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Minority Ridings Lose Special Protection
I was speaking with Darrell Dexter at Tom Mulcair's post-debate get-together at the Victory Arms pub, and one topic of conversation that came up was about people announcing that they were seeking the Tory nomination in some ridings already.
Darrell said that with the boundary re-alignment commission's report not due until the fall sitting of the legislature, it didn't make much sense for anyone to announce they were putting their names forth for the next election untill after the boundaries have been redrawn.
So much for all the wasted speculation about a sudden trip to the polls this summer in Nova Scotia.
N.S. university students protest funding cuts
Halifax regional council is holding an emergency session to discuss the day-old transit strike that has left tens of thousands of people without bus or ferry service.
The city's politicians were set to meet privately at noon Thursday, less than 12 hours after Metro Transit workers walked off the job to back their contract demands.
Metro Transit says 50,000 to 55,000 people rely on the region's transit service every day.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/02/02/ns-transit-st...
School Boards Get Funding Cut
Neoliberalism's button people have gone once again to their mattresses.
From the Department of Irrelevant Trivia:
Actually, I believe Darrell did finish his education with a debt in that vicinty- considering it was over 20 years ago, it would be at least that much in current dollars.
NSNDP Military-Industrial Megabucks Lotto
Schools and Hospitals cut, but on the flip side, the Irving empire is $260 million dollars richer with this latest windfall, courtesy of the Nova Scotia NDP Government.
That's it is it? Rustic souls? Hillbilly logic too dense to comprehend? Increasingly it seems they know exactly what to do, no organiztion required.
Interesting how everyone says how BC didnt offer as much government money into the pot, and look who got ther big contract?
But wait a minute, It was Irving bidding againat the company in BC. And the goal is the lowest bid price. So there are two ways to lower the bid price: Irving expects less profit, or the NS government throws in more subsidy money.
There is a lot of deatil and discussion about the governments slashing of education budgets in this thread of cautionary tale [for Canada's NDP] of the NS NDP
Declining enrolment is the result of young parents having to move away to find good jobs. Also, young parents who have already moved away, but now have kids about to start school and would dearly love to move home so their kids could grow up in a good and familiar community, but can't find work back home.
Ken, I'd be interested in your take on what Dexter should have done to get those parents home or keep them home. Keeping half-empty schools open is not a plausible option in any province under any ideology, is it?
Declining enrolment in the public school sector is due to many factors, not the least of which are the tax deductions for the religious and / or private school sector.
The schools are not "half empty".
This is a smoke screen for the depth of the cuts. Modest cuts would have taken care of the declining enrollments.
But only one-third of the position cuts this year are chalked up to declining enrollments. Two-thirds of them are a consequence entirely of the depth of cuts.
'How to avoid' is the wrong question. Why are they so wedded to the religion of winning votes by tax cuts that they would go this far? If ending the deficit was the sole goal, cuts this deep were not necessary. But if you want to do tax cuts next year that requires some tougher building inn of new fiscal room.
And the reason that the school boards would take such a drastic measure as cutting ALL library staff and giving up on the libraries is that the cuts don't stop with last year and this year. The government has made it clear to the Boards to expect more next year. The provincial deficit will be gone, but need room for those tax cuts.
With unrelenting cuts the Boards dont even have the option of doing some kind of holding pattern with the libraries.
With these announcements of axing all the libraries, it will be interesting if we see the Education Minister trotting out to say that wasnt necessary.
[Like we gave you plenty of money, why did you go and do that?]
She will or she wont? Not sure which I would bet on. But it has happened before after the school boards make their announcements.
I'm reading what you are saying about the NS NDP's tax-cuts driven austerity. I hope these school-librarian cuts blow up on the NDP, there is no question Dexter et al should wear it. Although this local school board made the decision to cut libraries, others are closing schools, neither will go over well in communities. Cutting librarians should set off the alarm that this is a service cut, students lost their libraries, people lost jobs, we're into the meat of services now, well beyond cuts by hiring freeze or attrition.
Earlier you made the point that the NDP had largely overcome the "high tax party" appellation of having raised the HST despite campaigning on "no new taxes". I think Dexter and Steele still feel vulnerable to the "high tax party" attack and so are advancing HST tax-cutting as their central plank of a second term, thereby claiming a likely Libs/PCs campaign angle as their own. Sad really, but also a betrayal.
The NS NDP agenda is no longer about getting to balance in a recovering economy, it is now clearly about cutting taxes and cutting services. It's time for a fightback to break out now to stop the NDP cuts and ensure adequate revenue is maintained to preserve services.
I think its charitable to say Dexter and Steele feel vulnerable.
It doesnt really matter, because its no excuse for adopting the tax cut religion wholesale.
But for what its worth, I know them both pretty well. I even like them as people. But I think they have both LONG shown they are prime candidates- vulnerable social democrats if you like- to actually getting off on this role of cowboys doing what has to be done. And I know for a fact that as far back as at least 7 years ago, Darrel was not dettered in the slightest by hearing 'this is the sort of thing you expect from the Liberals and the Tories'.
Again with ominous news out of Nova Scotia:
HMCS Windsor, one of Canada's trouble-plagued submarines, will go into the water this week.
Darrel Dexter has been saying that the local school board is just playing games, and pretty much saying they will not let them cut library services.
So my wife's job may yet be spared. This has the opposite reaction you might expect with her, myself, and another of the librariarns who is also long active in the NDP: happy for keeping the job [maybe], but bullshitter Dexter just makes us want to wretch.
They don't know what they want, but they know how to get it. Or is that ass backwards? They want cuts, but nothing that might damage them to any great extent politically. It's called being detached from any sense of reality besides their own version of it. They've got everyone's genitalia being compressed in a vice as a result, until they're given answers they don't want to hear, which is that when you make cuts of this magnitude, the potential negative impact on your traditional support base is unavoidable.
Schools board have a lot of power in NS. NB abolished them years ago and replaced them with tootless DECs.
A lot of us wouldnt care if they abolished the school boards. And I say that knowing some good people on them.
But we won't be getting that from the Dexter government. They want to be removed from the bloodletting.
Right. They will have their cuts. Thay also expect the Boards to do it in a manner that leaves them unscathed.
Since they are not at the moment getting it both ways, the Dexter government are as we speak retroactively changing the rules of the game to make sure that the responsibility stays away from their door.
Several months ago in post #22 above I mentioned the use of stealth tactics, which as we know can only endure for so long before the people affected take their opportunity to weigh in by speaking out. The targeted school boards had already implemented the first round of austerity measures the previous year through management efficiencies. As a result, slim pickings remain to assist in accounting for the deeper requirements of round two, without looking directly at more full time teaching positions. By necessity, it's been made the turn of the librarians, the special needs kids, and their assistants, and now the fault of boards for inconveniently offering them up.
They also avoided deep cuts last year by deferring all maintenance that is not an immediate emergency. With 50's and 60s bldgs that have flat roofs and old boilers, you can get away with that for one year. Only.
The government was fully aware of that.
Bu no excuses, this school board failed in its job: do all the dirty work without effecting the precious government.
So now they'll be slapped up the backside, maybe out of sight thrown a little bone to keep Board members quiet.
They are axing plenty of teaching positions by the way, considerably more than proportional to enrollment declines. The Board "chose" cutting libraries over cutting even more teachers. Plus, they have looming over them the implications of what they are going to do for next year's cuts, when they have been told to expect more of the same. Got to have fiscal capacity for tax cuts and the so-called "industrial policy" buying high profile but expensive jobs, while the teachers and librarians trek out of province.
If Dexter forces a sparing of librarians, it just means more teachers who thought they seemed to still have a job will start waiting again.
Can we be sure that Bob Rae is still with the Liberals?
Got my picket sign for tonight's Board meeting.
Dexter LIES
betray
NDP
members
Grammar question.
My daughter says 'Dexter LIES betrays'
Methinks it would be 'Dexter betrays...'
but 'LIES betray'.
I'd make Dexter possessive.
ie. Dexter's lies betray NDP members.
Do you mean "retch" as in "dry heave"or "nausea"?