I am writing to express the strong support of the Surrey Board of Trade for Paula Carlson’s concerns over the under-funding of education in Surrey, as she wrote in her Feb. 25 opinion piece.
This is a particularly poignant time with the selection of Christy Clark as premier, who is professing a family-first philosophy.
The business community, through the Surrey Board of Trade, has been seeking to bring greater profile to the problem since the October 2010 launch of Education Today/Productivity Tomorrow, the education funding shortfall awareness campaign prepared by the Surrey Board of Trade jointly, with School District #36, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Simon Fraser University, and the City of Surrey. This event was very well covered at the time, by radio television and print media.
For too many years now, the Surrey Board of Trade has been advocating for these specific concerns when addressing the many standing committees of finance of the B.C. government (in preparation of their budgets).
We have also expressed these funding concerns on numerous occasions to members of the legislature, and we raised this once more directly with many of the senior officials of the ministry of education, when we visited them in Victoria this past spring.
The situation continues to deteriorate and even remedial action today would have a lengthy timeline to become effective.
The status quo will not do, being akin to standing still on a down escalator.
It is critical that the coalition continues to work to keep this issue before the legislators, as well as the public.
There is more information on Education Today/Productivity Tomorrow, on our website at www.
businessinsurrey.com.
We urge everyone, every business owner, every citizen, to get informed and get involved.
Our future depends on it.
Nigel Watkinson, president
Surrey Board of Trade