Carl Bainbridge (New Brunswick Politics Blog)

Everyone has heard of bullies, many of us have at one point or another in our lives spent time as a victim. For kids at school this can create a serious problem. Bullied students lose interest in school, and in most cases even at bare minimum contemplate suicide.

There is no real new knowledge in any of those statements. However over the last couple of weeks the discussion on bullying in New Brunswick schools has come to a head. In Fredericton, one family pulled their son due to harassment by an ex-girlfriend, another parent came forward detailing attempts to get school administrators to deal with the bullying suffered by her child, things that went as far as sexual assault. In Saint John, a girl had her hair set on fire. In Moncton earlier in the year, a child was transferred because of bullying and another child was attacked by students from another school entirely and it was done in front of the school office.

Some administrators would prefer to see these incidents separated into assaults and bullying, with two separate categories of incidents. What they fail to realize is that many of these “assaults” are escalations on bullying behaviour that has not been stepped on by administration. It is a continuation of the same ongoing bullying that many of these students experience.

I spent a fair bit of time being the victim of nonviolent bullying myself.  One of the few incidents of violence that was done to me (I was in grade 2 or 3 I believe it was a long time ago) ended up with me spending time in detention. In that incident a student in my age decided that it would be good to elbow me in the gut as I was getting off the bus on the way from school. Because he was forced to sit in the front seat because of his already poor reputation, this was done in full view of the bus driver (as was my shoe hitting his head in retaliation, and yes my foot was still in it) I got a days detention which I happily served, he on the other hand got a solid month.

The true bullying began after I decided to go to a different school to participate in the late immersion program. For almost my entire 7 to 9 grades I was subjected to almost constant harassment, much of it based on a religious upbringing that meant that certain facts of life others were fully privy too, I was completely oblivious to.  One thing of note that should be mentioned is that during almost all periods of bullying whether the minor stuff in younger grades, or the harsher stuff in junior high there was always a girl holding my attention and usually engaging my attention sufficiently to keep me from sinking into a total wreck.

It should be noted that during the junior high years the bullying that I dealt with did not just come from the students but at least one teacher was involved as well through his constant belittling of my efforts. This teacher who taught not only my English class but also was my guidance counsellor who had the final say on my high school course selection did incredible damage to my future with moves that he forced on me. The first signs of serious problems was when he denied my first choice of book report book (Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter, a fairly heavy book written in Old English) only to approve a Hardy Boy book, calling Freckles to childish (To this day I suspect his issue was that it was to difficult for him to read). He carried his garbage through into my course selection refusing me level one courses in both math and English, and suggesting that instead of looking at medicine I should be looking at a trade as a mechanic. His objection to my math suggestion was overridden early in my grade 10 year when I heard of a math competition that while essentially open to anyone usually was limited to only level one students. After forcing the teacher to allow me to write the competition I placed 3rd in the school and top 25 in the province, when I suggested I really should have been in the level one course the teacher agreed (because of time I do not remember if I was transferred in or whether I was moved to level 1 for grade 11). I never have fully recovered from the damage this teacher caused to my curriculum as the courses he made me drop actually cost me greatly in any interest in making much effort in my school work and cost me a lot of opportunities.

Major things that need to be realized when dealing with bullying incidents. Almost all victims of bullying contemplate suicide at one point or another. Some seriously and some throw the idea away. Others take into account how much better life would be if only their bullies no longer were around to cause them problems.

This statement here is something that all people involved in bullying need to understand.  Others take into account how much better life would be if only their bullies no longer were around to cause them problems. Administrators are trained in how to look for signs of school shooters. However there is one key piece of information that is left out of this equation. School shooters are almost all victims of bullying that have finally had enough.

When staff do not react promptly and aggressively to stamp out bullying there really should be no surprise when the victim chooses either to end their own life or to attempt to end the life of the bully (and invariably take a few others who stood by and did nothing in the process).

Some may choose to mock my belief but I sat through and studied several of these school shootings in an effort to understand the shooters motivations and was shocked when I followed the discussions. With out fail the reports detailed the withdrawal that is classic signs of bullying and even in one case actually documented the bullying, and yet without fail they were all left asking the same question. What was there motivation.  While it was staring them right there in the face in pure black and white, the investigators completely missed the signs of the bullying that was common in almost every instance.

I looked into these cases for one simple reason. I wanted to know what was different between them and me. What was the difference that made a student go from contemplating removing their bullies from the face of the earth to actually doing it.

I came to a simple answer. A couple of well placed friends. A bit of luck. A couple of girls who wanted to talk. That is the difference between any victim of bullying and a school shooter or suicide.

That is the important message that all school officials need to take from this. Any victim of bullying in your school could tomorrow walk in with a gun. Failure to stamp out bullying means that this could happen here.

This is not a problem that is talked out. This is a problem that needs quick decisive and aggressive response. Bullies need to be cut off at the knees. They lose their sports, they lose their activities, they lose their free time. And if they do not get with the program in a very quick hurry they also lose the right to go to school. This is not a time for talk therapy. It is not a time to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Save that for the victim. The bully needs to be stepped on quickly and decisively and it needs to be done in such a way that the victims and their families know that their problem will not remain a problem any longer. The punishment of bullies can not remain hidden behind a cloud of secrecy.

We need to change how we deal with technical violations in criminal trials

There have been several court cases in the last couple years that are starting to make me question whether the courts are considering the implications of their actions when they make decisions.

I have seen over the last few years a few court cases getting thrown out in rather bizarre and realistically stupid circumstances.

One case recently involved the decision by the courts to not convict a drunk driver due to the fact that he was not offered service in the language of his choice quickly enough.

A second case involved an accused pedophile in N.S., who was not brought to trial quickly enough (case was brought to the attention of the police in 2000, he was charged in 2008 and acquitted in 2011) and a third case involving a drunk driving causing death charge that was thrown out because the driver was not given access to his lawyer on request.

I believe the courts need to start looking at different options when it comes to these technical violations by the police. For instance, in none of the cases above have we ever heard mention of any disciplinary action against the police officers involved in the case and in all cases, major criminal offences are going unpunished because of technicalities. I believe we need to readdress these situations and instead of treating these situations as get out of jail free cards they should instead be looked at with the potential of reducing actual jail time.

In addition, in any case where these technical violations affect the sentence at trial the court should be imposing a penalty on the officer, from a fine, to loss of rank or even loss of job depending on the severity of the issue and the frequency at which the specific officer is involved in situations where the technical rights of the accused are violated.

While right to a lawyer, right to a speedy trial and right to service in your own language are human rights designed to protect the rights of the accused, the victims in these cases also have the right to expect that the criminal involved is going to be punished to the fullest extent of the law and the victims are quite often seeing their rights violated because of these small technicalities. We need to move beyond the idea of letting technicalities become get out of jail free cards and instead use them to weight the sentencing after the true justice of finding guilt has been completed. Without holding these people and the police officers responsible for the violations responsible for their actions we do not have a justice system, only have a joke of a system that is used by people for their own purposes to walk away from serious crimes without punishment.

We cannot continue to allow this to happen

Talks after a meeting in the Miramichi last night are suggesting that those at the meeting were told by the health minister that there would be a loss of 36 hospital beds as well as the Trauma 3 status for the hospital.

This is getting beyond outrageous and starting to get to criminal negligence.

During the election all parties repeated over and over that the Cons had cut and/or tried to cut many rural hospitals during their last tenure and that there was little indication that they would do any different this time around.

During the election Alward repeatedly said “There will be no cuts to hospitals” He repeatedly promised that health care would be left alone.

The first budget the Finance minister released ordered (not requested, ordered) ALL departments to reduce their budgets by 2% this year and again next year.

You can not cut 2% out of either Health or Education without cutting frontline services and even likely closing doors.  While as of yet the Education department has avoided doing much in the way of closing schools, the health department has seen almost the entire value of the 2% cuts showing up in the front line services. From the drastic cuts being made to front line services, it appears to me anyway that these cuts are almost exclusively on the backs of the front line workers and much of that in the rural areas. This is unnacceptable. At no time should any cuts in health or education end up damaging the front lines.

Many reports list our province as among the most obese in Canada, our literacy scores are middle of the road at best. These are both serious reasons to not decrease funding. We may perhaps need to improve some programs so our health is not as serious an issue and the same to our education system to raise our literacy and math scores, but we should never be cutting front line services in two programs that are so vital to the population as these.

There is not likely sufficient room for a 2% cut in administration levels however there is likely room for efficiencies in the way various things are done and any and all cuts realistically need to be made through efficiencies not through layoffs and shutdowns.

All Political Parties in this province warned people that the Cons would attack health care again, We all warned that hospitals would be closed and services would be downgraded. And rather unfortunately, regardless of any of the lies that Alward told us, We are well on the way to being completely right and that is going to hurt us as a province and us as a people extremely badly. They may not be worse then the Liberals but they are also no better and there are other options. Now is the time to take these options into account.

This blog post because of it’s nature will touch on elements of both federal and provincial politics and as such will be posted to both my federal and provincial blogs.

Election Financing Rules

Election financing rules need to be changed so that not only the party that can attract the most “donors” can get their message out. The reason behind this is that not all political supporters are financially capable of donating to the party of their choice and as such the party which is represented by the poorer elements of the country will see less funding but may actually have a wider basis of support.

1. No private or corporate fundraising allowed.
2. Party exec and party leaders will be paid by the government as long as the party remains a registered party holding minimum annual general meetings
3. Operating funds for each party will be paid by the government.
4. Each party will be allocated a specific amount of funding during the election based on the number of candidates that are running for that party.

Proportional Representation
There are several options for proportional representation I am going to suggest one of them here though there are others.

1. Total number of parties as well as maximum number of independent candidates is totalled i.e: if there are 5 parties and one riding has 3 independent candidates then total is 8.
2. using this example each voter will rank their choices from 1 to 8 with top ranked (#1) getting 8 votes, #2 getting 7 and so on.
   If there is less then 8 candidates in one riding the same ranking system will still be used for consistency across the province.
3. total votes for each candidate will be added together. Candidate with most votes wins each riding.
4. Any ballot that does not rank all candidates in that riding will be discarded.

This particular method would increase proportional representation because a party could be the first choice of very few people but the second choice of many and, depending on how the votes are cast, could win the riding. The total candidate spread should using this method turn out a much more balanced representation.

Provincial/Federal Leaders (Premier/Prime Minister)

1. The Prime Minister and Premiers shall be chosen by a single country wide or province wide vote.
2. The same system used for MLA/MP voting will be used (ranking system)
3. All Candidates and deputies in this system will be considered to have earned a seat if they have attained a minimum of 5% of the vote.

Ministers/Cabinet Ministers

1. Ministers/Cabinet ministers will be split in a proportional way amongst the elected MLA/MP’s
2. proportional method will be such that the minister slots are split based on the proportional rank based on the entire vote across the province not including the Leader section.

Fixed Election Dates

All elections will happen at a fixed time. This date will be the third Monday of October with the first election sign being allowed on the first Monday of September.

1. Year 1: Federal
2. Year 2: Municipal
3. Year 3: Senate
4. Year 4: Provincial

There will be some overlap due to the fact that these dates will originally not fit within a normal election schedule and as such some adjustments to the existing methods will be required so that by the end of the second round of voting all groups are up for election at the appropriate time.

Media Coverage

Media will not be allowed to influence public opinion. To accomplish this the following will be required.

1. All media outlets will be required to solicit from each registered party their opinion on each position that any party takes if it is covered by the media.
2. There will be an exemption for online blogs that are written by party members or supporters as long as the blog writer clearly indicates his affiliation at the beginning and end of the blog
   This can be as simple as clearly identifying the blog as a party blog by name, or the writer as a supporter or party member, or even member of the executive of which ever party they support. Mainstream media will not have this exemption option.
3. All media coverage of each party will be from a positive perspective.

Additional Election Rule

1. Each party will be fully informed at all times of all financial information with regards to all government departments.
2. Election Act will be changed to make all election promises binding (due to the possibility of a minority government, meeting this requirement will only require that the bill be introduced, however it will be expected that a majority government will pass the bill)
3. All election advertising will be of a positive nature (no attack ads). All election advertising will focus on what individual party will do, not on what other party will not do.

This I believe is a solid start to improving our present government system. More changes are definitely possible beyond this.

Recent discussions on the pension review have led me to try to elaborate on my thoughts on how a proper pension should be set up.

Pension contributions should be split 50/50 between employer and employee and every employer should be required by law to pay into this plan.

A plan should follow a person for life. This plan should be set to be contributed into by each and every employer who this one individual works for from their very first job. The contribution should be such that if the person was to work that job from ages 20 to 65 the pension would pay out 100% wages till the persons death.

All pension plans as well should include full dental and medical coverage as a person of advanced years should not be worrying about these expenses.

Plans also should include a reduced rate option for those who choose to retire early and should include the option for employees to top up their plans themselves to allow for better benefits at the time they choose to retire.

This type of universal pension is what is needed now that it is becoming less and less common for the average person to work for a single company for long enough to earn a full pension.

I have been monitoring the issues between the D’arcy’s and Mayor Woodside and I think this really comes down to a couple of things.

The D’Arcy’s are wrong in their behaviour and forcing themselves to be thrown out of council will actually do more to hurt the anti-fracking cause then anything else that has happened so far. This is because they are attacking a person who is at least verbally agreeing with them.

However Woodside is wrong in his behaviour as well. The reason for this is that realistically what the D’Arcy’s are asking for is actually not a bad idea. The municipality has the ability to put a bylaw banning Hydro-fracking in place within city limits (and realistically I believe also within the area surrounding their water supply as well)

It is not about whether or not a new council can change the bylaw it is about standing up for your city and putting it on paper that it will not happen with this council and it also means that any council that repeals this bylaw is going to (usually) be seen doing it, giving the population of that city the opportunity to register their distaste of what is going on.

In all honesty I believe that the D’Arcy’s time would be better served working to force the provincial government to stop fracking rather then attack a person who is publicly stating their objection to fracking, while I do think Woodside needs to rethink his position on his stance regarding a bylaw.

Personal opinion is that both parties in this situation are wrong in their behaviour and both need to sit down and reevaluate how they are handling the situation and perhaps apologize to each other and the city as a whole for their behaviour in this instance.

The other cities in this province as well should look at putting in place a bylaw protecting their city and their water supply as well, perhaps going as far as to increase their borders to include their water supply if this is what is required to put proper protections in place.

There is a new breast cancer campaign and it is causing some serious controversy.

The principal at Quispamsis Elementary school is considering them “distracting”. My issue with this is simple. These are elementary children. It is the prime opportunity in their lives to get a serious message into their brains for the rest of their life. Breast Cancer can be beat but it needs to be checked for, treated and followed up on. If you are not aware of it, If you do not think on it, If you do not do it, you just might be one of the victims.

These are elementary children there is nothing wrong with using these bracelets to get their attention, and to get the message out, and their teachers and school staff are a great source of knowledge to help get this knowledge out to the students, and even by default back to the parents as well.

What is wrong though is to take these bracelets, proclaim them a bad thing and bury the issue in the closet. You are again by default teaching the children that breast cancer is something that is not discussed, that is not talked about, and it is a serious taboo. This is not the message that we need to be sending to our students.

We only improve our health and the health of our children if we are open and willing to talk about things like this that risk our health. We desperately need to change the way we look at these issues because health issues like this can not continue to be swept under the rug. We must give our children the tools to make their lives and health as good as we possibly can, and to do that we need to give them information, we need to talk to them, we can not any longer continue to make health issues a thing that is hidden in the closet and not talked about.

We are called a have not province, and really is it any wonder.

We have not got the old Number 5 Military supply base, the feds closed it.

We have not got any of our CN Rail shops repair yards, the feds closed them all.

We will not have our own Blood supply depot, the feds are closing that.

We will not have the Gun Registry, the feds are closing that.

This list can go on and on.

The feds decided to use Point Lepreau as an option to figure out how to rebuild nuclear plants at a cost some figure to be close to a million dollars a day in power required to be purchased, the fed’s have shown no inclination to pay back our “donation” to their education.

Two cities in New Brunswick are the only two cities served by RCMP in Canada that do not get a subsidy to pay for the difference between a local and the more expensive federal force (In Moncton this works to a tune of close to a million dollars a year) The fed’s wont even discuss giving this back.

And yes the provincial government does everything it can to help this process.

The provincial governments have allowed most of the mills in this province to close while the companies harvest the wood and take it out of province (or country) to be processed.

The Provincial Government has allowed natural gas to be pulled from our ground without the benefits of much in the way of royalties, minimal NB employees and let’s not forget processing is done outside of the NB borders.

We as the people of New Brunswick do need to step up to the plate. The federal and provincial governments are the reason we are a have not province, they try to shame us into allowing hazardous practices to be done in an unregulated manner, with little or no royalties paid because “we are a have not province” and so we have to try to get ahead. They fork over millions to large (politically connected) corporations “because we need the jobs here, we can’t have them leave” but we are a have not province.

We as a people need to tell the government in no uncertain terms that we will no longer be treated like a piece of dirt. For every job you take from us and give to another province, YOU WILL GIVE TWO BACK. We are no longer your source of paying off your friends in corporations and your loyal voters in another province. We are a viable province. OR WE WERE UNTIL YOU RIPPED US OFF.

BACK OFF THAT WHICH IS OURS IS OURS, THAT WHICH YOU HAVE TAKEN FROM US YOU WILL GIVE BACK.

In an article discussing a meeting regarding changes to the Regional Health Authorities  Égalité santé en français actually completely misinterprets the rights that are offered in the constitution regarding services for Anglophones and Francophones in this province.

The group which promotes equal services for Acadians in health care  suggest that bilingual health care systems violate the rights of Francophones. He also went on to indicate that Francophones had a right to a French health system the same as Anglophones had a right to an English health system while admitting that everyone was entitled to services in their own language within either health system.

There are two problems here. First off is that the constitution only actually guarantees Duality of Service in the Education department and not specifically in any other department, which means that essentially the “right” to a French health authority does not in all actuality exist. Secondly because both health authorities are actually obligated to provide services in the language of choice of the patient, (and I can personally attest that the French system does this well, at least where I live) then the only people served by this separation of health authorities is the staff and administration as the patients should be getting the same level of care in either case.

I would instead suggest that there is a better option available. This option would take into account the necessity of protecting the rights of the Francophones and Anglophones based on the design of the elected and appointed portion of the boards.

While we are presently looking at reducing the number of representatives on the board to 15 per board I would suggest we can change this by moving to a single health authority and therefore a single board.

I would recommend 8 appointed representatives of which 4 would be Francophone and 4 Anglophones to be chosen in a manner such that they were spaced around the province. The elected portion would be split into districts similar to the 8 previous districts and would be voted on such that one Francophone and one Anglophone representative where chosen per district.

This is my recommendation to improve the current health act. By consolidating it to one health authority there would be the ability to reduce the size of the administration (this is a major requirement). All communications to hospital staff could easily be done in the language of the staff members choice.

For some reason the Cons seem to like to attack students.  While saying that the new parental contribution law will not affect that many students Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Martine Coulombe also says that it will save close to 1.6 million. Now using the estimate of 37 thousand debt when a student leaves school and assuming a 4 year course we are talking 9 250 per year now lets do that basic math in the extreme if parental contribution was to be 100% 1.6 million would actually affect approx. 173 students now with about 22450 post secondary students that would be almost 1% of the student population affected by this. Now change that to the fact that in all likelyhood most of these students would be only looking to their parents for 10% and that instead makes it closer to 10% of our student population that is affected by this decision.

Now it is unrealistic to expect that many parents would be forced to pay more then 10% of their child’s tuition but that is a significant amount in all reality. I, myself was caught in this trap when I was younger. My parents were expected to make a contribution to my post secondary education and it was not mathematically possible. They did not actually have the disposable income to actually put towards my education and due to this any idea of attempting post secondary education was disposed of before I even entered high school. Being faced with this proposition caused me to reduce the amount of effort I put into my school work in high school and therefore caused me to miss out on opportunities that if I were better prepared might have been available for me.

This is the problem. This announcement is not only affecting the students in university this year, it also affects those students who are looking at deciding which high school courses they are choosing as they prepare for graduating from high school. Students entering grade 9 are going to have to look at this message and look at their parent’s income and they are going to have to base their high school courses on the likelyhood of their parent’s being required and/or being able and/or being willing to make the necessary parental contribution. Students who make the assessment that their parents either can not or will not make this contribution will have to choose courses that will allow them to succeed after high school without a university degree instead of preparing themselves for a post secondary education and a preferred feild of employment.

This government is not only affecting those students in school this year but is also affecting those looking at the next four years of high school. Even if this program is removed after one year it is going to negatively affect 5 years of students because this decision is going to force students to make decisions that they should not be forced to make at this age.

We as a province needs to do better and this stance by the province is absolutely unacceptable. The Cons need to take a good solid look in the mirror and see if they are comfortable with the person looking back at them, because I know that if it was me I would be incredibly embarrassed at what I was doing to they young people in this province.