Category Archives: BC Politics

Board of Variance Fate To Be Decided Tuesday morning, July 25

BC Politics, Vancouver, VanRamblings

CITY OF VANCOUVER FIRES BOARD OF VARIANCE

After three long, miserable weeks of psychic, emotional and other pain for the author of this blog, notice was given Friday afternoon that Justice Robert Bauman, of the BC Supreme Court, will hand down his decision this coming Tuesday morning, at 9 a.m., July 25th, as to whether Vancouver will maintain an independent Board of Variance, or have its members replaced with individuals friendlier to development interests, and the interests of the NPA, the municipal political party currently governing Vancouver City Hall.
For those of you who have not been following the torrid and often heartrending saga of the sacking of Vancouver’s Board of Variance (of which VanRamblings is one of the deposed members), there’s been a great deal reported in the press on the issue, as there might well have been given the import of the issue for the average Vancouver citizen, and for all of us.
Allen Garr, of the Vancouver Courier, has proved particularly dogged in his coverage of what he has suggested “may be the biggest story of the year,” beginning with his July 7th column, Board firing bad for citizenry, continuing on to July 12th with Board firing stretches credulity, July 15th’s PR plan followed board firing, and yet another column published this past Wednesday, which (inexplicably) The Courier has yet to post to the ‘Net.
The Vancouver Sun’s Barbara Yaffe, who in appealing on behalf of her neighbourhood to the Board of Variance in the autumn of 2005, lost in her bid to have overturned what she and her neighbours felt was a “wholly unsuitable” duplex development, has taken a surprising, yet ethical and principled stand in support of an independent Board of Variance.
On July 5th, Ms. Yaffe, in a column titled Citizens need a Board to stand between them and city hall (pdf), and again on July 12th in a column titled, Variance board our last hope to rein in a city hall run amok provided insight and much needed coverage of an issue which should have grabbed the attention of all Vancouver citizens.
So, this coming Tuesday morning, stay tuned to your local radio station for news from the BC Supreme Court.
Justice Robert Bauman has a very difficult ruling to make, given the able presentations of both legal counsels, Derek Creighton for the Petitioner (the fired Board of Variance members), and George Macintosh for the Respondent, the City of Vancouver / Province of British Columbia.

Provincial Liberals Introduce a Children’s Budget. Some Doubt It.

BC Politics

Vancouver Kensington NDP MLA David Chudnovsky in the British Columbia provincial legislature on Monday, February 27th ..

Let’s turn to education, kindergarten-to-grade-12 education, because the people in our schools are children. We’re told by the Minister of Finance that it’s a children’s budget. So what’s in the budget for our public schools? The Premier and the minister are all over the media crowing about the increase in funding, but as usual with this government, it pays to look at the numbers a little bit more closely.
The increase in per-pupil funding that the government is projecting is 2.35 percent over the next three years. Inflation is expected to be 6.5 percent over the same period. Therefore, per-pupil funding in our public schools — that’s children — is to lag more than 4 percent behind inflation for the next three years. There’s a children’s budget for you. There is a commitment to children.
At the same time, funding for private schools is going to go up 10.7 percent. It’s not a big secret where this government is going, not a big secret what their priorities are, not a big secret what their agenda is for public schools and what their agenda is for private schools. The numbers tell the story.
You do have to wonder what’s going on in the corridors of power. Who’s running the ship? Is there anyone over there learning lessons from their own experiences?
Only a couple of months ago this government precipitated a completely unnecessary confrontation with teachers, parents and communities across this province. It was a confrontation precisely about the funding and resources available to public schools. It was about class size problems and class composition problems. Now, we know that after years of denying there was a problem, after years of pretending that the government’s massive cutbacks in services to children had a positive impact on schools and students, finally, last fall, the Premier and the Minister of Education admitted that yes, we do have a problem in our schools when it comes to class size and class composition.
You’d expect to see that realization, late as it was, reflected in the budget. You’d expect to see resources allocated in the budget to deal with the real challenges in our public schools, challenges the Premier and the Minister of Education have finally noticed. But no, there is no allocation for class size improvements and class composition improvements in the budget — not there. They didn’t make it into the children’s budget — no allocation in the budget for the results of the minister’s much ballyhooed round table.
You remember the round table, Madam Speaker. The minister told us that was going to be the solution for class size and composition: get everybody together around a table and abracadabra, the problems would be solved. But of course it takes resources to solve the problems of class size and composition in our schools: 9,000 classes with more than 30 students in them; 11,000 classes in the province with four or more identified students with special needs. You can’t solve those with a discussion, no matter how round the table is and no matter how many folks you invite in for a talk. It takes resources. It takes political will. You’d think it would be there in a children’s budget, but sadly, tragically, it’s not.
You’d think that in the throne speech we would have seen a commitment to class size limits and class composition guarantees in the School Act. That was what the students of this province were promised at the end of the government’s dispute with the teachers. The government created a two-week crisis in the schools, and to get out of it, they promised to guarantee services to students and that the guarantee would be enshrined in public policy. Now, as we know, that wasn’t the preference of the teachers. The teachers’ position and the teachers’ preference was to provide those guarantees in collective bargaining. But the teachers were willing to compromise, and in return for that compromise the government committed to guarantees for class size and class composition in legislation.
You’d think we would have heard about that legislation in the throne speech. You’d think this government, bruised and battered and isolated during the fall because of its disastrous education policies, would have tried to calm the waters by making good on its commitment to B.C.’s children. But no such legislation was announced, at least not yet. So we look forward in this session, in the season of the children’s budget, to the government getting around to keeping its commitment to the children of the province when it comes to class size and class composition.


Thanks to former COPE School Board trustee Noel Herron for passing Mr. Chudnovsky’s speech in the legislature along to VanRamblings’ readers.

Mayor Sullivan Makes His First Set of Appointments

BC Politics, Vancouver

VANCOUVER-MAYOR-SAM-SULLIVAN

Mayor Sam Sullivan

Mayor Sam Sullivan was sworn in today as the 44th mayor of the City of Vancouver.
In addition, new NPA councillors Suzanne Anton (formerly a member of the Parks Board), social activist Kim Capri, arts maven Elizabeth Ball (terrible website; was she really counting on being elected), and incumbent and humanitarian Peter Ladner were also sworn in.
Vision Vancouver Council members, and Council incumbents, Raymond Louie (who oughta lose his ‘holier than thou’ smirk … just a suggestion, if he wants to be Mayor some day) and Tim Stevenson, as well as newly elected Vision Vancouver Council members Heather Deal and George Chow were also sworn in, along with the lone COPE incumbent David Cadman.
Announced today were Mayor Sullivan’s first set of appointments — to the GVRD and Translink Boards (the websites have not been updated as of this writing), as well as a number of other regional bodies, non-profit boards and statutory committees.
Next up, but still a ways away, appointments to the various civic agencies which either carry out or help to develop policy for Council. Applications for the current vacancies (all committees, with the exception of the Board of Variance, dissolve prior to an election, and re-appointment does not take place until well into the new year … the appointments are often construed as ‘pay-offs’ to supporters of the winning party … although VanRamblings would suggest that such a construction in relation to these appointments would be ungenerous and wrong-headed in the extreme).
Update, December 6: Announced in his inaugural address yesterday, Mayor Sullivan will institute a Triple R Review (roles, relationships and responsibilities) of the function of existing civic agencies. The results of the review will be announced in the spring. Appointments to what are almost surely to be newly reconstituted advisory committees will likely take place in June 2006. As a first order of business, could Mayor Sullivan have instituted a more anti-democratic policy than his bludgeoning of these very important, democratic advisory civic agencies? VanRamblings thinks not.
Update, December 8: The Council package for December 13th from Mayor Sullivan will recommend that Council approve the re-establishment of the following Advisory Committees for the term December 5, 2005 to December 8, 2008, with current members reinstated until successors are appointed:

The following civic agencies are established by federal or provincial legislation, and will also be continuing “business as usual”:

To be fair, here’s Mayor Sullivan in his own words on the Triple R Review …

I would like Council to determine how best to get input from citizens. The contribution of community voices to Council is a vital part of being informed and responsive. We have many dedicated citizens who contribute to our city on advisory committees. We owe them the respect of Council by enabling their advice to be heard through the most effective mechanisms of involvement.
At the end of every Council term all committees except those mandated by law end, until they are re-constituted by the new Council. I am recommending that Council delay the re-establishment of our committees pending the clarification of roles as part of the Triple R Review (roles, relationships and responsibilities).
The re-establishment of citizen advisory processes should await clarification of the strategic directions this Council wants to take for the city. I will ask Council early in this term, concurrently with the review of roles, responsibilities and relationships, to engage in a process to determine strategic directions and objectives.


VanRamblings wishes the new Council wisdom and sober second thought, humanity, a sense of humour, civility and respect for varying opinions, and at least a modicum of non-partisanship in their important deliberations.

School Board Loss: Whither Now Education in Vancouver?

BC Politics, Vancouver

VANCOUVER-NEW-SCHOOL-BOARD

Perhaps the most devastating loss in the recent Vancouver civic election was the NPA School Board majority win, and the consequent turfing out of the respected, hard-working, centrist, consultative and initiative-driven majority COPE school trustee slate — Kevin Millsip, Noel Herron, Angela Kenyon, Jane Bouey, and Green Party trustee Andrea Reimer.
Even given the downloading, by the provincial Liberal government, of a teacher pay raise onto school boards throughout the province, the COPE School Board was the only Board in the province to not lay teachers off during their three-year term, and to maintain smaller class sizes (or in the case of kindergarten, reduce class sizes and go to full day kindergarten).
Unlike past COPE School Boards, the 2002 – 2005 COPE Vancouver school trustees did not pick unwinnable fights with the provincial government, but instead worked together with senior staff in the provincial Ministry of Education to secure additional funding for inner city schools for our region’s most vulnerable children; developed a programme to make all schools across our province seismically safe; expanded literacy programmes, and increased spaces for French Immersion; and developed groundbreaking multi-cultural, anti-racism and anti-homophobia programmes.
Why was the popular COPE School Board defeated? Easy question that. COPE school trustees fell victim to the infighting between COPE Classic and COPE Lite / Vision Vancouver, as slate voting took over to elect a majority NPA slate to the Vancouver School and Park Boards, and City Council.
A diverse NPA Council will be what it will be. Mayor-elect Sam Sullivan will set the agenda for his, and the NPA’s, coming term of office. The Park Board is, for the most part, a largely non-partisan (no pun intended) entity, a Board that tends to work co-operatively and without rancour; commissioners from COPE and the majority NPA Board will almost assuredly act in the best interests of Vancouver citizens, and citizens across the Lower Mainland.
But School Board? Children, parents, teachers, and non-teaching support staff are in for a rough ride with a Ken Denike-led NPA majority on the 2005 – 2008 Vancouver School Board. The NPA School Board will almost certainly prove to be a right wing, ultra-conservative and ideologically driven Board.

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