Premier Christy Clark should stop wasting tax dollars on a “forensic audit” of the Vancouver School Board and instead provide the necessary funding to eliminate the VSB’s deficit, says CUPE BC.
“This is a public relations exercise, pure and simple,” said CUPE BC President Paul Faoro. “The Premier knows full well that this audit—the fourth in recent years—isn’t going to find some magic bullet to solve the funding crisis in Vancouver schools. This is nothing more than spin-doctoring and papering over the real source of the problem—BC Liberal education policy ever since Christy Clark was education minister in 2002.”
When Clark was education minister and deputy premier in Gordon Campbell’s government in 2002, she changed longstanding provincial education funding policy so that locally elected school trustees would take any political heat for cuts as a result of provincial funding reductions.
“The past 14 years have shown how disastrous that policy decision was, with more than 240 schools closed across the province, and thousands of kids paying the price,” said Faoro. “We can see the actual results of Christy Clark’s 2002 political decision in our classrooms today. Imagine how much worse our schools will be if she’s given another four years in power.
“The premier has been spending millions of dollars on a pre-election political repositioning exercise, but she’s going full steam ahead with her political attack on Vancouver schools. It’s time to drop the political games and do the hard work of sustainably funding our education system.”
