You either pay attention or pay through the nose. I would rather pay attention.
We should never negotiate with terrorists. Yet it looks like the Liberal Charest government in Quebec has done so.
Student leaders and the provincial government reached an agreement over tuition costs in principle on Saturday a day after violent protests left two men critically injured and one of them partially blind.
…
Tens of thousands of students have been on strike for more than 80 days since the government announced it was going to increase tuition by $1,625 or 75%.
I paid over $6,000 university tuition this year for my son’s post-secondary education here in Ontario. Although an additional tax break or two would have been nice, the tax man strikes everyone except Quebec. While here in Ontario, my TurboTax Canada software remained free of any additional tax breaks this year.
The increase roughly works out to a $300 increase per student per year, which would still leave Quebec with some of the lowest tuition rates in Canada.
The average annual cost to attend a Quebec university — $2,519 — is far lower than university tuition in other provinces.
More math as per John Robson. $2500 is 1/10th of the price of what it costs. The rest is subsidized. Across Canada, the average is twice this rate meaning student’s pay about 1/5th of the actual price of their education. And 1 in 5 Canadians go to University. This means the average Joe out there who does NOT go to university is paying the same amount towards education as someone who DOES go. How wrong is that?
So yes. Get off your asses, get off the street, get INTO the classroom, and sit down on your asses, before the rest of us collectively KICK your whiney, over-entitled asses!!
I swear I am not making this up.
After moving forward with plans to change the sex education curriculum, Dalton McGuinty turned an about face.
McGuinty’s surprise move came just three hours after his ministers defended the scheme at Queen’s Park.
During the morning question period, debate turned nasty with Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who was education minister until January and oversaw the new curriculum development, calling the Progressive Conservatives “despicable” for opposing it.
“You’re aligning yourselves with homophobes,” a visibly angry Wynne shouted at the Tories. Wynne is the first openly lesbian cabinet minister in Ontario history.
Hey Ms. Wynne. Shouldn’t 12 year olds be more concerned about the three R’s? Or maybe daydreaming about their first kiss? Or maybe wondering if the new episodes of Sonny With A Chance are coming out on Family Channel?
Across the nation our local TV networks have been waging a war against the cable carriers, and Rogers in particular. The battle has basically been over Rogers taking the free air signals of local TV stations and broadcasting them over cable without compensating the local stations.
Well it looks like Rogers is going to up their rates by 1.5% in an effort to compensate for additional costs of carrying these free stations and people are EM AY DEE … MAD!
I blogged about our lack of priorities a few weeks ago but the bottom line is that EVERYONE should be raising their dander up and demanding A La Carte station ordering. i.e. There should be a base cost (say $10 or $15 a month) for delivery of service and then we should be able to order whatever channels we want. Why should an anglophone Canadian pay for 3 or 4 French stations to be piped directly into his home? Why should a good God fearing Christian need to pay for stations that promote Muslim or Jewish religious beliefs? Why should a piano lesson taking uber geek be forced to pay for not one, not two, but three sports stations that he/she will never watch? It simply does not make sense.
The only thing that DOES make sense is A La Carte station ordering. If I had to pay $2 or so per station, I would likely have a $40 to $50 a month cable bill.
Demand A La Carte!
OfficiallyScrewed is an understatement for this one.
Carleton University has searched high and low, near and far, day and night to fill a teaching spot for an introductory sociology course. But alas, the qualifications must have been tough because out of a nation of about 30 million citizens, they chose to hire an alleged terrorist charged with killing 4 people in the 1980 bombing of a synagogue in France.
But that was 29 years ago you say? Maybe, but he was just recently charged and is under house arrest with a condition that he has to wear one of those “anklets” to track his location. He is not even allowed to get in his car and drive to the University without accompaniment.
Hassan Diab, who is charged with murdering four people in the 1980 bombing, will begin teaching a part-time introductory sociology course at Carleton University two days a week until the middle of August.
Diab, whose strict bail conditions prevent him from leaving the house alone, will be required to travel to and from the university with his common-law spouse Rania Tfaily, an Ottawa court heard Monday.
But once at the university, Diab will no longer need an escort.
What? Am I reading that last sentence correctly? Once at the university, he will no longer need an escort? Are you kidding me? The guy is charged with killing 4 people and he is welcome to roam the Carleton University campus without an escort?
Note to self: Do not let my kids attend Carleton University.
ADDENDUM: not but a few minutes after I posted, I saw this article posted on the Ottawa Sun sight a few minutes ago. Diab has lost his teaching gig.
When you can donate $20M to an American university like Georgetown or Harvard, it gets you some pull. The only things I have to say after watching this short YouTube clip of a news program are:
a) I thought that there was separation of church and state in schools? Why are they teaching kids that Muslims discovered America? Even if this incorrect information was to be taught, should it not at least have been that someone from the middle east discovered America? Where is the ACLU? Where are the people forcing schools to not celebrate Christmas? Where are these hypocrites?
and
b) I hope this misinformation is the part of an education that these kids don’t remember.
h/t to Nick V.
York University Professor Peter Cummings has likened “Sexting” to “Spin The Bottle”.
For those who are unaware, “sexting” is a play on the word “texting” and refers to someone taking nude photos of themselves and sending via cell phone to others.
Peter Cumming, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, presented a paper on children’s sexuality at the 78th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences defending the practice as a modern variation on “playing doctor or spin-the-bottle.”
This is, quite simply, a travesty. It takes a big step forward in the degradation of our youth when someone in the education field indicates that it is a modern right of passage the way “spin the bottle” was years ago.
I do agree with the professor that youth should not be prosecuted for this. I would go so far as to say the same “of similar age” defense should apply to this. But the fact remains that indicating that “sexting” is as acceptable as a kissing game is not even close to hitting the mark.
The ramifications of “spin the bottle” is perhaps a cold sore or perhaps even mononucleosis, both of which are not the end of the world. But when someone has their nude photos potentially spread all over the internet the outcome is potentially far worse.
That this person is an educator, and someone we entrust our children to, makes it that much worse.
The past three days, I had the honour of attending the Manning Centre for Building Democracy’s Networking 2008 Conference here in Ottawa.
The three days started off with a wonderful reception at the National Arts Centre on Thursday evening at which I got to run into fellow blogger Dr. Roy Eappan and BT co-founder Stephen Taylor in addition to getting to share a few words with our Prime Minister. Throughout the evening I managed to say hello and talk to about a dozen MPs who were all gracious and open to some good political banter.
Friday and Saturday were day long sessions with some fantastic speakers.
The sessions included an introduction to rising Conservative Stars presented by Ralph Klein and Bernard Lord, A strategy session on winning close elections presented by Tony Clement, a panel session on what the Conservative movement should do about healthcare featuring past Ontario premiere Mike Harris, Dr. Brian Day (CMA president) and Joanne Marcotte of the ADQ. (Mike Harris kicked some ass here with his views). Friday ended with a discussion on the subject of Euthanasia presented by Dr. Margaret Somerville.
Saturday was simply a great day . It started with a wonderfully lighthearted view of politics from New Zealand perspective from Richard Prebble. During his question and answer period he had everyone in stitches when asked how New Zealand got rid of the sacred cow of farm subsidies and he replied “The best way to kill a sacred cow is to simply shoot it.” This session was in conjunction with a speech from Aussie strategist and pollster Mark Textor.
The late morning session saw BT co-founder Stephen Taylor talk on blogging and social networking and how useful blogs are becoming. Mr. Taylor managed to boost my ego BIGtime by showing a clip of my Peter Van Loan score on Ken Dryden. It was especially nice to have the crowd laugh in unison at the appearance of the name OfficiallyScrewed.com. (Thanks Stephen!!)
The next to last session was one I had seen much of before at the Leadership Institute sessions but it was full of great ideas on campaigning from some key minds in the conservative movement in Canada. Michael Davis, head of RMG, Richard Ciano of the Conservative Campaign University, Devin Iverson, veteran campaigner and Mark Spiro, principal with Crestview Public Affairs all had great insight which someone like me absorbed like a sponge.
The final session was simply a wonderful speech by past Nova Scotia premiere John Hamm. Mr. Hamm is promoting the 250th anniversary (this year) of democracy in North America. The very first of which was in Nova Scota in 1758. The goal is to engage as many young people to take part in politics and I encourage you to share politics with the youth of today. You can find out more via the website www.democracy250.ca .
The Manning Centre and their co-ordinators did a great job. The event was well scheduled, not rushed, very educational and the food at the Congress Centre was great for a conference. Kudos to everyone involved. I will most certainly be attending future events.
ADDENDUM: I was also lucky enough to get a photo taken of myself with the Prime Minister and autographed copies of Tom Flanagan’s book “Harper’s Team” and Preston Manning’s “Think Big”.
During the last provincial election in Ontario, Dalton McShifty and his Liberal posse railed for a month about how the public school system is “for everyone” and “together” and rah rah rah we are one big happy family. And that the reason a community as multicultured as Toronto has little violence is because the kids grow up in schoo….”together”. Those were Dalton’s words, not mine.
Well a couple of days ago, the Toronto District School Board passed by a vote of 12 to 11 a motion to create an Afro-Centric School and I have yet to hear either the Premier or his Minister of Education speak out against this decision.
So it seems the provincial Liberals have a problem with “faith based schools” and did not want to create further segregation there, but when it comes to race, they stay silent.
Another group that deserves to be slapped is the Ontario Teachers Union. During the last election they bragged relentlessly in TV commercials about how the education system was working and doing great things. Why even bother mentioning the fact that it was pretty crass of them to pay for these commercials in the heart of an election run where the hottest topic was the faith based school funding issue? Well if the school system is working so well, why are we now creating a segregated system within the publicly funded umbrella.
The answer is simply hypocrisy at it’s finest.
Geoff Matthews points this out in today’s Sun newspaper. Not that class sizes need to reach 20, but what the heck was Dalton doing making this promise in the first place?
Now comes word that the provincial government hasn’t a chance of meeting its self-imposed target of cutting classroom sizes for primary grades to no more than 20 students by this September — a promise that was made during, you guessed it, the 2003 election campaign.
The question isn’t whether the goal can be met. It’s why did the premier make the promise in the first place?
Is there some magical reason why a class with 20 students can be managed, while a class with, say, 23, will spiral out of control?
Couldn’t a class of 30 kids work perfectly well in some instances, while in others anything more than a dozen would be a challenge?
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old geezer, let me point out that when I was in school, we had classes of well over 30 students, and we never seemed to lack for a bit of personal attention from the teacher when it was required.
You got it right on the money Geoff. When I was in public school, there were well over 30 kids in my class just about every year. The only time there were less was if a grade only had 25 or so kids or if there were 50 or 55 in the grade and two classes were split.
The issue isn’t class size. It’s how the teachers control that class. And this day and age, they just don’t have the skill or desire to do it. They blame things like ADD or ADHD for their inadequacies in controlling children. They push them along year after year just happy to get the troubled ones out of their class, watering down the value of a high school diploma.
The above article was originally posted on March 8th, 2007, but I thought it was generic enough to repost today. Choose well today at the voting booth.