A few weeks
ago I wrote a letter to Premier Christy Clark. I cc’d my MLA, Ralph Sultan. The
letter was in support of BC teachers. Mr. Sultan replied with an articulate and
well thought out three pager in which he highlighted the issues facing
BC’s education system. I respect Mr. Sultan and would vote for him if he
belonged to another party. Below is an excerpt:
Teachers in today’s
world have a tough assignment. Classes of varying size tend to be further
complicated with students of markedly different capacities. … Extremes of
intellect, emotion, or behaviour, at both ends of the scale, are manifest. The
challenge of teaching such heterogeneity is great…
As if that were not
challenge enough, teachers today are commonly expected to fill the voids in
upbringing among students who present themselves with inadequate norms of civic
behaviour, socialization, discipline, and concentration—or even basic
nutrition. … So when teachers exclaim that there job is hard, we should respond
”Yes!” And thank them for their efforts to maintain our society.
Does the solution
simply boil down to more money? I don’t think so. But if society decides to
allocate a larger share of our collective resources to the education of our
young, then society must be prepared to dig into its collective pocket book to
pay for it. This means higher taxes. …
…It is my
observation that my constituents want to hang on to their money as much as
possible.
It is that
last sentence, however, that says it all. Governments only have as much power
as they are given by the people. Unless they are a dictatorship or have a
tendency to stuff the ballot box, local representatives have to please their
constituents to remain in power; without the authority given to them on Election
Day they have limited capabilities to make change, good or bad. And therein
lies the key. We live in a democracy; if we want change, it is up to us to push
for it.
But it’s
not just about making our voices heard. We
have to be willing to make hard decisions and, indeed, sacrifices to safeguard
the potential of success for future generations. As Mr. Sultan implies, a
higher quality of life for all citizens is not cheap. Someone has to pay the toll.
As a retail
clerk I hear people complaining about taxes every day. Then something
interesting happens: they get into cars and drive on roads and highways; they
pass soccer fields and parks, drop off books at the library and gaze
appreciatively at the beautiful flowers bedecking some street corners. On
arriving home they are guaranteed a system where clean water runs in and sewage
runs out. Their kids go to public
schools and on summer weekends, the beaches are cleaned and guarded by city personnel. All
this is maintained and paid for by municipal and provincial taxes. If they get
into an accident their health care is heavily subsidized and while gas prices are high, we still pay less than what we would if its true cost included environmental damage. Our taxes pay for our standard of living.
If we truly
want to support teachers, it must be made clear to our government that we
are willing to pay for it. Cutting elected official’s salaries and forgoing superfluous
infrastructure (i.e. BC Place’s retractable roof) is not enough. It still
comes down to limited funds and hard decisions about what we want to prioritize and what we are willing to do
without. Do we care enough about education to take money from some other sector or pay extra taxes? Does industry
care enough? Are we willing to pay more now so that our kids will live better lives
and, hopefully, figure out how to get us out of this mess we, and previous
generations, have created?
The same
goes for the Enbridge pipeline. I, along with many folk, do not want it. But
are we willing to make the sacrifices necessary to cut down on our oil
consumption so to make the need for more pipelines, oil carrying trains,
supertankers and deep sea oil wells obsolete? Yes, we need the federal government to
seriously look at cleaner energy sources but it isn’t happening today and most
certainly won’t be in place tomorrow. If the pipeline does not go through are
we willing to make the necessary changes in order to reduce our dependency on cars, planes and other combustible engines? Can we reduce our love of plastic; polyester and synthetic
rubber (running shoes, tires) to name but a few oil based items?
David Suzuki sums this up this last argument nicely:
Our choice is between ignoring overwhelming scientific evidence
about the human contribution to climate change and pollution or changing our
ways and reducing carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependence. It's about
whether to join the green economy or pin our economic hopes on an increasingly
risky industry. It's about the kind of country — and planet — we want to leave
to our children and grandchildren.
We need to make decisions, and we need to take action. Our future, whether it is our children's education or the air they breathe, is counting on it.
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