Teachers, students and parents spent an hour of their spring break Wednesday doing loops around the Manitoba Legislative Building — with car horns blaring — in protest of sweeping reforms to the K-12 public school system.
Among the hundreds of drivers and passengers who hitched rides to a honk-a-thon against the Education Modernization Act was a protester carrying a homemade report card for Premier Brian Pallister; it bore a giant red “F.”
Manitoba unveiled Bill 64, which would replace elected school boards with a centralized authority of government appointees, two weeks ago.
“This (legislation) is not a modernization of education; it hurts students, it hurts families, it hurts teachers, and it silences communities,” Katie Hurst, an elementary arts teacher in Winnipeg, said at the Wednesday rally.
Hurst said the government should introduce universal nutrition, daycare and basic income programs if it wants to truly improve educational outcomes in a province with high child poverty rates.
Kara Godin, an educator at a rural Manitoba school, echoed those sentiments, saying immediate investments into breakfast programs would boost test scores. Instead, Godin said, education is continuously underfunded; funding for public schools won’t keep pace with inflation in 2021-22, for another consecutive year.
The protest organizers estimate more than 1,200 people showed up Wednesday.
Organizer Brianne Goertzen said she’s concerned the reforms will exacerbate existing inequities. A school trustee and parent, Goertzen questions how the province will recruit volunteer parents — especially in underprivileged communities, where parents might do shift-work or have multiple jobs — to take on the work paid trustees currently do.
Marginalized voices will go unheard as a central board makes decisions and only one regional entity of 15 represents Winnipeg, she said.
Hundreds of drivers and passengers took part in a honk-a-thon against the Education Modernization Act on Wednesday outside the Manitoba Legislative Building. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)
“That whole group could become a political pawn, of whoever the government of the time is, instead of being focused on the best interest of kids,” said Amy Warms, a rural teacher who drove an hour-and-a-half to attend the rally.
Warms said democracy might not be efficient, but there’s accountability in the trustee system. Parents often feel more comfortable bringing concerns to a neutral trustee than a teacher, she added.
While a growing number of opponents have voiced concerns about the reforms in recent weeks, one political scientist who was a trustee in the early 2000s has openly supported them.
Laura Reimer at the University of Manitoba said the new model will see cost savings by streamlining administrative duties, free up experienced superintendents (who will be “directors” in the new system) from spending so much time communicating with trustees, and address high rates of trustee acclamations in elections.
“It allows each of the regions to still have a heavy resource opportunity. Schools, theoretically, should get the support they need,” Reimer said.
The province has cited the complexities of managing 37 divisions during the COVID-19 pandemic as reason to create a centralized authority.
High school teacher Owen Bradshaw said the future of boards is a “red herring” when it comes to truly improving the quality of education.
“I don’t think the status quo is what we need, but I also don’t think that Bill 64 is the answer. It reminds me of a student who has written an awful lot in response to a question and said absolutely nothing,” said Bradshaw, who teaches English Language Arts in Winnipeg.
What would actually improve outcomes, he said, is capping K-4 class sizes and expanding numeracy and literacy coach rosters to set students up for foundational success in early grades.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @macintoshmaggie
Maggie Macintosh Reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
