Frankly Speaking

The Khalsa School, which has two campuses in Surrey, is offering as many as 1,000 Syrian refugee students free tuition for a year, as part of some generous initiatives from the Sikh community in B.C. The Sikh community is stepping up to the plate to ensure that Syrian refugees get off to a good start when they come to Canada. Newly-elected Liberal MP Randeep Sarai, who represents Surrey Centre in the House of Commons, convened a meeting last weekend to see what support could be offered to the about 3,000 refugees who are expected in B.C. within the next few months. About 30 representatives of various organizations have pledged a wide variety of support, from accommodation to transportation, child care and education. Services for children are of particular importance. Surrey is expected to be the destination for many of the refugees, perhaps 1,000 or more. School spaces and child care spaces are in short supply here, as a number of recent reports have pointed out. Surrey...

Langley City Councillor Dave Hall resigned his seat on Monday, after seven years as a councillor. His resignation is for personal reasons, as he is fighting cancer. Hall is a longtime Langley City resident, and served nine years on the Langley School Board, three as chair, before first running for council in 2008. He and I disagreed on a number of issues over the years, particularly when he was part of the school board. He wrote a number of detailed letters to the editor which took issue with the editorial stance of The Langley Times , where I was editor from 1999-2015. We agreed on more issues after he was elected to Langley City council. Even while on the school board, he was a proponent of financial transparency and careful spending, and this continued with his council duties. One wonders if the school district would have gotten into its financial troubles (more than $10 million was improperly accounted for, prompting a lengthy repayment process set up by the B.C. auditor ge...

Five hundred more students will be coming to Surrey schools as an expected 1,000 or more Syrian refugees settle here within the next few months. Surrey is expected to take at least one-third of the 3,000 or so refugees expected in B.C. The new federal Liberal government is fast-tracking refugee claims to meet its campaign commitment to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees in Canada by the end of the year. News that Surrey schools will get another 500 students, in addition to the already-burgeoning population at schools in many fast-growing areas of Surrey, has caused the school district to take a close look at how it can cope with the added students. While it has many programs to help new students from other countries adjust, including its Welcome Centre, where settlement and multicultural workers help place students in the right settings, communications manager Doug Strachan says it does not have all the resources it needs to take on so many students. In particular, there will be ...

An interesting discussion on an important topic takes place Saturday in Walnut Grove. The Catholic Women's League of St. Nicholas Church in Langley is hosting a panel discussion on euthanasia - a subject that will soon be before the federal House of Commons. That's because the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in February, in the Carter  decision, that existing rules on assisted suicide are unconstitutional, and gave the government a year to amend the Criminal Code. Thus far, there has been no concrete action - mainly because of a lengthy federal election campaign and a new government taking office this month. I will be moderating this discussion, and am looking forward to hearing from the panelists. A candidates' meeting in the South Surrey-White Rock riding that I moderated in October saw this issue discussed in some detail, and it is a complex subject. Organizers are hoping for a far-reaching, thoughtful discussion. The panelists will be speaking from an anti-euthanas...

On Thursday night, in the dark, wind and rain, a young friend of ours was hit by a vehicle on the 232 Street  on-ramp to Highway 1. He had exited his vehicle, which had run out of gas, and was struck while he walked back to 232 Street, on the side of the road. John Lowe, who got married this summer, is a friend of our son Andrew. They attended elementary school together. He suffered serious injuries and is in intensive care at Royal Columbian Hospital. The timing of this calamity is ironic, to say the least, coming one day after Remembrance Day. John served Canada as a soldier in Afghanistan, and while he came home unscathed physically, several of his friends died there. He has been an active member of Wounded Warriors Canada and has helped raise funds and awareness of veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. A GoFundMe campaign to help him and his wife with added expenses has been set up. It can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/4ea7fprk Here's a ...

Most people born in Canada have little firsthand contact with war. Canadians have been extraordinarily fortunate, in not having a war fought on our soil for more than 200 years. Many immigrants and new Canadians, on the other hand, have had vastly different experiences. War may not be ever-present in all parts of the world, but it is far more likely to have had more of an immediate effect on peoples’ lives in many other countries. Nowhere is this more true right now than in Syria, where millions of people have been displaced. Many of them are in neighbouring countries, with a smaller number trying to find better lives in Europe. Some of them lose their lives crossing waterways in overcrowded boats, but they are willing to take the risk. The new federal government is working hard to try and get 25,000 of them to resettle in Canada, but it’s a monumental effort that involves many layers of bureaucracy. It’s an appropriate time to think about how we as Canadians can help peopl...

The Port Mann Bridge is where Surrey and other South Fraser residents already participate in road pricing A group of academics and former politicians is adding fuel to an already-raging fire. The fire is the issue of paying to use infrastructure to get around in urban areas, which in Canada and many other places are becoming increasingly congested. There was plenty of discussion about urban congestion in the recent federal election, with all three major parties promising to spend more on infrastructure. Significantly, tolls and road pricing were barely mentioned. Many Surrey, Delta, White Rock and other South Fraser residents are already paying a form of congestion tax. As the primary users of the Port Mann and Golden Ears bridges, they pay every time they cross. There are minimal alternatives. The Pattullo Bridge is supposedly the “free” alternative to the Port Mann, but it is in poor condition and is itself badly-congested. There are regular closures to do the minimal...