Why the Liberals won and my response to NDP criticism about the oil and gas industry

[inane]

Well I was a welfare kid in the so called good system from before. I got to do everything except of course all but one school trip. I got to wear welfare kid clothes to school. I learned to bum food from the other kids.

I still turned out fine thanks.

[ronthecivil]

So...it will be okay for your child in grade 3 to walk 30 blocks in Vancouver just so there can be fewer schools?

How much do you think it costs to build a "giant" school?

How long will it take to recover that cost compared to running the older schools that were closed down?

"Every kid should bring their own laptop" some families can't even afford decent runners and jackets for their kids - and now you expect them to shell out money for laptops?

Sorry...your idea while budget conscious, fails to look at the big picture to see how it affects all the students.

Maybe dollars from tax payers would be better served if all of the education portion went to public schools instead of 20% ? going to private schools....

That would be a good place to start IMHO....

[ronthecivil]

As I've said before. There is money. It's just priorities. We're prioritizing some things over other things. The whole 'there's no money' argument is total bs.

[ronthecivil]

Yeah, good point. You made it through school so why should our kids have it any better. Screw em.

[ronthecivil]

Worst. Insult. Ever. I might cry.

What should happen! I could right a long list of what shoulds.

[inane]

I am not saying they shouldn't have things better. I am saying that the world won't end if they don't.

Besides, just about all the ways I can think of that they have it worse are free. I bet there's tons of kids that don't get five seconds away from their overbearing parents that would love to walk 30 blocks to school if only to have some independence time.

[ronthecivil]

Of course the world won't end, but what kind of world do we want for our kids? One where they can just suck it up and deal with the crap we give them, or one where we give the opportunity.

[inane]

One where we give them opportunity.

To do so, we need $$$.

Promoting the oil and gas industry, as much as some people might not care for that, is a good way to generate $$$ without raising taxes or cutting services.

Which is why it's happening. Christy MIGHT be able to get some horses traded her way with her condition number five for the pipelines (economic benefit to BC) which is a good thing to shoot for. But make no mistake, it would be happening anyways.

Which is why if there's proposals to build four to six LNG plants in BC, we should be doing everything we can to make it happen.

Then perhaps we can afford the high tech small schools with tons of support staff everyone dreams of.

[ronthecivil]

So we pin our hopes our education system on non-renewables in the *hopes* that the market stays strong and there's no environmental disasters.

There is nothing more fundamental than education. Without it, we have nothing.

[inane]

Pretty much.

Well, not just that. But also that.

There is nothing more fundamental than $$$. Without it, you can be the smartest, hungriest, homeless person ever.

[aGENT]

There is $$$. You just don't want to change anything to use it.

Tax on high income. Minimal gains on tax income.

Gas tax. Already have a few

Bank tax Sure....likely means we pay more bank fees though...not sure that's win.

Oil/gas subsidies Agreed (assuming you're referring to ending them)

Stop paving the fraser valley Do you have an alternative to move people and goods yet?

there's billions and billions of dollars out there, it's all about priorities.

[zoner.]

Not sure what definition of cut you are thinking of. The education budget has been going up steeply every year while at the same time enrollment drops.

[zoner.]

I disagree, math is probably the most important subject you will use for the rest of your life.

From calculating how much lumber you need to build that fence to how far you can go on a tank of gas to figuring out how much change to hand back to someone while you're working at McDonalds.

Math is everywhere. How much money you will make in your investments...someone offers you a job and says here's what we pay per hour - you have a few seconds to respond so you better know how to calculate what that works out to annually....

As far as your teacher's comment goes - you're right - though not in the way you think.

The inability to do their jobs comes from the cutbacks and classroom sizes.

Maybe if you understood math better, you would be able to figure out how much one on one time each student can get in a 45 minute class between 22 students and 30 student class sizes as well as say the 15-18 minutes the teacher has to give the lesson...

Edit: BTW, it's not about the raises as you see it - it's about keeping up with the rest of Canada...guess what the better teachers do? They leave BC to get higher paying jobs in other provinces...

[Monteeun]

It will for our lifetime.

[Heretic]

I used to take the city bus to school to get the French immersion classes in grade six. A couple times I lost my bus pass and had to walk the 3.5 km route on foot for most of the month. Good lesson to not loose your bus pass. They will survive.

As for the costs, almost every school in the province is unfit to survive even a moderate earthquake. It would be far cheaper to replace the schools instead of retrofitting all of them.

The need for computers is dubious and if it is that needed then most can afford it. Those that don't can get it from charity. Instead of sending all the recycled laptops to third world places poor students can have them. I would have given my left nut for a recycled computer back in the day!

If one is not budget conscious then it's nothing but fantasy. You can't just conjure up money.

People that send their kids to private schools also pay taxes. There's no reason they should not get the same amount of public support for educating their children than anyone else. This is not an NDP goverment there's no reason for the private sector to be vilified or discriminated against.

[ccc44]

Pretty hard to have any respect for a government that wins in a election that not even half the province voted in and my guess is because of the jokes that we were given as candidates, Heck Clark could not even win her hand picked riding

[Seifer86]

Whine and complain. For 2 days now I've had to listen to people b*tch and complain about the NDP losing and all the reasons why the Liberals are evil and corrupt and how the province is going to hell. These people talk as if on behalf of everyone in the province. Guess what, they're wrong. To think for a second that the NDP would somehow be an improvement over the Libs is naive. In 4 years we'd be talking about all the mistakes the NDP govt made. It's inevitable. Corruption, scandal, and idiocy is part of the process. For goodness sake the leader of the NDP has admittedly already been involved in this kind of crap.

You can give all the statistics you like on voter turnout but the reality is that if circumstances were as bad as all NDP faithful claim it to be, more people would have turned out to vote the liberals down. Our system is broken. The Liberals shouldn't have won this election based on integrity alone. They lied to our faces about the HST. They made a debacle with the BC Rail scandal. And then there was the dissent within the party with members actively trying to sabotage their leader. And yet still, with all this being common knowledge throughought our province, people either voted liberal or didn't think things were bad enough to actually show up at the polls to keep the Liberals from winning again.

[nucklehead]

So the pollester are pulling their hair out and practically falling on their swords over their complete failure and promising to get to the bottom of this tradedy. They promise to research their polling methods and adjust them so that next time they'll get it right (as if they have some kind of a mandate and responsiblity to the public, who commisioned them in the first place?).

The way I see it the wild card factor that tripped them up was WOMEN. All leading up to the election you heard how Christy was unable to win over the female vote. Men in general were planning to vote Liberal, women we're finding it hard to support her. I didn't pay much attention to this but occasionally I would ask a female about her feelings about Christy Clark and I was told mostly that she was a liar, a phoney and saw herself as better than others etc.(the last one from my wife to whom I pointed out that, well, she does hold the top job in the province). But the pollesters forgot the adage that it's a womans peragotive to change her mind, and it would seem a lot of them exercised that option. In the end, they listened to their men, which is as the good lord intended...lol *ducks a torrent of shoes*

[Kryten]

Education is the most important issue in BC, perhaps Canada. Jobs, the economy, the environment, healthcare are ALL tied in to the education we receive. Big changes need to be made, I hope the Liberals can at least put an effort in this time around.

[aGENT]

Education is the most important issue in BC, perhaps Canada. Jobs, the economy, the environment, healthcare are ALL tied in to the education we receive. Big changes need to be made, I hope the Liberals can at least put an effort in this time around.