Time for Hudak to go.

When Tim Hudak became the leader of the Ontario PC's in 2009, I told myself he wasn't my first choice, but I'd give him a chance. After the By-elections earlier in the week, his chance is up.

Dalton McGuinty has done everything possible the last eight years to get defeated come time to vote, problem is, Hudak is too nice of a guy to go toe to toe with McGuinty. The Conservatives need a pit bull type of leader to combat McGuinty on the issues. Hudak has proven over the last 3 years he's not that type of leader.

The next question would be who should replace him? There isn't a whole lot out there from the conservative side provincially that could fill that role. Frank Klees or Christine Elliot come to mind. Although the guy that I believe could be the guy to defeat Dalton is John Baird, who I doubt would leave the Federal Conservatives to come back to Queens Park to clean up the mess that Dalton has left the province with.

Come to think of it, I'm sick of all three of the big parties in Ontario. I'm seriously ready to give my vote to another party next time around. Dalton is incompetent, Hudak is another John Tory and Andrea Horwath hasn't met a union she hasn't liked. Time to find a party that believes in smaller government and better fiscal policies, The Reform Party of Ontario looked good three years ago, but they never have seemed to get off the ground only running 4 candidates last October. I'm a Libertarian at heart and have started to really look into their policies. I really like their plan for small government and less taxes, if they could ever attract the true conservatives away from the PC's they could really be a party to watch out for.

As for Dalton's newest mess with the teachers. I agree with him that it's time to scale back on the public sector, the way he's gone ahead with it has been lousy. It's time for Premier Dad to realize that  he can't afford all day Kindergarten and that it should be scrapped. While he's at it he should really look at defunding the Catholic School Boards, if they want to stay in operation then it's time for them to be like the rest of the private/charter schools in the province.

And while we're on this cutting topic, Dalton should really look into selling off all the road side travel plaza's along the 400 series highways, they could make a small fortune off of them when they sell them off. They should also privatize the LCBO open up the market to some competition, every other province seems to do well selling alcohol that way.

RIP Mt Elgin Mets

The worst kept secret around the Mount was confirmed on the Tri-County Fastball League's website this week, The Mets have left Mt Elgin for Tillsonburg, there hasnt been an anouncement if they will stay the Mets or change to the Bulldogs or rename it a completely different name.
The Mets lasted 6 years in the Mount and brought Fastball fans in the village their first taste of Fastball action since the Mounties Left in 2000. It wasn't always pretty, most nights the Mets took it on the chin, but they always battled hard.
Their last season in the Mount will always be remembered for their first playoff series win when they defeated the Ingersoll Masters in 4 games, a surprising feat considering they lost all 22 regular season tilts, The Mets most succesful regular season was 2007 when they went 6-22, which was also the season I spent half the season as the First base coach and also suited up for 3 games in Goderich for a tournament. As for how all the politics started with the move out of town some of the team thought that Ryan Fewster was too hard on the guys during the year, well guys I hate to break it to you but this is competitive ball coaches and vetrans will be hard on guys when they dont play well. I know, I lived thru some of Bobby Gillow's post game talks when I played in Ayr, if we played like crap Bobby would tell you, we had a game in Burgessville in 09 where we got hammered 14-4 and played like crap doing it and Bobby laid into the whole team, guess what? next game we took his speech of questioning our pride in our play and won our next game. Good luck in Tillsonburg, with the lack of leadership running that team I can't see them winning a whole lot of games.
To the Mets, thanks for the memories, even though there were more low lights than wins along the way, and maybe someday Fastball will make it's way back to the Mount, but just one suggestion. Can we name the team the Mounties please?

Election Day

Today's the day to finally put the Liberals out to pass and give Stephen Harper his much deserved Majority Government that Harper has been asking for. I want to remind Canadians when you go to cast your ballot think long and hard about where you place your ballot. What kind of Canada do you want? Do you want a Canada run by Jack Layton and the loony left where government handouts rule the day or do you want a Canada run by Stephen Harper and his firm hand on the economy and let him stay the course as Canada continues the recovery. If you are seriously are looking at Jack Layton I ask you to seriously look at your local NDP canidate if they were to win and become the governing party do they have the competence to do a job as a Cabinet Minister? If you look honestly at the NDP roster of Candidates how many of them would you trust running the show? it's easy to play armchair quarterback when you never have had to hold power and actually make the tough decisions? makes one just a tad nervous.
Now get out and vote! The future of your country depends on it!

Interesting news from the Ingersoll School closings...

Looks like the Thames Valley School Board didn't quite figure it out when they were doing there calculations on enrollment when they went thru the Ingersoll ARC. First off the new school in North Ingersoll won't be ready in time for the first day in September, the board is blaming the weather and that pesky little Ontario Municipal Board hearing that Ingersoll resident Steve Caskey lanched and then later dropped, delaying it just long enough so it won't be ready till January 2012. The other interesting gaffe that has recently come out is that when it was talked about in the ARC every school in Ingersoll would have all day every day kindergarten, well not so fast my friend turns out that Harris Heights and Princess Ann will be offering the programs and the North Ingersoll school will not, enrollment numbers for the Kindergarten has exceeded the numbers that the Board had projected and seems now there won't be enough space to offer it. The other problem is there is nothing they can do to fix the problem untill after this school year is over, TVDSB can't put a portable up with it being a new school til after the first year. As much as the board likes to think that their projections are right maybe it's time for the people that come up with the numbers to be held accountable for what they say when it comes to the numbers they are projecting, because there is nothing worse than opening a new school only to find out the building will not beable to hold the school population. I know it'll turn out to be a painful lesson for them now but in the end they could be a little more accurate for next time.

Ingersoll Boundry Meeting

There is one piece of news coming out of Ingersoll this week, they are holding a meeting Monday Nov 15th at VMS to discuss the boundary lines for the schools once the closures kick in. For the most part I think the boundary lines they have now are fine, with the exception of some of the old VMS area where it's closer for these kids to go to Harris Heights than it would be for them to go to Princess Anne. If you want to attend just to hear what they have to say or to raise some questions the meeting will take place at VMS at 7pm

Things are about to get mighty Interesting....

Looks like the Norwich ARC is ready for a fight after they recommended keeping all 3 Norwich area elementary schools open. The Board wants to close the 3 and move them into the now defunct high school. Should make for a awful interesting meeting when they vote to close, hate to say it but the non Oxford Trustee's will most likely go along with what the board wants to do because it's not in their back yards so it's not their problems, Oxford Trustee Graham Hart who loves to go along with what the board says and will probably yet again go with what his constituents want and will probably vote to close the schools and I would imagine regardless of what Bill Mckinnon does it wont matter the Board will have gone against yet another ARC's recomendations and vote to close more schools in Norwich Township.
When the dust has settled and the outcome goes the way I think it's going to unfortunately go will someone then please tell me why the ARC process is relevant when good people volunteer their time to be on these committee's and put forth alot of hard work to come up with the recomendations that they do only to have the School Boards which supposedly value thier opinions go totally against what the ARC recomends. Problem is the whole ARC reeks of total BS and a waste of taxpayers time and money. It's time someone at the Ministry of Education figure that much out and either stop this way of deciding on School closures, or go back to the way it was before almagamation and eliminate these super boards that seem to favor urban a heck of alot more than rural areas.
After the release of Ontario's new Progress reports I think it's safe to say that my estimation last year when they announced to do away with fall report cards isn't to far off. They fail to really tell you the whole story and from Parents I have talked to seem awfully confusing. The comments sections have been pretty much limited to canned messages that don't tell you anything important that you really know. Here is a better idea, lets just eliminate the early progress reports and just go to a parent-teacher conferences systems. The Teachers would be able to give you a much better picture of the areas of improvement that a student could use over anything in a progress report. Yet again Dalton another dumb idea and even more reason why the voters of Ontario should put you on the unemployment line come next October.

Same ol Same ol

After Monday nights municipal elections it looks like The Thames Valley Board will look like it did before the election with the exception of one. Bill McKinnon replaces James Stewart in Oxford. Stewart didn't run figuring after the debacle of the Norwich High School closing he wasn't going to have a shot at winning. Unfortunately the other Oxford Trustee Graham Hart who also voted to close the High School in Norwich and also voted to close schools in Woodstock, Ingersoll, Sweaburg and Beachville, got reelected. Congrats voters in Oxford you have elected two lap dog trustees that will do anything the big wigs in London want them to do, even worse they use the tagline it's to better your childrens education.
The only real problem is that since almalgamation in 98 came along the big cities have bullied their way to get new schools and fancy upgrades at the expense of the rural areas all the while having trustees bullies into voting it in.
It's time some of these rural voters wake up before it's to late. With Hart and McKinnon you have voted in two yes men, not anywhere on their campaign info did they state that they would give the parents of Oxford a bigger voice, they did not say that they would be more accountable to the people they represent. Both of them painted rosy pictures of education and with McKinnon's campaign leaflet he imagined a pipe dream, In case you haven't noticed Bill, Auto Jobs are not coming back to Ingersoll and most of the new jobs that do come to Ingersoll or anywhere else in Oxford sure as hell won't be union like all your auto buddies that elected you to your seat and in the end the pipe dream that Thames Valley would love all the parents to think.

As for the newest ARC that is being done in Norwich. I think we all know how it's going to work out, the recently closed high school was deemed surplus which the board says they are trying to sell to the township of Norwich, meanwhile they keep their fingers crossed that Norwich Township mayor Donald Doan tells the board to fly a kite(which he should), then they can pull the once deemed surplused building off the market close every school in the township with the exception of East Oxford and house all the students from the schools in the old high school. The nice thing about the committee on the newest Norwich Arc has come prepared and I get the feeling that they are not about to play nice with the board on this one, Here's hoping they win out or someone other than the township buys the old highschool to put a little more egg on the boards face.

There is a way to fix all of this mess regarding closing schools unfortunately most trustees dont have the balls to do it. First off quite blaming the province, yes we know Dalton's liberals dont know their heads from their asses so blaming them wont get you anywhere. All I want is a trustee to stand up and say do we really need as much wastefull spending as there is. The first cut I would make would be the $500 that every parent council gets, they have enough of their own money they blow needlessly without another 500 to waste. Next step call every senior management type into to my office and have them explain what their job duties intail, seems to me that there is a awful lot of these type that end up making over $100 000 a year and really cant justify to many why they have their jobs. Next up have every board employee take a wage freeze, and each trustee take a decrease, I know they have a important job but the example they would show by taking a wage decrease would be applauded by the tax payer.

I know this is just my thoughts on the Thames Valley Board but these ideas could be implemented throughout the province when it come to how School Boards should be run and maybe 4 years from now some trustee that wants someone's vote will wake up and see the light before it's to late.

Update.....

I haven't been on here in a dogs age. I did drop out of the trustee's race for this year, I do plan on running in 4 years for trustee, I'll use the next 4 years to gain more name recognition across Oxford County, I also plan on working with the parent council in my childrens school as they move through the new additions and merging of schools next September. Our Education system in Ontario needs ALOT of work and I believe that the Parents deserve to have their voice heard on their childrens education. I may have given up my right to represent the people of Oxford County this time around but I promise to be much more prepared to represent the voters in Oxford at the board table and make sure their voice is heard at the board level, something that seems to have been lost on the current crop of Trustees.

An Update

I know it's been forever and a day since I've last posted on this blog but I have been doing some work on my other blog.
As most of you that followed this blog last year will know that I covered the Norwich Jr C Merchants during their playoff run, well never fear I am still covering their playoff run this year just on a different blog. The Blog is called the Merchant Report and can be found at http://themerchantreport.blogspot.com.

As for news on the Ingersoll ARC front, The TVDSB trustees voted 12-o in favor of the Boards recommendations to go ahead and close 4 schools and build a brand new one in North Ingersoll, which now has been confirmed to be at Garnett Elliot Park. It's really no big surprise that the trustees vote turned out to be the way it did. I am however surprised at how easy the supporters of the schools closing caved and went along with the board proposals as quick as they did. I still have my worries that meddling parent groups are going to totally screw up the new transition groups when these school populations have to merge. It will be interesting to see how the Parent Group's merge and how the ego's of some of the leaders get in the way of the betterment of their childrens schools.

As for the proposed new school they will be lucky to get everything approved in time as some of the residents of the Garnett Elliot Park area are protesting the site and are hoping the town of Ingersoll doesn't grant the zoning change. The protesting residents have their point in there message and I whole heartedly support them. As for the some Parent Group members that are saying these protesters should drop their concerns and support the board I say SHUT UP, You've had your say already in the ARC proposals, leave the protesters alone already.

A busy week upcoming.

This week will be a great week to get some vital input from parents in the area as to what they think are big issues in education and what they would like to see from the board level. Parents input will be the key, It gives me a great indication of the direction they want to see the board go. The next few years are going to be big for the Thames Valley board, there is still a glutton of ARC's on the horizon and with the province's money issues it'll make for alot of agonizing decisions on what to do with school closings and just what they do with getting the funding for building new facilities.
I am also interested to hear what parents think of the boards technology plan where they plan to make wireless schools a key goal. I think it is a great idea and opens up the idea of even greater technology in the classroom. Just think it's only been in the last few years that Smart boards came on the scene and it makes me think that the possibilities are endless. At the last board meeting outgoing trustee James Stewart brought up a question asking how far along was the possibilities of textbooks on computers, it would be a great idea, my only concern would be the cost of implementing the idea. Let's embrace the new technologies that are available to enhance the education of our students.