Parents and education supports will be out on April 12th protesting the latest round of cuts to BC’s education budget (details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1550717231856110/). Below is a post I wrote for rabble.ca outlining the cuts and s…
Continue readingAuthor: Tara Ehrcke
staffroom confidential: Parents protest BC’s education budget cuts
Parents and education supports will be out on April 12th protesting the latest round of cuts to BC’s education budget (details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1550717231856110/). Below is a post I wrote for rabble.ca outlining the cuts and swift responses from parents and Trustees. As Boards develop their budgets for next year, we are
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Parents protest BC’s education budget cuts
Parents and education supports will be out on April 12th protesting the latest round of cuts to BC’s education budget (details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1550717231856110/). Below is a post I wrote for rabble.ca outlining the cuts and swift responses from parents and Trustees. As Boards develop their budgets for next year, we are
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: The courts have acknowledged the right to strike: Now it’s time to strike
Trade unionists across the country were delighted to see the Supreme Court of Canada finally recognize a constitutional right to strike. The landmark decision overturned legislation impeding the right to strike, and acknowledged that the right to strike is a form of freedom of association. The decision also recognized that
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: The courts have acknowledged the right to strike: Now it’s time to strike
staffroom confidential: The courts have acknowledged the right to strike: Now it’s time to strike
Trade unionists across the country were delighted to see the Supreme Court of Canada finally recognize a constitutional right to strike. The landmark decision overturned legislation impeding the right to strike, and acknowledged that the right to strike is a form of freedom of association. The decision also recognized that
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: What could a Canadian Syriza do?
It has been so inspiring to see the Greek people reject austerity and vote in a government committed to radical change. And what is so radical about Syriza? They want to do something pretty much no other government on the planet has committed to: put people first.Given the drastic impacts
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: What could a Canadian Syriza do?
Given the drastic impacts of the austerity program imposed on Greece, it is not surprising to see people so fervently reject yet more of the same. One quarter are unemployed, and of those still with work, average earnings have plummeted. It is frightening to imagine one’s own household with one lost job and the other wage down thirty percent. No wonder in these conditions the Greeks are now measuring statistics such as who can no longer afford electricity to heat their homes.
It is early days for Greece, and no doubt there will be disappointments along the way, but how refreshing to see this morning’s news: they are halting the sale of the state owned port, and stopping plans to privatize their power corporation.
For most Canadians, austerity has not been so drastic – yet. But it has been hard to have much hope in a country where child poverty is on the rise, wages are stagnant or falling, public services are clawed back and privatized, and the only hope on offer from government is the false promise of oil wealth by degrading our environment.
I am happy that the federal NDP has finally put out a few platform proposals that are genuinely progressive – a promise for $15/day childcare and an increased federal minimum wage. But this comes after two decades where the NDP, like its European social democratic counterparts, has pretty much bought into the “austerity light” form of social democracy. And even these proposals are being accompanied by the usual soft right policies supposedly meant to attract a centre-left electorate. Just today they announced a plan to give small businesses a tax break, which economists say will mostly help families earning over $150,000 a year. What little the NDP has put on the table is, frankly, too little too late.
Imagine instead what a Canadian Syriza could do? Here’s my starting list:
- immediately restore home mail delivery and expand services provided by Canada Post
- reject all environmentally destructive pipeline projects and work to nationalize the energy industry
- eliminate public funding to private schools and private health clinics and then incorporate private services back into the public system
- institute a guaranteed minimum income
- invest in new public transit infrastructure
- expand the health care system to include drugs, optical and dental care
- provide free public childcare
- eliminate tuition for post-secondary institutions
- tax the rich
Sound crazy? Every one of these ideas has been proposed by not so radical people in some part of the country. What we don’t have is a political party articulating them as policy.
Many look to the NDP to be that party. I don’t think that will happen. After many attempts, such as the New Politics Initative of the early 2000s, I don’t believe it is possible to change the NDP from within. And interestingly, that isn’t what happened in Greece either. The traditional social democratic party, PASOK, supported austerity until they were so unpopular they collapsed. It took a new party, built on the strength of anti-austerity activism, to put a genuinely social democratic agenda on the ballot. Spain is following the same trajectory, with the incredible rise of the brand new Podemos party, built on anti-austerity left wing politics, and rooted in social movements.
Now I don’t happen to believe that Syriza, or any social democratic party that doesn’t challenge the underlying contradictions of capitalism, will ultimately succeed in creating the world we need. But unlike the Blairite practices of most social democratic parties in the west, Syriza is a step in the right direction.
staffroom confidential: What could a Canadian Syriza do?
It has been so inspiring to see the Greek people reject austerity and vote in a government committed to radical change. And what is so radical about Syriza? They want to do something pretty much no other government on the planet has committed to: put people first.Given the drastic impacts
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Standardized testing: a pillar of privatization
It’s FSA season again. Every year in British Columbia, every student in grades 4 and 7 has their regular classroom schedule put on hold for two weeks while they complete the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) — a collection of standardized tests manda…
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Standardized testing: a pillar of privatization
It’s FSA season again. Every year in British Columbia, every student in grades 4 and 7 has their regular classroom schedule put on hold for two weeks while they complete the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) — a collection of standardized tests mandated by the provincial government. Every student, parent, teacher
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Standardized testing: a pillar of privatization
It’s FSA season again. Every year in British Columbia, every student in grades 4 and 7 has their regular classroom schedule put on hold for two weeks while they complete the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) — a collection of standardized tests mandated by the provincial government. Every student, parent, teacher
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois Weiner
Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois WeinerSince the massive public sector upsurge in the 60’s and 70’s, teachers unions in the US have been in a long steady decline in power. Only very recently…
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois Weiner
Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois Weiner Since the massive public sector upsurge in the 60’s and 70’s, teachers unions in the US have been in a long steady decline in power. Only very recently, with the 2012 Chicago teachers strike, have
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois Weiner
Badass Book Review: The Future of our Schools, Teachers Unions and Social Justice by Lois Weiner Since the massive public sector upsurge in the 60’s and 70’s, teachers unions in the US have been in a long steady decline in power. Only very recently, with the 2012 Chicago teachers strike, have
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: Raising Expectations & Raising Hell, by Jane McAlevey
Book Review: Raising expectations (and Raising hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement, by Jane McAlevey It’s been a tough couple of decades to be a trade unionist. Since the early nineties, with Paul Martin’s cuts to transfer payments, through the Mike Harris’s assaults, to the BC Liberal’s ripping
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: Raising Expectations & Raising Hell, by Jane McAlevey
Book Review: Raising expectations (and Raising hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement, by Jane McAleveyIt’s been a tough couple of decades to be a trade unionist. Since the early nineties, with Paul Martin’s cuts to transfer payments, through…
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Badass Book Review: Raising Expectations & Raising Hell, by Jane McAlevey
Book Review: Raising expectations (and Raising hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement, by Jane McAlevey It’s been a tough couple of decades to be a trade unionist. Since the early nineties, with Paul Martin’s cuts to transfer payments, through the Mike Harris’s assaults, to the BC Liberal’s ripping
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: BC’s Site C Dam – Another stack in the LNG house of cards
The BC government announced today that they were going ahead with an $8.8 billion commitment to build BC’s largest dam – “Site C”. A few (even on the left) believe we should support Site C, as a large, green public energy infrastructure project. It is important to understand that that
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: BC’s Site C Dam – Another stack in the LNG house of cards
The BC government announced today that they were going ahead with an $8.8 billion commitment to build BC’s largest dam – “Site C”. A few (even on the left) believe we should support Site C, as a large, green public energy infrastructure project. It is …
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