Lack of education funding was on everyone's mind Thursday night as more than 150 residents of New Westminster filled the high school library to hear what the local provincial MLA candidates will do to fix the system.
Hosted by the District Parent Advisory Council, the New Westminster Retired Teachers' Association and New Westminster Teachers' Union, all five local candidates attended the debate, each providing what they believe are possible solutions to the current funding shortfall in the city and across the province.
"(Money) is part of the answer," said B.C. Conservative candidate, Paul Forseth.
Forseth said early in the debate that while underfunding is a problem, it's easy for governments to "say yes to funding," but it's up to the politicians to make the tough decisions, even if that means spending less.
"(The Liberals have) misplaced priorities and the NDP has no information in their material of where the money is going to come from," he said.
B.C. NDP candidate Judy Darcy disagreed and said that the school districts are severely underfunded, resulting in layoffs and cuts to services, much like what is happening in the New Westminster school district right now.
But Darcy admitted that money alone wouldn't pull the education system out of disrepair and it'll take some time before the system is fixed.
"We think that if we're elected we will inherit a pretty difficult fiscal situation," she said. "We're not in a position to fix all that, it's been 11 or 12 years in the making, but what we are saying is we're prepared to invest $100 million in order to hire a total of 1,000 more teachers, special education assistants, resource people and so on in order to give that direct support in the classroom."
Green party candidate, Terry Teather said that increasing funding is just one of the tools that needs to be implemented in order to improve the province's education system.
"Appropriately spent money is part of the equation. The concern for the Green party is that we move education back to a local level," he said.
Teather has much experience in the education system. He has worked in the Surrey School District for a long time, both as a classroom teacher and currently as the teacher-in-charge at the Cloverdale Learning Centre.
Teather said all districts are unique and should be dealt with on a more local level.
Independent candidate James Crosty agreed to a certain extent. He said there needs to be an outside auditor brought in to help struggling districts find ways to manage their funding and save for "a rainy day."
"It's a helpful audit," he said. Throughout the evening the candidates were asked very hard-hitting questions about their polices regarding education. Some parents went so far as to challenge statistics presented by certain candidates.
The B.C. Liberals' candidate, Hector Bremner felt the brunt of attacks from parents who have been dealing with a tumultuous situation in the New Westminster school district. Layoff notices were sent out this week to teachers and support staff in the district who are losing their jobs due to a large deficit.
But Bremner said his party has increased funding since it became the ruling party more than a decade ago.
He said the key shouldn't be money, per say, rather it should be the success of the students and if that requires more money then that's what'll they'll do.
"Take all the emotion and partisanship out of it. Look at internationally agreed upon targets," Bremner said. "Without measuring we're really just racing to mediocrity."
While none of the candidates could provide a concrete alternative to the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) test, they all agreed it wasn't the best way to evaluate students' and schools' productivity.
Candidates were also asked how they would get capital projects back on track, including the long-awaited new Royal City high school.
"I would immediately call for an inquiry into what has happened with these schools, why we've spent so much money, why the high school hasn't been built," Crosty said.
He said it's time to bring together stakeholders in order to move these projects forward, instead of just waiting around for results.
And Bremner agreed that much of the delay comes from party squabbling at the legislature.
"This has a human cost, this has a human impact," he said. "The partisanship needs to get out of the way, kids need to be put first and we need to get our schools built and we need to get them built now."
The main focus of the debate was education, however there were some other issues that did surface, including seniors' care. DPAC encouraged the public to submit questions throughout the evening. DPAC will send unanswered questions to the candidates and post the answers on its website at www.nwdpac.ca.
