Street Level

If there was ever a reason to not vote for the Liberals next month, it comes courtesy of Shirley Bond.

The woman who once sat as a trustee on a school board in Prince George — where 4,500 students ride buses 11,500 kilometres in total every day on 64 regular and 13 custom routes — now says parents should pay to send their kids to school by bus.

Perhaps this is yet another initiative by her government to cut down on school-bus emissions.

After all, if the buses aren’t rolling, they aren't spewing exhaust.

This is the same government that has allocated $1.1 million for special filters to be retrofitted on buses to reduce those noxious fumes.

This is the same government that has introduced an experiment in Kelowna with a hybrid electric school bus – at a cost of about $50,000 more than a regular diesel-fuelled bus.

They seem to know the buses are bad for health, but don’t understand how vital they are for education.

And now, just to hammer it home, School District 73 trustee Annette Glover, chairwoman of the finance and planning committee for SD73, has said the committee is prepared to recommend transportation fees in September if the province doesn’t come up with more money to cover the shortfall — although her press release doesn’t say how much will be charged.

So here are some questions to ask Liberal candidates Kevin Krueger and Terry Lake, should you happen upon them on the election trail in the next few weeks.

Do they believe education is a basic right?

Do they believe government has an obligation to deliver education?

Are they prepared to develop some sort of tax credit for parents who can’t afford to pay for transportation but who will be topping up the tanks with that lovely, ever-increasing carbon tax the Liberals have imposed on us all?

And let’s all remember that tax is supposed to hit an extra 7.2 cents a litre in just three years.

You could ask the Gordon Campbell boys why they’ve spent millions and millions of dollars in their green push to make school buses belch less and are now willing to throw that all away for those of us who can’t afford the hybrids and electric cars to make that drive back and forth every day.

Ask them what they plan to do with the traffic congestion that will be created on neighbourhood streets as those parents who won’t be able to afford the extra $20 per child per month.

This would be the amount school boards are now being told to charge just for the privilege of ensuring your kids get the education they are legally required to receive.

By the way, if you believe that $20 figure, the Liberals have a bridge to sell you.

Glover notes in her release that request for reviews by the B.C. School Trustees Association have been met by Bond with “total disregard.”

Sure, it’s easy to be mad at the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and its ad campaign advocating so many things for the school system, but maybe we should also be angry with an arrogant government determined to download everything onto families.

It’s so convenient to just criticize teachers as whiners who want everything their way: smaller classes, more support for special-needs classes and greater understanding that when a school closes, it impacts a community.

In fact, it’s almost a mantra for some to dump on teachers as greedy, overpaid, underworked leeches — but I wouldn’t want their job.

Because anyone who thinks teachers only work from the moment the bell rings at 8:30 a.m. to the closing bell at 2:30 is sorely mistaken.

Just as is anyone who thinks the way to handle the funding crisis that is crippling our education system is to charge parents for transportation.

Kids are our future.

Does it make sense to put financial barriers in front of that future?

dale@kamloopsthisweek.com

Posted by Dale at 8:23 a.m. Comments