There are two forces in the world of school closing.
First there is the set of governments that are demanding that public assets be sold at all levels. Those assets that they cannot get away with selling to the private sector like schools, roads and water services, they will move the management of them out of public hands using the false economic argument that the public cannot afford the costs of this.
This is a huge force backed up by, not only our tax dollars but the public relations fronted by the press.
Against this monster is the public, the families who use the water, roads and schools and who would like to keep them as community assets. Their allies are the unions and some left leaning organizations and individuals.
But as puny as the opposition to school closing, it can be very effective. We in Jane/Finch fought the process and one and the Rexdale parents are on the same track this year.
After the fall provincial election expect the board to take up its marching orders with a vengeance and call for massive school closings.
There will be some victories for us but also a lot of defeats.
Our main hope in fighting this rape of the resources that our society has built up over the last century is to resist and to develop resistance in the communities of the city.
Lets just speculate that we are very successful in this over the next two or three years.
If we could make trustees afraid of confronting communities with school closings such that they slow down the process to a crawl, I expect that there will be consequences for the board and us.
Without massive school closings (probably over 100 in the next 6-7 years) the board will not be able to balance its budget.
The province will be a bit flexible with the board as long as it sees it is on the track that it wants and will make some adjustments.
But after a while the province will decide that things are not moving fast enough and will either take over the board, as it has done in the past, or take over the property of the board. It has the power to do both.
Then it will go after communities with a vengeance.
Our roll will change its focus as we will need to put the MPPs through the same community resistance process.
The province will be a harder nut to crack and will use more physical tactics against us including forcibly removing people from community meetings, restraining orders and arrests.
Imagine getting arrested just because you wanted to preserve our local school.
Sounds like a noble cause to me.
I would hope that it never comes to this.
I would like to see our governments start valuing and investing in public education as they did during the height of the cold war.
But that is not where their heads are at now.
We have a long struggle ahead.
