This Canmore Life

More women needed in public office

Sadly, this blog hasn’t seen much action recently, yet it still remains a platform to communicate the things I’m still passionate about. In this instance, it’s women in politics.

The following letter I wrote to the editors of our local papers as a sort of call to arms (if you will) for our upcoming municipal by-election June 23rd, 2012.

Letter follows:

Editor;

This vibrant town possesses some hard-working, innovative, community-minded women who have proven instrumental in building playgrounds, championing environmental and wildlife concerns, running businesses, not to mention organizing, volunteering, advocating, mobilizing, bantering, baking, and even babysitting their way through the myriad issues that this town has faced and continues to face.

So, seriously, why haven’t any of you or any of your friends announced your candidacy yet??!

Canmore’s recent announcement of a by-election affords the many capable women in this community the opportunity to put their name forward as candidate if only for consideration of either a seat on council or as Mayor. I hope to see more women come forward and take a chance at running for office. Remember yours represents both an important voice and a unique skill set that remains lacking on the current political stage at all levels of government — a dismal 24% average nationally; an even more lacklustre 14% at our local level.

This needs to change.

Why? According to the website Equal Voice, “Polling shows that women care about different issues. The United Nations says that a critical mass of at least 30% women is needed before legislatures produce public policy representing women’s concerns and before political institutions begin to change the way they do business.” Simply put, public service needs a balance of many diverse voices including women’s. Presently, Canada ranks 40th out of 189 countries for women holding political office. As such, we lag behind nations like Afghanistan and Rwanda. Clearly, we can do better.

And things look to be changing somewhat slowly: one of the more inspiring aspects of our recent provincial election (ideologies aside) saw two qualified and capable women party leaders vying for the position of premier of Alberta — an historic first in this province. Perhaps this motivates you to run at the local level — the level of government that affects citizens more directly than any other level of government.

Of course you may not win, but at least stand up and speak out. Take to heart what Texas’ first woman governor, Ann Richards, famously said about women entering politics, “If you give us the chance, we can perform. After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

I encourage you to visit the website www.equalvoice.ca for information on how to campaign for office as well as potential funds available. You have until May 22nd to put your name forward or to nominate someone you know.

With sincere thanks and appreciation, Corina Dootjes, former town councillor

Treat Me Kindly by Beth Norman Harris 1968

Treat me kindly, my beloved friend,
For no heart in all the world is more
grateful for kindness than the loving
heart of me.

Do not break my spirit with a stick,
For though I should lick your hand
between blows, your patience and 
understanding will more quickly
teach me the things you would 
have me learn.

Speak to me often, For your voice is
the world’s sweetest music, as you must
know by the fierce wagging of my tail
when your footsteps fall upon my ears.

Why Teach? Weathering Political Storms.

On the last day of classes, I heeded the advice of a colleague who mentioned collecting the handwritten positive thoughts from the students you’ve taught for the term.

“After you’ve been teaching for awhile,” he said. “You’ll look back at those letters and remember the most important reason why you’re in this profession: those kids. It’ll come in handy as you weather the storms of the baloney politics and other downsides of this otherwise great profession.”

His words ring true.

I couldn’t have picked a worse time to become a new teacher! With the cloud of the 2008 recession still looming darkly overhead, still threatening to burst and downpour again, everything from housing to economies to job markets to government programs risks another deluge of drops or outright floods of cutbacks.

When it comes to Education in 2011, the so-called umbrella solution of the current “progressive” Conservative Government in Alberta is simply to cut funding to schools at a time when our student populations are potentially increasing as more and more young families drift to this province in search of work creating better lives for themselves. They know, as we all do, the Alberta Advantage. Supposedly.

But, instead of offering shelter to weather the recent economic storms by working towards sustainable education planning WITH the schoolboards, the Tories have forced boards across the province to juggle and struggle to try to deliver watered-down versions of an education system that, while currently is considered the envy of other provinces (and even other countries), threatens to become a shadow of its former self. The cuts are akin to hanging onto a piece of driftwood AFTER the storm has hit. We’re in survival mode folks. Where do you turn as a parent? As an educator? A trustee? A student??!

“Make do with less” the province says — which would have been really nice to know ahead of budget and program planning. (And isn’t that what responsible planning looks like?) With long term sustainable funding, budgets could be planned on the money you already have in the bank rather than planning your budget on the hope (and crossed fingers) that you’ll get the same amount you got last year?!

Why, with sustainable long term funding, you could even plan for those “rainy days” of economic uncertainty!

To their credit, boards across this great province offer the continued hope (albeit distant) that everyone will try to make it work; try to keep it all afloat. I wish all schoolboards the best of luck with all that. Hope your life vests work!

And then there’s the students.

It doesn’t take an economist (or a meteorologist!) to understand what the consequences of these cuts to education mean: classroom sizes will inevitably be larger, students with special needs will find their resources limited (at a time when schools are trying to integrate these diverse learners into mainstream classrooms), innovations in professional development will be greatly affected which also affects teachers who work with these diverse learners.

It doesn’t take an economist to understand the more long term consequences of these funding cuts. Strong students will do fine, they always do. Students from supportive and resourceful families will do okay in the long term as well. They’ll all weather the storm. But what happens to diverse or exceptional learners? In a classroom of 40 to 45 students, how does the voice of that exceptional student get heard, let alone shine?

Additionally (and seemingly secondary), the future of many educators hangs in the balance as well. As a temporary teacher, it seems the sky is no longer the limit in my career. And I am not alone. Many of my cohorts (temporary, supply, and probationary teachers) face a similarly uncertain future.

We are the new teachers at risk of not being able to have this hugely rewarding career as outlined to us in university at the start of our studies a few years ago.

What will happen to us?

(As an aside: could the media immediately stop referring to us as “young” teachers? While it’s very flattering to be labelled this, it belies the more important notion that we are the emerging and new-to-the-profession educators with a lot of expertise and passion to offer the profession for the long term. Some of us are twenty-somethings, but many of us are career-changers over the age of thirty — some of us are in our fifties even — who want to make a difference in our communities! In fact, one of my fellow students was a woman in her sixties making a difference in Africa.)

Anyway…

I put all this aside on June 10th 2011 because I have a job to do. A job that I love and that, while it lasts, is an important one to young people who just want to learn. Young people who have the right to an education.

The above photo is of a letter sent to me by one of my more diverse learners. A sunny and funny bright kid named Wayne who has Asperger’s. He is also ESL with some (moderate) behavior issues. Over the course of the year, he has made me laugh with his antics and has also helped his classmates become more tolerant of people who are “different”. His sheer determination to overcome his disabilities so he could pass his high school English class was a lesson in weathering the storms of uncertainty with dignity.

This is why I teach. Regardless of those grey clouds looming on the horizon…

Tomorrow we vote…again.

Call me a pessimist. Call me a cynic. I’ll call it how I see it and tomorrow Canadians will see a dramatically different parliamentary landscape, no doubt. However, it won’t be the Orange Crush Revolution so many eagerly newly-minted NDPers are predicting. It won’t be “Prime Minister Layton” serving At Her Majesty’s Leisure, it will be Prime Minister Harper (or “Harpee” as his critics call him) for a dismal third time (or is it the fourth? I’ve lost count!).

If my hunch plays out, the Centrist to Left votes will devastatingly be split (even if the wave of Orange Crush sways more undecided voters) and will inevitably give rise to the Conservative sweep. This will be most notable in key provinces like Ontario and Quebec. In la belle province, the NDP will win more seats but it will be at the expense of the Bloc Quebcois, NOT the Conservatives as hoped.  BQ policies closely resemble the NDPs so it’s simply boils down to vote splitting. Here, the Conservatives will come up through the middle, just ahead of the NDP, and will get their majority government after all. The Cons will have capitalized on their strategy to “divide and conquer”—an age-old strategy Machiavelli perfected—to capture the flag (erm—I mean Parliament).

I promise you I hope I’m wrong, but the Conservatives have been aiming their sites at the Liberals for some time, which has, in turn, given strength to the NDPs.

Not that long ago, Harper began his anti-Liberal sentiment (at the time his closest and nearest rival) with a series of attack ads that seemingly came out of nowhere and were aimed directly at leader Michael Ignatieff (not Layton and not Duceppe). You have to ask yourself WHY?! 

“He didn’t come back for you” and “He did it before. He’ll do it again” became the emotional mantra of the Cons long before the election was called in a sickeningly clever preemptive strike to undermine the credibility of Harper’s only direct threat to the PM office. 

I may only have an undergrad’s passing knowledge of mob mentality, but suffice to say the Canadian public, in general, just can’t warm up to Ignatieff — arguably one of the most brilliant minds Canadian politics has ever seen. He’s a charming and affable speaker to boot! For whatever reason, Ignatieff just can’t seem to get a leg up to catapult himself into the limelight of the populace’s mindset or heart. To a large extent, the ads have fed into that uncertainty. And Ignatieff’s own uncertainty about his leadership potential has fed into it as well.

So the NDPs will get some more seats, but it will be at the expense of Liberal and Bloc and the Cons strategy of divide and conquer will play out as planned. There’s evidence of some vote sharing happening amongst Libs and NDPers in those nail-biting close ridings like Edmonton-Strathcona for example, but it hasn’t taken off nation-wide like it did last election. And at this point, it’s too little too late anyway.

I do think we will also see one or two Green seats in the House. Which is sort of a positive. I guess. If one is wont to look at the bright side of life.

 In any event, I’ve got $10 bucks riding on this outcome…and I hope I’m so wrong that I’ll gladly pay $10 again just out of thanks!! 

Good luck Jack! Hope the Orange Crush does what it hopes to accomplish! I’m still voting Liberal.