Opposition education critic spends day in S. Okanagan

Special to The Herald

With just four days left to campaign, candidates are pulling out all the stops.

For Penticton NDP candidate Tarik Sayeed, one of those stops included a boost from his party’s education critic Rob Fleming. The Victoria-Swan Lake MLA spent the day touring the South Okanagan, stopping in Sayeed and BoundarySimilkameen Colleen Ross’s ridings.

After a brief introduction by Sayeed, Fleming wasted no time in taking aim at the premier and current MLA.

“The BC Liberals threw this community and so many communities just like it into turmoil by cutting the budget and threatening more school closures,” Fleming told a small crowd of supporters outside Pen-Hi, Thursday.

“It was a very, very tough time for Penticton, and it was even tougher because the MLA, Dan Ashton, was nowhere to be seen, and when he did appear, he blamed the school district and tried to wash his hands of the fact that the Ministry of Education sets the budget.”

Fleming described the grant for rural school funding, announced on the last day of school, as “a time-limited offer.”

He put much of the blame on the shoulders of the premier.

“Only because the Supreme Court ordered her actions illegal, is there money coming back into the system. But that too, is a timelimited offer. Only until 2019. We cannot elect Christy Clark if you care about education as people in Penticton do.”

Sayeed echoed the statements, adding that voting for the NDP is voting for education. Election day is Tuesday.