ in Campbell River. The moderator of the Campbell River meeting had to tell her to stop insisting and the meeting very clearly had no idea of what was going on and was not on her side.
We continued not to use the rumour, and the question hasn’t been answered.
From a purely political point of view Christine should probably have persuaded someone else from the band to pose the question, assuming it was important. But maybe Wright, who appears to me to have particularly thin skin for someone aspiring to political office, is too scary for anyone else from that community to take on.
5 paying the piper...
As the financial agent for Claire’s campaign, I processed all the donations. So I know something about this file.
Every dollar that is raised on behalf of an NDP candidate is split 50-50 with the provincial campaign. That’s only appropriate, and we definitely got our money’s worth this time out. However, that means if a campaign spends the maximum of $70,000, it must raise $140,000; best to have some serious money in the bank before the campaign starts, especially in a recession year like this one, when many of the people who could logically be expected to support us were pretty strapped financially.
Happily, for the first time I know of and thanks to fund raising that started as soon as we had paid off our debt from the last campaign, this time we had half of what we expected to need in the bank by the time the writ was dropped.
The popular wisdom has it that unions pay for NDP campaigns and businesses pay for those run by the Liberals. I don’t have any insight into Liberal funding, but can report that while some unions do contribute (some, like the BCGEU, handsomely), many (like the BCTF) don’t, and the overwhelming bulk of the money raised in a constituency like ours comes from approximately 200 to 300 very ordinary, middle-class people, a disproportionately-large number of them retired.
That funding is absolutely essential in our system, and it continues to astonish me that so many well-educated younger people, the kind who hold down good jobs and are consequently utterly dependent on their political system and government functioning smoothly, don’t feel a need to either contribute or become involved.
Ultimately, that’s just not very smart.
6 and this is potentially brilliant... and scary
Let’s assume Rafe Mair is correct when he accuses Gordon Campbell and the Cronies of plotting to privatize BC.
That would go some way to explaining what must be the most incredible reversal of policy in this province’s history: the government that came in on a platform of having a referendum on treaty negotiations with first nations only 8 years ago is now promising to pass legislation acknowledging aboriginal title and rights to the entire province.
When North Island MLA Claire Trevena dared to question the Klahoose band’s support for Plutonic Power’s plans for Toba, Knight, and Bute inlets last April, she was immediately and loudly declared both paternalistic and racist by Klahoose Chief Ken Brown. As Claire’s record of support for the First Nations of North Island had been pretty-well unassailable to that point, this is an interesting turn of events, to say the least.
But it’s probably an early sign of what’s to come, should the proposed legislation pass.
Environmental activists have been thorns in the government’s paws for decades. They have opposed many of the major extraction projects proposed for the province, from Mac-Blo’s plans for clearcutting the Clayquot in the 80’s, to Shell’s proposal to extract coalbed methane in the “Sacred Headwaters”, to the Tulsequah Mine on the Taku, to the coal mine proposed for the headwaters of the Flathead River... The list goes on. In most of those cases, environmentalists and First Nations have been and are on the same side, and that makes it politically very difficult for the government to help push these projects through.
The proposed legislation changes everything: if First Nations have title and rights to BC, and if they, like the Klahoose, become partners in the development of their “traditional territories”, and if to oppose such development on environmental grounds is “racist” and “paternalistic”, will people like Claire continue to oppose projects on purely environmental grounds?
(Will the NDP caucus oppose the Tsawwassen land claims settlement which permits that band to pave over 200 acres of prime farmland and rent it to Deltaport for container storage? Will Clayquot heroine Tzeporah Berman oppose Plutonic? )
Ooops! Mission accomplished.
We could be running on “Take back your province” for some time, and having to take it back from bands like the Klahoose is beyond ironic.
The 2009 Provincial Election campaign is in the can, so here are the news, as Edith Josie used to say:
1 signs of an election...
As those of you who read my blog after the municipal elections last November will know, I like to watch the sign campaign unfold.
Ours (Jim’s crew, Deanna’s phoners to identify locations) was textbook, in my opinion the best ever: the signs came out early, there were lots, they looked good, and best of all, we had hardly any on public land or vacant lots. You couldn’t miss the clusters of NDP signs driving into town from the south along the old highway or along Alder, a dominant manifestation of organization and enthusiasm.
By contrast, several days after our first wave had emerged, the vacant lots started to sprout large, ostentatious, Liberal signs. Marion Wright’s photo on them didn’t do her any favours; in fact, they made her look kind of frumpy. The ones identifying Liberal households, when they did finally start to appear were very light on the ground and of the bag variety. They never achieved any significant numbers. Liberal signs implied, “Lots of money, no workers”, which was likely the case.
2 sowing and reaping
What’s up with the teachers of Campbell River?!
Last election quite a number worked on Claire’s first campaign, and I’m told some even helped out financially. Of course, having been seriously screwed over by the government, they had lots of incentive.
This time? Not so much. Their retired colleagues, people of my generation, had their hands all over Claire’s campaign, but I can count on one hand the number of Campbell River teachers who volunteered and on two the number who contributed financially. It could well have been the worst showing ever, and that takes some serious apathy.
The CRDTA leadership was totally absent (in fact, when Shelly asked to use teacher email to encourage her colleagues to get involved, she was rebuffed!), and of course the BCTF, as per tradition, was one of the very few unions not to contribute either locally or provincially. As far as I know, there wasn’t even the traditional central campaign to urge BCTF members to volunteer for the party of their choice.
And what about the BCTF campaign to promote public education? The gag law pretty much pulled its teeth, and although they joined other unions to challenge the law and won, by that time the victory was largely symbolic.
When after the election the government, pleading poverty, screws them over again, will they expect their MLA to forget their lack of support?
Count on it.
3 North Island Libs
I wonder if we’ll ever find out why the Liberal campaign was so limp.
Of course the $70,000 spending ceiling can’t have helped (even we would have had no trouble spending more!) but where were the volunteers distributing leaflets and knocking on doors? Where was the office? Where, for that matter, was the candidate?
Early in the campaign Sandy fielded a call from the Liberals. A south-Asian voice. “Oh, and where are you calling from?” said Sandy. “Uhhh...my office,” said the woman after an obvious and uncomfortable pause. “Maybe you could tell me where I could find Marion Wright’s office,” Sandy then said. “I’ve been looking for it, and I haven’t seen one.” The lady couldn’t tell her.
Our workers spotted Ms Wright at various fundraising and social events around Campbell River, but we had no reports of her campaigning either in Campbell River or elsewhere in the riding. A quick perusal of First Nation websites shows the Liberal candidate shmoozing with various local aborignal leaders, so maybe that was the campaign. To me it’s remarkable that there were no visiting Cabinet Ministers during the campaign, and that the Premier showed only once for a very brief whistle stop right at the end. Pretty weird for a riding Rod Visser lost by under 700 votes last time, and which every newspaper report listed as a “swing” riding.
4 the candidate and the cousin
You had to wonder if the Liberals liked having an aboriginal candidate but really didn’t want to encourage a Marion Wright win.
Three tangential observations on that note:
a) it was never mentioned in public but reasonably well-known that former MLA Rod Visser and Marion were “an item”, and had been, according to rumour (supported by observations), since well before (another rumour, supported by the fact that his daughter now goes by her mother’s maiden name) Rod’s very nasty divorce.
b) Sean Holman reported that the Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Authority, chaired by Marion Wright, had been closed down for lack of effectiveness after it had seriously overspent its budget. So much for any claim to fiscal prudence, or for getting things done.
c) The closest the campaign got to nasty was when Christine Hunt, our Northern Organizer and Marion Wright’s cousin, asked Marion at the all-candidates’ in Port Hardy to comment on a forensic audit being done on the Fort Rupert Band’s books (they’re both members) for the time when Marion was the elected Chief. We’d known about the rumour, had already decided not to go there, and clearly Christine shouldn’t have put the question while in our employ. Consequently, Paul, in his Campaign Manager capacity, went to Marion’s office next day to apologize on behalf of the Claire Trevena campaign. But Marion insisted that Claire apologize in public and fire Christine. She made that demand loudly in Port Hardy and again next day at an all-candidates’ in Campbell River. The moderator of the Campbell River meeting had to tell her to stop insisting and the meeting very clearly had no idea of what was going on and was not on her side.
We continued not to use the rumour, and the question hasn’t been answered.
From a purely political point of view Christine should probably have persuaded someone else from the band to pose the question, assuming it was important. But maybe Wright, who appears to me to have particularly thin skin for someone aspiring to political office, is too scary for anyone else from that community to take on.
5 paying the piper...
As the financial agent for Claire’s campaign, I processed all the donations. So I know something about this file.
Every dollar that is raised on behalf of an NDP candidate is split 50-50 with the provincial campaign. That’s only appropriate, and we definitely got our money’s worth this time out. However, that means if a campaign spends the maximum of $70,000, it must raise $140,000; best to have some serious money in the bank before the campaign starts, especially in a recession year like this one, when many of the people who could logically be expected to support us were pretty strapped financially.
Happily, for the first time I know of and thanks to fund raising that started as soon as we had paid off our debt from the last campaign, this time we had half of what we expected to need in the bank by the time the writ was dropped.
The popular wisdom has it that unions pay for NDP campaigns and businesses pay for those run by the Liberals. I don’t have any insight into Liberal funding, but can report that while some unions do contribute (some, like the BCGEU, handsomely), many (like the BCTF) don’t, and the overwhelming bulk of the money raised in a constituency like ours comes from approximately 200 to 300 very ordinary, middle-class people, a disproportionately-large number of them retired.
That funding is absolutely essential in our system, and it continues to astonish me that so many well-educated younger people, the kind who hold down good jobs and are consequently utterly dependent on their political system and government functioning smoothly, don’t feel a need to either contribute or become involved.
Ultimately, that’s just not very smart.
6 and this is potentially brilliant... and scary
Let’s assume Rafe Mair is correct when he accuses Gordon Campbell and the Cronies of plotting to privatize BC.
That would go some way to explaining what must be the most incredible reversal of policy in this province’s history: the government that came in on a platform of having a referendum on treaty negotiations with first nations only 8 years ago is now promising to pass legislation acknowledging aboriginal title and rights to the entire province.
When North Island MLA Claire Trevena dared to question the Klahoose band’s support for Plutonic Power’s plans for Toba, Knight, and Bute inlets last April, she was immediately and loudly declared both paternalistic and racist by Klahoose Chief Ken Brown. As Claire’s record of support for the First Nations of North Island had been pretty-well unassailable to that point, this is an interesting turn of events, to say the least.
But it’s probably an early sign of what’s to come, should the proposed legislation pass.
Environmental activists have been thorns in the government’s paws for decades. They have opposed many of the major extraction projects proposed for the province, from Mac-Blo’s plans for clearcutting the Clayquot in the 80’s, to Shell’s proposal to extract coalbed methane in the “Sacred Headwaters”, to the Tulsequah Mine on the Taku, to the coal mine proposed for the headwaters of the Flathead River... The list goes on. In most of those cases, environmentalists and First Nations have been and are on the same side, and that makes it politically very difficult for the government to help push these projects through.
The proposed legislation changes everything: if First Nations have title and rights to BC, and if they, like the Klahoose, become partners in the development of their “traditional territories”, and if to oppose such development on environmental grounds is “racist” and “paternalistic”, will people like Claire continue to oppose projects on purely environmental grounds?
(Will the NDP caucus oppose the Tsawwassen land claims settlement which permits that band to pave over 200 acres of prime farmland and rent it to Deltaport for container storage? Will Clayquot heroine Tzeporah Berman oppose Plutonic? )
Ooops! Mission accomplished.
We could be running on “Take back your province” for some time, and having to take it back from bands like the Klahoose is beyond ironic.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Phil Hochstein is just wrong
Phil Hochstein is the President of the Independent Contractors & Business Association of BC, an anti-union lobby group. His organization has been running a television campaign for several months now called "VoteSmart BC" claiming that the 1990's, when the NDP was the government in BC, was the equivalent of the Dark Ages, economically.
The Courier-Islander ran a letter from him making the same claims. My response was printed April 17, 2009:
The headline on Phil Hochstein's letter says it all: "NDP policies will lead BC back to the '90s"
We should be so lucky!
Annual growth for the last 8 years: 2.6%. Annual growth during the 90's? 2.8%.
Total jobs added under the Liberals? 323,700. Under the NDP? 344,100.
As Bill Tieleman says in his 24 Hours column of April 24, "Premier Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals [are the] worst economic managers in the province's history!" and "British Columbia job losses lead all Canada in recession!" and "B.C. 2009 budget deficit [is as] phony as a $3 bill!"
He cites the statistics that back up his claims.
So yes, please, let's see if we can recreate the growth of the '90's. Bring back the NDP.
The Courier-Islander ran a letter from him making the same claims. My response was printed April 17, 2009:
The headline on Phil Hochstein's letter says it all: "NDP policies will lead BC back to the '90s"
We should be so lucky!
Annual growth for the last 8 years: 2.6%. Annual growth during the 90's? 2.8%.
Total jobs added under the Liberals? 323,700. Under the NDP? 344,100.
As Bill Tieleman says in his 24 Hours column of April 24, "Premier Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals [are the] worst economic managers in the province's history!" and "British Columbia job losses lead all Canada in recession!" and "B.C. 2009 budget deficit [is as] phony as a $3 bill!"
He cites the statistics that back up his claims.
So yes, please, let's see if we can recreate the growth of the '90's. Bring back the NDP.
Monday, April 6, 2009
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil ...
printed in the Globe and Mail, April 6, 2009
Dear Sirs,
I regret not donating to the fund that bought Abousfian Abdelrazik's plane ticket home.
But now I'm both angry and worried: what kind of precedent is it when a minister of government gets to decide which of Canada's citizens can return to his Canadian home?
Sign me up for helping to finance the court case.
--Justus Havelaar
Dear Sirs,
I regret not donating to the fund that bought Abousfian Abdelrazik's plane ticket home.
But now I'm both angry and worried: what kind of precedent is it when a minister of government gets to decide which of Canada's citizens can return to his Canadian home?
Sign me up for helping to finance the court case.
--Justus Havelaar
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