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Thursday, June 2, 2011 The Chilliwack Progress
News
Local Liberal election team seen as a model for party’s re-building Robert Freeman The Progress The Liberal Party of Canada is starting to rebuild after the drubbing it took in the last federal election – and apparently using its ChilliwackFraser Canyon riding association as a model. Top party brass will meet with 36 B.C. riding presidents, candidates, campaign managers and official agents during a three-day meeting of the BC Federal Liberal Council
at the Harrison Hot Springs Resort starting Friday. “During a difficult election, the team in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon put together a cohesive, well-run campaign,” Craig Munroe, president of the party’s B.C. branch, said in a news release announcing the council meeting. “Their website, fundraising, social media, teleforum, voter ID and advertising performances caught the attention of several in the party at the national and provincial offices,”
he said. Diane Janzen, the Liberal candidate in Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon, was one of only 22 across the nation who gained votes over the party’s performance in the 2008 election, he said. While Liberals lost an average of 7.3 per cent in riding voting results compared to 2008, Munroe said the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon Liberals “bucked the trend by gaining 2.3 per cent.” “In fact, (Janzen’s) campaign was
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the ninth most-improved out of 308 ridings,” he said. Jeremy Sibley, president of the Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon association, could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but in the release said that he was “proud of the work” done by Janzen and the local campaign team. “The riding was successful in swimming upstream,” he said. “While we would have liked to have seen a different outcome, we are happy to have more support today than in
HIRING from p3 Last year micromanagement was cited as a fault by the Ministry of Education in its 97-page audit report on the failings of the Vancouver school board. In that report, it was recommended trustees limit consultation with teachers, parents and students, and focus more on increasing school district revenue. “The recommendations that came out of that report was scary stuff,” said McMath. “I would be hesitant of any board of trustees to be setting themselves up to possibly being attacked like that. “The best situation for the board of trustees is to have confidence in their superintendent and their administrative staff to be able to make those daily decisions,” said McMath. Policy 300 is currently sitting with the district’s policy planning committee for review.
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the past.” Janzen said in the release that she believes the council meeting here is “an encouraging sign” the party is recognizing the importance of “rural/suburban ridings like Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon as a vital building-block of its future in Western Canada.” The president of the federal Liberal Party, Alfred Apps, is scheduled to attend the meeting in Harrison Hot Springs.
Critical of the BC Public School Employers Association (BCPSEA) for “stalling” the BCTF is seeking improvements to wages, benefits and working conditions, including class size and composition, a reduction in case loads, more class preparation time and improved learning specialist ratios. With the pressure of a strike vote, “we’re really just looking at making the public and negotiating teams understand that we do have serious issues and we need to be listened to,” said Midzain. “We’re standing up for teachers because when we do, we’re also standing up for students.” However, BCPSEA disagrees that job action is necessary to spur talks as 15 bargaining meetings have been scheduled. “It’s disappointing to have talk of a strike and job action when bargaining, per se, hasn’t really taken hold, and you have to question is this more of a positioning exercise and political exercise than a bargaining one,” said Hugh Finlayson, CEO of the employers’ association. Finlayson said it’s possible a contract resolution could be reached by the end of June but only if both sides “put their attention to bargaining.” The current contract, which was negotiated in 2006, expires on June 30. ~with files from Diane Strandberg kbartel@theprogress.com
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