I have been asked numerous times now if I joking or if I am serious regarding my alternative proposal for the UBC-Dunbar EFR-Phase 1 plan that would close and sell Queen Elizabeth Annex in order to meet the serious need for an additional elementary and a rebuild high school in the neighbourhod. My alternative plan (see here) called for using the old U. Hill Secondary as an elementary school and shifting students eastward in a cascading effect ending at Tupper Secondary.

Am I serious?

Am I joking?

I suppose it says something about the situation we are experiencing here. It says something about our lack of hope that we will have a school. It says something about the length of time that we have patiently waited. It says something about the many promises we have been given that evaporate just as a solution seems in hand.

The ‘joke,’ if there is one here, is that our students do not have a proper school. We live in one of the richest nations of the world. We live in the midsts of a major economic boom. Why can’t the powers that be find the courage and the will power to do what is right? In the face of inaction alternatives such as shifting several thousands high school students eastward become ‘serious’ in the face of the absurdity.