Thoughts on BC Politics and More

For years, the NDP has been focused on the wrong priorities. Ideology in the classroom. Eroding standards. Letter grades cancelled. Parents shut out of decisions that directly affect their children. And teachers, good teachers who just want to teach, being sidelined by politics. The result? Kids who are falling behind in reading, writing, and math at the very moment when we need them to be more globally competitive. And a school system that has forgotten what it’s there to do. That changes under my government. Back to Basics   Every child deserves to leave school able to read, write, and do math at grade level. Under my government, that is the starting point not an afterthought.  I will refocus BC schools on reading, writing, math, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). I will bring back real report cards with letter grades. I will reinstate mandatory standardized testing so we can actually measure results. And I will restore safe classrooms focused on a...

Last night (March 13th) 200 area residents, and members of the Conservative Party of BC, heard from Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar. Milobar, who has been traveling the province for several weeks, is looking to become the next leader of the Conservative Party.   The following is a condensed version of what he had to say:  This election as the right-of-center party -- as BC conservatives -- we cannot afford to lose. We need a win. BC needs us to win. And we need experience to do that. Not just in the leadership race, but in the actual general election. And my experience as a city councillor, my experience as a mayor, my experience as an MLA, as a small businessperson; I’m actually the only one in the race that can talk about that experience. Because make no mistake about it, the NDP will be competitive in this coming election. They are going to get 37-38 percent of the vote no matter who their leader is. We need to be cohesive. We're supposed to be a party that believe...

IMAGE CREDIT:   Darryl Dyck, the Canadian Press. I thought I had already made up my mind who I would be ranking on my ballot, in the Conservative Party of BC leadership race; now I am not so sure.  That means that, at least for me, and perhaps many others, it’s a good thing voting hasn’t already taken place. There were initially only one or two of the candidates that I thought might be a little too right of centre for my liking, now it seems that list is growing. I consider myself more closely aligned with what used to be called a Progressive Conservative, regardless, I feel more than comfortable within the Conservative Party of BC.  Some, however, in messages to me on my political Facebook page, have been rather, shall we say, a bit mean-spirited in comments they’ve made about my ‘purity’ as a conservative. To tell you the truth, I really don’t care! Some leadership candidates, in comments made online, have also been raising the issue of who is a pure enough conservati...

Last night I, along with 40 or so others, had the opportunity to hear from BC Conservative leadership candidate Caroline Elliott.  For those who have yet to hear her speak, this is what she had to say: Thank you everyone for being here. I know you have a million other things you could be doing with your evening and the fact that you're here, means that you understand the situation this province is in, and how crucial this moment actually is, because it truly is a crucial moment in our province’s history. Look, I'm doing this for a very simple reason. I'm a lifelong, born and raised British Columbia, and I have two small kids. They're six years old and eight years old, so they're pretty little still.  I look at them and I want them to reach the point that I'm at in my life and say, ‘ I'm a lifelong British Columbian and there's nowhere else I'd rather be .’, just as I do today. And my worry is that they will find themselves like one of the 70,000 Br...