AT-LARGE SENATE DEBATE-Atlas Tribune

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Hey spamage. Thanks for hosting this little shindig.

My goal isn’t about the other senators or my own agenda—quite simply, it’s about the voters. You elect senators with the expectation that they will be active, hardworking, transparent, approachable, and honest. Since the day I started serving as a senator last September, I’ve tried to embody these qualities. I always make it clear where I stand (and why I stand there), I often bring issues to my office for further discussion with the country at large, I’m receptive to PMs, and I’m usually pretty active. I know that’s not setting the bar extraordinarily high, but if candidates can’t even promise these senatorial bona fides without some degree of reliability, well… they’ve got no business being senators. You know me already—I pass this test. Indeed, I’m happy that I seem to yield decent approval numbers from all sides of the spectrum. So with that in mind, first and foremost, it’s my goal to continue serving the voters in much the same way as I have for the last seven or eight months.

In terms of legislative priorities, I’d really like to continue working on mental health issues. More resources should be available, and we ought to do what we can to remove the stigma associated with mental health. We made some strides when I introduced the Firearms and Mental Health Act, but I’d like to renew the discourse to see what else can be done.

I also regret that I haven’t made urban issues more of a priority. I think investments in transit are important, but, more broadly, we need to encourage infill development in our city cores. I don’t have a detailed agenda (I know how quickly the minutia of a proposal can change), but walkable and compact communities can help eliminate a lot of the economic and social problems facing Atlasians. I’d like to re-introduce urban issues to the senate floor.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Thanks for the question.

“Where I stand” on education is pretty straightforward: I stand on the side of Atlasian students, and I believe our governments can do more to improve the quality of our schools. I’m sure my fellow candidates believe the same, but where we may disagree is how to actually enact these improvements. In all honesty, I actually think the federal government has accomplished a lot on this front. For example, I was happy to play a very large role crafting the Atlasian Institute of Teachers Act back in December. Basically, the AIT is a self-funded organization meant to ensure that teachers meet basic professional standards—do they know the course content? Do they know how to solve inter-student conflicts? The recently passed Gaining Excellent Teachers Act will also reward the best teachers for their excellence in the classroom. In sum, we’ve already passed a solid framework for improvements in education at the federal level. That’s why I believe it would be more appropriate for the regions to take up this issue and make the necessary improvements. For one, I amended the AIT Act to ensure that the regions would have an integral role setting their own educational standards (so, from the beginning, it was recognized that they are the real executors of education policy), and, secondly, the regions are just that much closer to the issue—they know where work needs to be done and where things seem to be working.

I think one thing the regions need to be willing to do a bit more of is to challenge the teachers’ unions on certain issues. Keep in mind that I’m actually pretty “pro-union,” but we’ve given a lot to teachers in terms of benefits and good pay—the unions need to be willing to give a little in return and let go of those teachers who have proven unsuccessful. The AIT and the GET Act help make sure that quality teachers will grace our schools—I don’t want that work undone.

So there’s the issue of teacher quality out of the way. I have less to say on the general quality of a school, but I think it’s also an important issue for the regions to address. One thing to consider might be the implementation of magnet programs at struggling schools—arts or business or technology programs could really revitalize those institutions. I’m also in favour of increased school choice, provided that local students are given priority to their local schools. I know the going argument is that no one will choose to go to the crappy schools, so the crappy schools will continue to decline, but I actually believe that these schools could benefit from smaller class sizes and actually use periods of low enrollment to rebuild. Again, though… different solutions might work better for different regions.

Again—we’ve already made progress federally. I don’t want to overstep our bounds, so let’s leave the issue to the regions where they can deal with education best. As long as everyone puts the students first, I'm optimistic.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I don't know if this is how the format of the debate is supposed to work, so by all means call me out, but are we talking affirmative action in the form of college acceptances? If we are, I'm going to speak against it. In a country where we're trying to make all our public schools great, I reject the idea that income is a barrier to good public education. That's what we'd imply by discriminating on the basis of income here: that poor people need special help getting into university because they're dumber than rich people. I believe the principle of this affirmative action would work against the principles behind our improvements to Atlasian public schools.

I think the "affirmative action" should come in the form of more bursaries and interest-free government loans (maybe I'm mischaracterizing things and this is what y'all were talking about in the first place), like the OSAP system in Ontario. I'd also caution that there are a lot of scholarships and bursaries already out there for students who need them and are willing to take the initiative to apply for them. My cousin actually managed to cover the entire costs of his undergraduate degree with money from bursaries. I know this scenario is rare, but all I'm saying we should do is make sure students are aware of some of these opportunities. It's too often that they go unharnessed because students, quite simply, don't realize that they are there.