Maybe residents of Prince George should have been voting in a provincial by-election this weekend considering how ineffective our two local Liberal/BC United MLAs have been in holding the NDP government to account on major issues affecting our city.
Whether it has been the overflowing hospital, another surgeon leaving the city because of not getting enough surgery time or the lack of funding for public education, you can barely hear a whisper from our local MLAs when these should be meat and potatoes issues that are easy for an opposition MLA to build public momentum behind. Maybe their leader or party brass doesn't allow them to speak on local issues without prior approval or maybe properly funding public healthcare and education goes against what their party wants to accomplish with future austerity focused balanced budgets if they form government potentially in the works?
Mike Morris out of the two should be more free to speak his mind given he is not running again but I see no comments in the media from him about how wrong it is for the NDP government to ask school districts to fund recent provincially negotiated wage increases and increased expenses due to inflation without increasing funding to school districts who don't have other sources of revenue to draw from other than unspent budgeted money from previous years. It's a bit ironic that provincially the NDP government recognize the harm caused by trying to balance a budget through austerity when families are struggling but for some reason that doesn't apply to school districts who are struggling to help the most vulnerable kids in society as a result of being provincially mandated to balance the budget no matter how much funding is provided by the province. Maybe our local MLAs and the NDP government are content in letting the school trustees take the heat from the public over budget cuts as a result of provincial funding freezes for school districts so that they can keep trustees as scapegoats when tough decisions have to be made in our education system as a result of provincial decisions.
At a time when many of our schools are struggling with numeracy and literacy outcomes due to staff shortages, increased demand without increased funding for in class support, therapy and intervention services and the lingering impact of COVID lockdowns and inflation pressures on families we need the NDP government to step up and provide the necessary funding and direction to school districts to protect our most important resource. If we don't have an effective opposition to hold the government accountable, then the government gets a free ride like our two local MLAs who are ironically in opposition. I hope MLAs Shirley Bond and Mike Morris prove me wrong but given the BC United's fourth place finish in one of this weekend's by-election they may be more focused on continuing to appease their shrinking right wing base who are migrating to the BC Conservatives than worrying about local education and health issues that are negatively impacting people in this area. Maybe the BC United needs another name change as they seem lost, not united?
Richard Parks
Prince George
