Daily Archives: October 6, 2008

Two more for the NPA

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Eileen Le Gallais and Margit Nance bring the NPA roster to eight for school board. According to Lisa Newby there is, as of yet, no ninth candidate.

Please note -info listed is from a web search and comes with all the cautions regarding problems of accuracy and potential mis-identification. Once the NPA finalize their campaign website perhaps we will be able to double check the info posted below.

Info on Candidates

Margit Nance, Film Producer and Owner of Nance Communications Ltd. Nunatsiaq News

Betrayed: video identifies sexual assault victim
Nobody told a 14-year-old rape victim that the sentencing of her attacker had been made into an educational video.

ALISON BLACKDUCK
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT — More than a decade ago, Elisapee, who was then 14 years old, was sexually assaulted in a small Baffin community.

Since then, Elisapee, now 31, has worked hard to overcome the trauma and put the past behind her for her sake and for the sake of her two daughters, aged five and seven.

But Elisapee learned recently that she’s been violated all over again.

This time the assailant isn’t the “family friend” who, in 1984, tied Elisapee’s hands behind her back with a ghetto-blaster cord so Elisapee couldn’t fight him off while he forced her to have intercourse with him.

This time Elisapee feels that the assailant is a group of people who should have had her best interests at heart — members of the territorial justice system and academics who have dedicated most of their careers to studying social justice and criminology.

Since 1985, details about the sexual assault committed against Elisapee, and her assailant’s subsequent sentencing hearing, have been repeated innumerable times in an educational video whose copyright holders, according to the video’s credits, are: Simon Fraser University, the NWT territorial court, Curt Taylor Griffiths and Margit Nance. (Nance is also the video’s producer, director and narrator.)

The detailed information in the video is so telling that some of Elisapee’s friends and relatives – who viewed the video at various training courses over the years — identified Elisapee as the victim immediately.

No informed consent

But none of Elisapee’s friends told Elisapee about the video because they assumed she knew about it.

They assumed that the producer obtained Elisapee’s prior informed consent — or at least that of her parents, since Elisapee was a minor at the time — before videotaping the sentencing hearing.

But Elisapee says her parents weren’t even told that a video about the crime she endured was being produced.

Nance, the producer, said presiding Judge Michel Bourassa vetted the video’s content. She said she feels no responsibility for what happened with the video afterwards.

The Video in Question: Arctic Bay the community and the circuit court [WorldCat.org]

Arctic Bay: the community and the circuit court, by Margit Nance

Eileen LeGallais – BEd, MEd Past Board of Directors Vancouver Association for Restorative Justice

Eileen is recently retired from a career in education, teaching primary, elementary, secondary and post secondary. The later years were focused on teaching English as a Second Language, Teacher Training and Counselling. Since retirement, interests have included volunteering for John Howard Society in the Youth Court Program, member of the Vancouver Family Court Youth/Justice Committee, co- chair on the Restorative Justice Sub-Committee, and reading for the visually impaired at UBC Crane Library. Other activities include Family, Tennis, Tai Chi, Language studies and travelling. Eileen was Vice-President of the Board from 2007-2008.

Oylmpic breaks and what they said

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A ‘conversation from “The Report Card” on the February Olympic break . . . Vancouver Sun blogs

Dawn Steele said:

Two weeks off school because of traffic??!! Sheesh! How about getting out of the cars instead and finding a more earth-friendly way to commute to your job – every day!

This vote does not seem to put the interests and needs of students first – very disappointing! How many students are going to be able to afford tickets to even one event? And what do they do for the rest of the two weeks? What about students facing big exams? What about students with special needs?

And I see this as a recipe for trouble – 20,000 youths roaming around the city unsupervised all day at a time when we’ll have all sorts of demonstrators and people looking to cause trouble, plus an enormous security presence with personnel on hairtrigger alert! What are they thinking!?
October 3, 2008 3:01 PM

Anne Guthrie Warman said:

Sheesh?? Now there’s a coherent, articulate response. Perhaps our ubiquitous ‘professional parent’ blogger should do her research before asking such rhetorically cliched questions as “What were they thinking?” 40, to 50,000 (projected numbers) more people in this city will mean that traffic corridors for everyone will be a nightmare. Many teachers are, for the record ‘out of their cars’ and onto public transit which will equally be stretched to and beyond capacity for everyone. However, given teacher salaries, many cannot and do not live in Vancouver and have a lengthy commute every day. This of course ,is to say nothing of the thousands of parents in this city who insist on driving their children to school, a journey of often fewer than 10 blocks. Teachers also voted overwhelmingly that child care and community centre activities be provided and that the VBE Olympics Coordinating Committee look at ways of providng access to events for students.
October 5, 2008 12:00 PM

Dawn Steele said:

Sheesh! How about a “coherent, articulate” answer to the serious questions raised instead of attacking me and trying to dodge accountability for your decision by blaming other parents’ driving habits?
October 5, 2008 1:18 PM

Anne Guthrie Warman said:

I answered the question around our thinking . But it’s not the answer you want to hear . Quel surprise. And for the record it is the Vancouver Board of Education who have raised these concerns and asked our members for input on this possible closure.

Irwin Loy on Secondary school teachers and Gregson

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irwinloy.com Vancouver – Blog – Secondary school teachers say no to Gregson

Her gun advocacy and involvement in recreational shooting has cost school trustee Sharon Gregson the support of Vancouver’s secondary school teachers.

The Vision Vancouver school board candidate was given the news Friday in an e-mail. The Vancouver Secondary Teachers’ Association won’t be endorsing Gregson because of her “previously published stance on concealed weaponry.”