$2 BILLION. I'M DISGUSTED.

$2 billion. I am disgusted. Government negotiators claim teachers’ demands will cost that additional amount. I’m not disgusted by the number itself but by the spin. What is missing from this self-serving BCPSCA assertion is the truth that over the past decade $2 billion was channeled out of public education. Yes. Public education was reduced by $2 billion. School children were dispossessed of $2 billion that had been servicing their classroom experience. So, in fact, teachers are asking for funding that students and their teachers used to have. They are asking the BC Liberal government to return the money that they took away and spend elsewhere. Where and when was

this money withdrawn? It is unrelated to their salaries. Salary is not all that teachers talking about. They also speak of class size and composition with regards to their contract. For several years teachers took zero percent increases in order to sign contracts which included size and composition components because these affect working and learning conditions. The greater the class size, the less individual attention per student. Simple. Class composition considers educational and emotional needs of students and some students require assistance to achieve outcomes comparable to their peers. Some students need IEPs, Individual Education Plans which provide behavioural and or academic approaches and goals for success. Again simple. The more IEPs in a class, the greater the complexity of the learning environment for the entire class and the greater the burden on a teacher to effectively manage and instruct all his or her students. So, I repeat, teachers gave up salary raises in order to bargain for limits to class size and the number of IEPs per class. Then in 2002 the government destroyed those negotiated terms by removing class size and composition language. The Supreme Court of B.C. on two occasions now, has told the Liberal government that it’s dissolution of the negotiated contract was illegal. It has been told to fund BC public education to accommodate that earlier contract language. By the government’s own calculation that will cost how much? Yes, $2 billion. Teachers are asking this government for that which it is legally required to pay by the Supreme Court. They are asking the government to respect the rule of law.

LIBERALS DECIDING ABOUT CLARK

Ministers left an emergency cabinet meeting at Canada Place on Sunday afternoon, showing support for Premier Christy Clark even though there are increasing calls for her resignation over the ethnic voter scandal. Hundreds of Liberal party members in Surrey met at Sikh temples around the city Sunday to discuss the scandal, which has precipitated four high-profile departures from Surrey riding associations. Viewed now as an extension of the Liberals’ strategy to woo ethnic voters in advance of the May election, a group of 89 predominantly Indo-Canadian members of the B.C. Liberals have taken issue with Ms. Clark’s decision to spend taxpayer dollars to bid for the Times of India Film Awards. In a Sunday news release they called for Clark’s resignation, saying she had made the ethnic vote a joke in B.C.

MULTICULTURAL OUTREACH SCANDAL & LIBERAL PARTY EMERGENCY

This is Sunday March 3, 2013 and B.C.’s Liberal Premier Christy Clark will either decide or be told what the near future holds for her as the party leader and provincial premier. Today at 4PM an emergency meeting of her Cabinet may offer her three options: 1) Clark steps down; 2) Clark stays but the cabinet distance themselves from her; 3) Cabinet manages all issues from now on.

DID CHRISTY CLARK READ MY LETTER? PROBABLY NOT!

This is the letter I sent to Christy Clark's office over one year ago. Numerous other advocates did the same. Ayn Van Dyk is still in foster care under direction of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. There is a possibility of her being returned to her daddy this year. It's an awful punishment for an autistic girl for wandering from her back yard, and a terrible penalty to impose on a dad for not seeing her leave. She was found 3 hours later.

CONFIDENCE

 Ayn Van Dyk could have and should have been returned to her capable and intelligent father’s care long ago instead of being kept away from her parents and siblings for more than five months.

The Liberal Party in British Columbia may not remain in power past this current mandate. If the rebuilding of public trust in the child protection division of the Ministry of Children and Family Development were as simple as changing political party I would advocate a change to New Democrat or Conservative. However, clearly the issues that have eroded public confidence over the past forty years are trans-political. Even when the cabinet composition changes, the Ministry personnel that affect the lives of children, parents and families remain the same. And if there is some personnel turnover, there is a continuum of the policy/practice DNA. Regardless of which party is in power, if confidence in this Ministry is ever to be regained, that party will need to prioritize a love invested definition of a helping relationship.

DOES MCFD UNDERSTAND AUTISM?

A laughing Ayn before Removal and anti-psychotic drugs

After an hiatus of some months, I can't help myself. Ayn needs help. She doesn't understand what has happened. She didn't do anything that bad. Do you want to know more? I'll tell you in the days ahead.
 
SHE SHOULD BE IN HIS ARMS

Does the Ministry of Children and Family Development understand Autism?

Whatever informed expertise there is within MCFD, it has not been communicated to front line workers and their supervisors who are making unreasonable decisions about autistic children.

Taking a child away from an attendant and proficient father as MCFD have done with 9 year old Ayn was pointless, reactionary, excessive and injurious. The adjectives are entirely appropriate for this stupid social worker action.

Instead of the Ministry providing practical, actionable information and financial assistance and affirming support to parents like Derek Hoare, the Ministry disciplines with severity when an autistic child does what comes naturally – wanders. And the manner by which the Ministry manages that tendency consists of seizing the girl and pumping drugs into her. The enormity of this offense defies expression with words. For the first eighteen days of her captivity she has daily wept. A nine year old girl should not be subjected to that. That is not in her best interests. If she cried every day while in the care of her dad and the Ministry heard about that, it would assume abuse or neglect. The reading public of this blog and of other news sources that carry the story readily associate the Ministry’s actions as abuse of their mandate. Citizens should be able to assume that Ministry personnel are intelligent, copiously prepared and fully informed about autism before they interfere with parental care of autistic children who are loved and cherished within their families. We are regularly supplied with reasons for disbelieving that. Not least of which is this distasteful harm done to a sweet girl who must now cling to a photograph of her dad holding her in his arms.

She should be in his arms.

Hon. Mary McNeil and Hon. Christy Clark, you must give attention to this case certainly, but beyond this single case, to the conduct of this Ministry challenged with responsibility for which it appears at so many levels to be incapable of satisfying. You have to turn this around for the sake of the people who have elected you to serve and to help us.

Please contact Derek Hoare directly at
Derek Hoare iconoclast_ensues@yahoo.com 904-HELP AYN 904-435-7296