BCTF On the Airwaves

The BC Teachers Federation has new ads out, which make you wonder if they are planning to escalate their current job action to include an actual strike.

Of course, the ads recycle old adages without providing any context.

They claim there are 12,000 overcrowded classrooms in BC, without any definition of what overcrowding means. Why is a class of 30 senior students overcrowded? I could be convinced that the early grade classrooms need to be kept small with focused attention, but in the years that lead students up to entering college, university and the workforce, the classes should get bigger if anything. How is a coddled student getting hand-holded in a class of 22 students supposed to be prepared for life in a lecture hall of 400 or an office of 50?

They claim there are 700 fewer special needs teachers today than there were a decade ago. But how many fewer special needs students are there? Regular enrollment is down 60,000 over that same time period, so does it not hold that there may be fewer special needs students as well?

They finally claim that BC teachers are second-to-last in compensation in the country. While I have no idea if this is an accurate claim or not, it strikes me as irrelevant that Ontario is paying its teachers more while the province goes broke. Salary should be determined based on what the employer HERE can pay and what the teachers HERE should earn.

Will be interesting to see where the NeverEnding Bagaining Story takes us next!

Speaking of waste....

I'm sure you've all seen Metro Vancouver's latest "Green Angel" campaign designed to encourage locals to use less and reduce waste. Popping up everywhere through a huge media buy, the Green Angel campaign encouraged us all to give personal gifts instead of buying things this Christmas (and by Christmas, I of course mean gift-giving holiday season, as Metro Vancouver white-washed.) Bus shelter ads, websites, print ads, you name it, Metro Vancouver paid for it. And for what exactly? To tell us to buy dancing lessons for Grandma? Go bungee jumping with pops? Do we really need a massive advertising campaign to tell us what kind of gifts to give people? Talk about waste---this is a massive waste of taxpayer's dollars. Big government spending at its finest to try and save some boxes and bows. What a joke!

And to top it all off, Metro Vancouver had an hour-long video produced to go along with the "Create Memories, Not Garbage" campaign. At who knows what cost, the organizers created The Christmas Flame, which according to the Metro Vancouver website, "is a live storytelling event featuring 16 of the region’s top story tellers." That's, count 'em, SIXTEEN storytellers. Oh, what a Christmas treat! So glad we're paying for this stocking stuffer.

Feds begin move to tighten up retirement

Earlier this week, the federal government made the smart move of abolishing mandatory retirement for employees in federally regulated industries/organizations. Where the employer had been able to force people to retire at 65 or even 60 in some cases, they have now lost that power. With people living longer, healthier lives, and with 1/3 of Canadians aged 55+ still having at least 16 years of mortgage payments left owing, the idea of freedom at 65 will not be attainable or realistic for many. For those reasons alone, this is a good move by the Feds, ignoring the discrimination of forcing people to leave their jobs when they reach an arbitrary "expiration date," regardless of their abilities.

There's been talk that this is the beginning of a tightening of retirement rules to being to deal with the coming Boomer surge and the pressure it will put on our public retirement schemes. If this is true, it's great news. Our pension plans are in good shape now, but without tweaking, they will be in the same mess as much of the rest of the world's. I hope the government continues down this path and investigates increasing the age you receive Old Age Security and CPP from 65 to at least 66 or even 67 and instituting means testing for OAS. Taking steps like these may be just what's needed to ensure there is something left of these cornerstone programs for the next generation.

Green Leader Highlights Pointlessness of Kyoto

This morning Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada, underscored the pointlessness of the Kyoto agreement in what I'm sure was meant to be a passionate defense of its ideals.

Speaking on CKNW, May lambasted the federal government for its recent announcement that it was pulling out of the Kyoto agreement, nearly 15 years after it ratified the agreement. When asked about the Tories' claims that staying in Kyoto would cost Canada more than $14 billion, May scoffed, explaining that this would only be true if Canada tried to meet the targets of Kyoto by purchasing carbon credits from other countries, which nobody is forcing us to do. In the very next breath, however, May admitted that the only way to reach Kyoto's targets for emission reductions would be to purchase these very credits, which she expected
would cost "much more than $14 billion."

But the mask really slipped when May insisted that it would have cost Canada nothing to simply stay in Kyoto and not try to achieve the targets. What leadership! What courage! Why couldn't Canada just agree to feel-good international agreements and then pay only lip-service to them like the good ol' days? That's the Canada that Elizabeth May and the Left want, not this principled, responsible and conservative approach we have now.

Tories Score Another Win with Burqa Ban

Yesterday, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced that starting immediately, no one would be allowed to wear any face coverings while taking the oath of citizenship and pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. While some media outlets tried to play up the "controversial" nature of the law, Muslim Canadian groups paraded out, one after another to support the move and people across the country could hear their fellow Canadians nodding their heads in approval. Fundamental Islamic face coverings like burqas and niqabs are fundamentally oppressive and run counter to both the Western and Christian traditions and beliefs which have formed the basis of this country and the government's new policy is a smart move.

With this sudden announcement, the government tossed conservatives like me another hunk of red meat and notched another victory in the win column of the growing list of conservative accomplishments. It's impressive the scope of conservative changes this government has made in half a year: putting the "royal" back in the navy and air force, killing the gun registry, killing the wheat board, pulling out of Kyoto, passing the crime bill, expanding the number of Commons seats in the West, challenging Insite injection site, and the list goes on. With nearly years left in the Conservatives mandate, I'm looking forward to seeing how else this government will move the country away from the long, stale Liberal agenda that has defined it for years.