Editor, The News:
Re: Trustees ‘thrown under the bus’ (The News, June 3).
MLAs Marc Dalton, Doug Bing and the Christy Clark government need to stop playing political games with our public schools.
Across the province, schools are facing closure, and services like busses for kids in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows are being cut, because Clark’s government has starved our school system.
Last week, the B.C. Liberals gave back only a portion of the money they’ve clawed back from kids’ education in recent years, and expected applause.
Well, they don’t get it. Families across this province see this political stunt for what it is.
This wasn’t about doing the right thing for kids and parents. It was all about MLAs like Dalton and Doug getting worried about an election in less than a year, and wanting the bad headlines to go away.
The announcement offered a drop in the bucket compared to cuts that schools have seen in recent years, and it came after school boards like School District No. 42 had already wrapped up their budgets after months spent agonizing over shortfalls.
But that didn’t stop Mr. Dalton from lauding this so-called ‘additional funding’ as ‘great news’ – ignoring the fact that it was his government that created the school district’s shortfall in the first place.
B.C. Liberal MLAs are so out of touch, they don’t seem to realize that the great news families are waiting for isn’t the end of a government clawback that was a bad idea in the first place – it’s secure, stable and adequate funding for our schools.
B.C.’s kids deserve better.
Rob Fleming
New Democrat education spokesperson