Education minister dismisses demands for board byelection
Bernier says ‘years of mismanagement’ require government appointee to resume work
Education Minister Mike Bernier says he has no plans to alter the term of the official trustee appointed to replace the Vancouver school board members he fired last fall, following an investigation into bullying at the board.
There were renewed calls Wednesday by the NDP Opposition, the civic Vision Vancouver party and some of the fired trustees to call a byelection now that the results of the investigation are known. They argue that budget and long-term planning decisions shouldn’t be left to a single unelected official trustee.
Bernier, however, said the trustee, Dianne Turner, has too much work to do in correcting “years and years of mismanagement” by the former board and won’t reconsider the election question before October.
“In one year, we will sit down with (Turner) and will review where the school district is and what issues have been solved and if there are other issues to be worked on and make a decision at that point,” Bernier said, noting the decision could be to hold off until the next civic elections in 2018.
The issues that led to the firing, however, remain politically charged subjects.
“Firing the board was the B.C. Liberals’ way of distracting parents from the province’s poor record on education funding, the ministry’s failure on seismic upgrades and its desire to close and sell off dozens of VSB schools,” said NDP education critic Rob Fleming.
Fleming said if an NDP government is put in power after the May 9 general election, it would work with the City of Vancouver to hold a byelection for the Vancouver school board within 100 days of being sworn in.
“You shouldn’t have an unelected person running the province’s second largest school district for more than two years of a four-year mandate,” Fleming said.
Former trustees remain divided along party lines on the byelection question, with the NPA contingent maintaining it is premature to hold one before more issues raised by the investigation are ironed out.
“Any talk about a byelection is premature,” said former NPA trustee Stacy Robertson in an email. He said WorkSafe B.C. still has to issue its report on bullying and harassment issues, which is expected to contain recommendations.
“Without appreciating the impact of those recommendations, the re-election of any board, however constituted, may be subject to the same mistakes and pitfalls that led to the board’s firing,” he wrote.
Former trustees Penny Noble, Fraser Ballantyne and Christopher Richardson echoed Robertson’s comments.
Richardson said running an election too soon might simply send trustees “back into a situation that was shown to be intolerable and that isn’t good for kids.”
Former Vision trustees, however, said they were eager to run in a byelection and remained committed to seeing out the terms they were elected to in 2014.
“It’s unacceptable for a city the size of Vancouver to have a board that’s not run by citizen-elected (trustees),” said former Vision trustee and board chair Mike Lombardi. He said his only regret was “the ministry of education precipitated the situation by chronically underfunding the board.”
Former Vision trustee Patti Bacchus said she found the results of the independent report “very troubling and unfortunate,” but “we also had an obligation to make sure we were addressing concerns coming from the public.”
Turner was appointed in October under provisions of the school act that allow cabinet to fire a school board for “substantial non-performance” of its duties on a term that could last until October 2018. Bernier fired VSB trustees for failing to pass a balanced budget.
In 2012, government dismissed the Cowichan Valley school board for failing to pass a balanced budget. Government left its official trustee in place until the subsequent civic elections in 2014.