It’s nice to see that Education Minister Joan Burke hasn’t lost her edge — she’s just as abrasive now as she was when she was arguing that her direct interference in the selection of a new president for Memorial University was some kind of divine right of cabinet ministers.
This time, the issue is the safety of schoolchildren — and in an interview with the CBC’s Ted Blades on Wednesday, the minister of education was not pulling any punches.
To put it simply, Burke made it plain that the provincial government has no intention of joining the City of St. John’s in paying for school crossing guards.
Every municipality in the province isn’t clamouring for paid school crossing guards, Burke told Blades.
True enough — but every municipality doesn’t have schools where elementary schoolchildren cross four lanes of traffic every day, either.
Most municipalities would scratch their heads about the whole concept: especially in rural parts of the province, whole schools see students arrive on buses or in private vehicles, because walking to school simply isn’t an option.
Then, Burke offered up a delightful bit of callous logic: her department is responsible for the safety of schoolchildren when they are on school buses and once they set foot on school property.
The implication?
At any other time, from a safety point of view, children are on their own.
Burke is technically right on that point — but her position sounded more like someone weighing potential legal liabilities than it did someone actually considering the best way to ensure the safety of children.
But there was more.
Burke then hung her hat on the argument that there must be other models that would work for protecting schoolchildren, suggesting that schools and school councils look at ways to provide the service without having paid crossing guards.
Read between the lines and the implication was clear: “other models” means depending on volunteer guards to fill the need.
What on Earth would this province do without the volunteers — from firefighters on down — who do so much valuable work for free? Strange: Burke isn’t suggesting that there are “other models” for filling cabinet posts — even though the reduction of just one minister’s position in the provincial cabinet would fully pay for the St. John’s crossing guard program in perpetuity.
Dangerous road crossings to schools in this province are, for the most part, a strictly urban affair, a risk limited to St. John’s, Mount Pearl and perhaps Corner Brook.
It’s all well and good for the minister of education to wash government’s hands of any legal responsibility, but it would be a completely different story if a child is injured — or worse — because the City of St. John’s finds it can’t carry the financial weight of the crossing guards program alone.
Individual towns and cities are not expected to pay for school bus drivers....or look for "volunteer" school bus drivers - how are crossing guards different? The bottom line is to get children to school safely - either by bus or on foot.