Congratulations to Gary Mason for a fine piece in today's Globe, correctly asserting that the elected government of British Columbia rather than the B.C. Teachers' Federation should run the province's education system. The union and the government are currently in a...
Results for "Rodney clifton"
How Schools Fail Kids by Not Failing Them
On December 4, 2010 Michael Zwaagstra delivered his key points as to why public schools are failing to properly prepare today’s students for the real world to the attendees of the Society for Quality Education‘s (SQE) annual general meeting in downtown Toronto, mostly because, he argues, that schools refuse to fail students.
Grades Should Reflect Achievement: Part 8 in an ongoing excerpt series on education from the Frontier Centre
In an attempt to get away from “unfair” grading, too many teachers are now forced to engage in complex calculations that are no improvement on more straightforward marking.
Rote Learning And Practice Are Important: Part 7 in an ongoing excerpt series on education from the Frontier Centre
Music students need to practice scales and continually repeat songs until they play them correctly—so why do many teachers think rote learning has no place in the classroom?
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Our Health Ministers Need to Take a Lesson from Hockey Coaches
Those of you who are tired of my rants about the demise of our once great health system will be pleased to know that this is my last editorial. I am retiring from the BCMJ Editorial Board; currently, I am the longest-serving member (more than 20 years). I have been a...
Zinchuk: Oilpatch Only Spending Half What It Spent in 2014
Back in the lofty, pre-Justin Trudeau government days of 2014, back when oil was booming, pipelines were planned to east and west coasts, and Alberta and Saskatchewan were swimming in money, around $81 billion was spent in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the Canadian...
Canada Has Weathered Other Epidemics, and Will Pull Through This One Too
COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, and is causing panic across the country. Places like universities, libraries, schools, churches, restaurants, and pubs are closing. International flights are being redirected to just four airports with appropriate screening facilities,...
An Uprising in Canada
Ten years ago, Douglas Bland, a retired lieutenant-colonel from the Canadian Forces and the Chair of Defense Studies at Queen’s University, wrote Uprising: A Novel. In this 500-page work of “fiction,” Bland outlines how militant Indigenous warriors and their allies...
Liberty or Death is the Question
“Give me liberty or give me death” was a battle cry that many people will remember hearing, but few will recall the statesman who said it. Even fewer will know what it meant. These seven words concluded a speech given by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775; a speech that...
Have we Forgotten Martin Luther King’s Lesson?
Our neighbours to the south celebrate a national holiday on Monday, January 20. It is a day to remember and honour Martin Luther King Jr., the United States’ most famous civil-rights leader, and, arguably, the world’s most influential social activist. For those who...
Pushing Boundaries at Graduation Ceremonies
Spring has finally arrived on campus, and graduation exercises are in full swing. It is a wonderful time with students dressed in black caps and gowns and their parents dressed in formal attire. Everyone is smiling as the graduates mount the stage to receive their...
Open Letter to the Anglican Church of Canada
Dear Archbishop, On March 20, 2017 you, along with National Indigenous Anglican Bishop Mark MacDonald and General Secretary Archdeacon Michael Thompson, published an open letter to Senator Lynn Beyak in response to a speech she gave in a Senate Committee. In your...
Should Canadian ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ be Open to Challenge?
Like post-secondary institutions in colonialized countries, the first Canadian universities had strong ties to religious institutions and to the alma maters of what their academics saw as their mother countries. By the late 1960s, secularity had become the norm, but...
The Size and Cost of the Public Sector in Western Canada
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy and The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) today jointly released The Size and Cost of the Public Sector in Western Canada, authored by Rodney A. Clifton, Jackson Doughart, and Marco Navarro-Génie. This study examines...
Manitoba’s Bill 18 Fails the Test of Good Legislation
Bullying is deeply hurtful to students and destructive to the culture of schools. In the past, bullying was often dismissed as a minor issue, but today school officials and the general public take it much more seriously. Several provinces, including Manitoba, have decided to redress school bullying with legislation. But, to be effective, the legislation must satisfy two fundamental criteria: it must define bullying accurately, and it must respect existing rights and freedoms.