![Students at Cedar Grove Elementary had some informed and intriguing questions for candidates who visited their school during the lead-up to election day. Grade 6 and 7 students at the Gibsons school studied the electoral process in class and got familiar with party platforms and major community issues before inviting candidates to come speak. “One student asked Kim Darwin [of the Green Party] how come she was using plastic signs if she was representing a party that was all about the environment,” said Cedar Grove principal Barry Krangle. “Kim agreed and confessed she felt bad using plastic, ‘But you know what,’ she challenged the student, ‘after this election, I’m going to collect all the signs and write re in front of elect and recycle all of them for the next election.’” Krangle said Liberal candidate Mathew Wilson complimented the students on their interest and involvement in the election and challenged them to always listen to more than one side of a story. NDP incumbent Nicholas Simons said some of the best questions he heard during the campaign “about Site C, seniors care, ferries and even #IamLinda” came from the young students. Cedar Grove students will join students from all over B.C. and vote online on May 9 as part of the Student Vote Day in partnership with Elections BC.](https://www.vmcdn.ca/f/files/glaciermedia/import/lmp-all/1021330-n-students-darwin.jpg;w=960;h=640;bgcolor=000000)
Local candidates did their best to make the grade at an all-candidates meeting hosted by School District No. 46, the Sunshine Coast Teachers’ Association and CUPE 801 on May 1.
About 100 people came to the meeting at Elphinstone Secondary School. Dedicated to education issues, it was the last all-candidates meeting to be held on the Coast before the May 9 provincial election.
After being encouraged to make “every effort to answer the question as posed,” instead of falling back on party platforms, moderator Denis Fafard asked a question to gauge where candidates stood on the forum’s central topic: “What is your vision for B.C. public education and how can your party make it happen?”
Incumbent Nicholas Simons said he saw public education as a place where all children, regardless of their backgrounds, have equal footing.
“It’s where we learn about the world, we learn about each other and we learn about society and how to get along with one another. And we need to have conditions in which that learning can happen,” Simons said.
He said increasing funding for public education was key for the NDP, taking aim at the Liberal government for underfunding and a heavily strained relationship with teachers.
“I have a bit of an anger at the last 16 years. A bit of a resentment at the fact that we have a lost generation of children. They have succeeded despite government action,” Simons said.
Liberal candidate Mathew Wilson said he preferred to keep his sights set on the future, rather than the past.
“There is a real collective will to move forward. I don’t think anybody wants to continue to look back and fight the battles of the past, and certainly I wasn’t there and I didn’t get involved,” Wilson said. “How do we move forward, collectively, together?”
He encouraged parents, educators and government to come together to hammer out a new vision for education because “the economy is changing, the global landscape is changing and we need to ensure we educate our children in a way that they can be competitive going out into the world.”
Green Kim Darwin said education was “one of the key focal points” of the Greens’ platform.
She said the Greens’ vision is “to have an education system so well supported that our kids have all the knowledge and the skills that they require throughout their whole lives.”
Darwin also promised more money for public education, reading straight from her party’s platform to say, “we’ll be increasing funding for public schools beginning in the 2017 school year to $220 million, rising to $1.46 billion in the years 2020 and 2021. This is in addition to the $330 million that we’ve mandated due to the court case.”
“BC Greens are proposing to fund [education] 33 times more than the Liberals and the NDP,” Darwin said.
Throughout the forum Simons took shots at Wilson for his government’s track record with teachers and school closures across the province. Wilson responded, saying the Liberal government had committed $54 million “to ensure that we mitigate school closures,” and that the Liberals are seeking long-term contracts with teachers, “so that there’s certainty in the school system.”
Darwin held tightly to her party’s platform throughout the debate, at times reading directly from her notes and repeating her answers.
“I’m going to sound like a broken record,” she said.
At the end of the meeting, candidates were given two minutes and one last opportunity to sway voters before ballots are cast on May 9.
Wilson used his time to stress that “education really is critically important,” and that children have to be “set up for success in the global economy that’s becoming more and more competitive and more difficult to succeed in.”
Darwin encouraged people to check out the Greens’ platform that has a “comprehensive strategy to grow the economy by investing in education,” and she pitched her party as the best to work with everyone going forward.
Simons used his final words to take a parting shot at the Liberals. Gesturing to Wilson, he said, “Nothing makes me more scared than having these people, nothing personal, the Liberals, re-elected for another term.”
