Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press August 21, 2023
Education
Like Twinkies and cockroaches, zombie ideologies seem to defy the laws of expiration dates, let alone logic, compassion and community. And unfortunately, public education is rife with them.
As the old adage goes, budgets are not only a financial blueprint for a government’s plan but also demonstrate their choices and values.
Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press May 1, 2023
Although recent media coverage of our healthcare and education problems here in Manitoba has been very good and quite wide-ranging, one particularly important piece of the puzzle has been consistently missing. That missing piece is the social determinants of health.
There is strong scientific evidence, going back decades and covering most countries in the world, that socio-economic factors play a particularly important role in determining people’s health and level of educational attainment.
Previously published in the Brandon Sun May 9, 2023
Five schools for the price of four - this is the deal the Pallister government got when it abandoned the plan to build schools through a Public-Private-Partnership (P3) model and used the usual public model instead. The government built five schools for the same cost using the regular process. In addition to being more expensive, P3s have been criticized for excluding local contractors, lack of transparency and loss of public control over taxpayer-funded assets.
The Convoy that took over Ottawa for a month last year just met outside Winnipeg this past weekend. While the right to protest is an essential part of our democracy, it is important to look critically at this movement that has harboured white supremacist, libertarian and in some cases even fascist beliefs. These ideas have originated most recently in the USA, but have a long and odious history elsewhere in the world.
A version of this article was published in the Winnipeg Free Press January 11, 2022
This winter 2023 edition of Our Schools, Our Selves looks at the role of the school in the midst of the culture wars and the current climate of disinformation.
Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press Dec 5, 2022
First published in the Winnipeg Free Press Nov 14, 2022