Don't Call Me Job

ORIGINALLY POSTED Thursday, March 29, 2007

What am I supposed to do when patience is stretched to the limit?

There were six or seven officials from York Separate School board and The Chairman of the Board there to support the application. It was a proud moment. Elizabeth Crowe is the Aurora Trustee for the board as well as the Chairman. She described what the school would provide; shop courses, opportunities for technical training, track and field facilities, a dance studio. Programs the board has never before been able to offer in our neck of the woods.

It is not a long history. My daughter attended the first separate high school, St. Roberts in Markham. It was classrooms out in a field and nothing more. It had taken years to convince the provincial government the British North America Act intended separate schools to have education up to Grades Nine and Ten. I paid fees for the senior grades.

The change came with population numbers. Accommodating Catholic students in their own High schools was not more expensive than building more public schools and public schools were becoming impersonably huge. Our population continued to explode. Two years ago, Sacred Heart, in Newmarket was using the stage in the auditorium for classes. Even with the end of Grade Thirteen the pressure is tremendous. There are twelve portables filling the yard of Sacred Heart High School in Newmarket.

Now, in Aurora, we are to have a school that will provide almost everything. The Board has an excellent working relationship with the town in the shared use of facilities. We use their sports facilities in return for our maintenance. The students will use our swimming and skating facilities at the Leisure Complex. It will be a walk through the Arboretum which will also be an educational facility. They will have a Child Care Service and evening programs in the school, with lights on, and people coming and going. Neighbors to the Senior's Centre. Vibrant life and a beautiful building on Wellington Street with access from Industrial Parkway North.

These classrooms were needed two years ago.

Last night, at the Public Planning Meeting councillors queried numbers in our grade schools, questioned why there should be students from other places, expounded on the need to save idle land for industrial and commercial use and even floated the possibility of an adult entertainment centre in the vicinity of the school as reasons to oppose the application. They said the Board should have acquired land in a residential neighborhood. Teaching positions were denigrated as 'non jobs' and a motion was made to deny the application.

Had it succeeded, the Board would have been obliged to appeal the decision to the O.M.B. They would have incurred legal costs. The town would have incurred legal costs. Our staff recommendations would have been used in evidence against us. The decision would be made for us after thousands of dollars had been paid to lawyers, all out of the same pockets. Yours.

When it became apparent the debate was over and the motion to approve in principle would succeed, the Mayor proceeded to extend the argument. She asked the planner for the umpteenth time to explain the definition of employment lands and how an institution providing almost 200 jobs could fit into that context. It was as if they were hoping, if they kept repeating the same question, the planner might cave in and give them a different answer. That must be what the third degree is about. It happens all the time in Aurora Council.

The time was eleven-thirty p.m. We had been deliberating for four and one half hours.

I wanted to take wing and fly right out of there. My patience was exhausted. I could not leave and forfeit my vote. I could not explode in a shower of vituperation. So, discretion being the better part of valour, I covered my head with my jacket and clamped my hands over my ears.

I have never claimed to have the Patience of Job