Editor:
Re: I think we can do better for Surrey: Clark, April 22.
I am left overwhelmed at the verbal skill of Premier Christy Clark.
What an amazing woman with words: “We’re trying to do our best to keep up”; and, “We can do it better (for Surrey).”
You better believe the government could do better. Far, far better.
There are 2,100 students enrolled in Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary, hundreds more than there is room for. Earl Marriott Secondary, where my kids graduated, is similarly overcrowded. At both schools, students and teachers are on shifts. Sounds like Kwantlen Park Secondary is in the same disastrous situation.
And then there are the elementary schools, also overcrowded.
And, by the way, those millions of dollars wasted on portables for our kids were supposed to pay for teachers to teach our kids.
Looks to me like after the NDP got booted out in 2001, no more new schools got built in Surrey except the ones the NDP government built or got started. Is that “trying our best”? Really?
If that is indeed the best this government is capable of, the time has come for another government to get the boot.
Bill Piket, White Rock
• • •
It’s great to hear our premier say “I think we can do better for Surrey”; the provincial government has treated Surrey badly for decades.
Our need for new K-12 schools has long been ignored, and so has our city’s need for more post-secondary seats, for more transit, for more hospital beds, for more police.
In each of these areas – which are vital if “the future” is going to live here – Surrey and the rest of our south Fraser region has gotten much less provincial funding per resident that those services get in the rest of B.C.
For instance, for years Kwantlen University has been funded for only half the number of students per resident of its region that the other B.C. regional colleges and universities get; for trades training it’s gotten only a third; for English Language Training, only a fifth. Provincial support for those other necessary areas isn’t much better.
So Premier Christy Clark is right to think that she could do better for Surrey; let’s hope she puts her thoughts into actions.
Geoff Dean, Surrey