BC Election 2013
Stop the presses, BC is having an election which of course means the government of
the day is (did) announce some spending on school seismic safety.
Those who have been watching this issue for years will remember former premier Gordon Campbell
did just the same thing in Election 2005. The after-election result: glacial pace of progress and today we
still have 190 high risk schools that require structural upgrading or complete replacement to be
considered safe for children, staff, parents, and other facility users.
This site will shortly be publishing a new inter-active feature that allows everyone to see the state of their
community schools at a glance. Here are some sobering statistics from our soon to be published on-line database:
# District Status
34 Abbotsford 6 of 36 schools (17%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
35 Langley 10 of 39 schools (26%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
36 Surrey 9 of 80 schools (11%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
37 Delta 3 of 31 schools (10%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
38 Richmond 5 of 38 schools (13%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
39 Vancouver 69 of 108 schools (64%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
41 Burnaby 16 of 48 schools (33%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
42 Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows
2 of 20 schools (10%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
43 Coquitlam 17 of 54 schools (31%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
44 North Vancouver 8 of 38 schools (21%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
47 Powell River 1 of 8 schools (12%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
61 Greater Victoria 14 of 46 schools (30%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
62 Sooke 6 of 16 schools (38%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
63 Saanich 8 of 18 schools (44%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
68 Nanaimo/Ladysmith 6 of 41 schools (15%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
70 Alberni 1 of 12 schools (8%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
71 Comox Valley 1 of 21 schools (5%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
75 Mission 1 of 15 schools (7%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
78 Fraser-Cascade 1 of 10 schools (10%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
79 Cowichan Valley 4 of 26 schools (15%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
93 Conseil Scolaire Francophone
2 of 9 schools (22%) do not meet structural life safety requirements
Families for School Seismic Safety is a non-partisan organization dedicated to advancing the cause
of school seismic safety for the benefit of all British Columbia school facility users. Tens of thousands of children, staff, parents, night school students, after school scholastic and sports rental users, day-care and other facility users make use of buildings that are not structurally safe in the event of a major earthquake. We are exposing our most vulnerable to magnified risk. This is not a partisan issue.
Let's use Election 2013 to send a message to any and all candidates and their leaders, in clear and certain terms, that the citizens of British Columbia will be satisfied not with promises but with concrete plans to address this urgent public safety issue.
Fri 01 February 2013
By fsssbc.org
In news .
The community supporting Bayview Community School has put together
a multi-media plea in support of their call to action to make their school
facility seismically safe and address serious on-going functional facility deficiencies
children and staff are forced to live with every day.
VIDEO
Please view their presentation and show your support for their cause by signing
the petition they have started at Change.org - View and Sign the petition
now!
Bayview PAC are maintaining a seismic-upgrade issues page - check here for more
information about the state of their school facility.
What else can you/we all do?
Write a letter to the editor of local papers. In Vancouver a concise letter
under 200 words will often catch the eye of publishers at the Vancouver Courier,
Vancouver Province, and Vancouver Sun. Remember seismic safety in our schools
is not just a Vancouver problem - many schools in Victoria and other island,
Sunshine Coast, and even in-land mainland schools are at risk.
Especially now in the lead up to the B.C. provincial election it is important to communicate with your polictical representatives. It is their job to listen to constituents and bring forward their concerns to the Legislature. Please take on the responsibility to write or better yet make an appointment to visit your MLA and communicate in person your concerns about seismic safety and school facility needs.
A list of all BC Members of the Legislative Assembly and their constituency
office contact details can be found at http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm