iPhone

After months of singing the praises of my BlackBerry, I got rid of it and moved to an iPhone. This was an expensive procedure because I am still on a contract with Telus, but selling my old phone and iPod touch helped offset the cost. For me, it’s a much better device that I am happy with. I really wish I could be happy with a BlackBerry for the wide variety of uses I get out of my iPhone, but the manufacturer just doesn’t want to put enough effort into developing the software properly.

Saint John Politics

I am back in Saint John visiting my family for a couple weeks. A few things have changed, but not much, as always. City debates continue to spur over the new Peel Plaza complex, which currently includes a plan to ruin a historic Carnegie Arts Centre building by burying the lower windows so that a tunnel for transporting prisoners can be built. Umm, what?

Academia & Robots

The main reason for my lack of time lately is the amount of work I’ve been putting into my school work. I’m working on a new robot that interacts with people in different ways, though not quite on the level of reading emotions as I previously explored. I did extensive development with my robot, now named PAUL-E, and am now working on a couple submissions to two upcoming conferences, so more travel may not be far away.

New Cell Phone Network

Say what you want about the Canadian cellphone industry, something done right has seemingly accomplished by 2 of the big 3, Telus and Bell. They have launched a new 3rd generation high-speed cellular network which enables them to offer phones that don’t suck, like the iPhone. Rogers offers a similar, compatible network, but it’s only fast in the main cities, whereas Bell and Telus created their network to be the same speed across pretty much most of the country. So far, my experience has been decent, with a few bugs that I hope they work out soon. This network was actually launched several months in advance ahead of the Olympics.

In the United States, people regularly complain about AT&T’s cell service which is the only company officially offering the iPhone in that country. Dropped calls and defaulting to the slower speed network is a regular occurrence in many large cities. Hopefully our networks will continue to be expansive with prices falling more due to increased competition.

That’s all for now. I hope to update my blog more often.

Lamrock’s reasoning was that these were community schools, and removing them would “disempower” the communities. Plus, money isn’t everything, and there’s a projected population boom coming, soooo, not such a good time to close schools. Duh. Still, the decision was shocking because Lamrock actually listened to people (of reason) who are not being used to listened to.

It was only a few years ago that the school district argued for these two schools to become community schools, a special status under the provincial government, because of their importance to the community. To argue that we don’t need these schools anymore a short time later is wrong and stupid, and, if this were a commercial company involved, grounds for fraud. It is simply horrible that any of these people supported closing the schools. I wonder if any of these ever walk through the North End, with a purpose other than a photo shoot as seen in my last blog post.

Money and supposedly better facilities at a bigger building is always declared as a benefit of closing smaller schools. However, this was a unique situation where this argument does not apply.

While Millidgeville North has green fields nearby, so do Lorne School and Hazen-White. Lorne, one of the city’s newest school buildings actually, uses the city-owned Shamrock Park down the street, which is about a distance equal to the distance between the Millidgeville North building and its green fields. Furthermore, students living near their middle school can attend after school activities, something you cannot do when you need to catch a bus home right after school. Lorne actually has a city community centre attached to it.

There are some stupid mothers in Millidgeville who are disappointed that the schools are staying open because they are afraid their precious children are going to end up in trouble by going to a school in a neighbourhood where the police are taking active action against crime. There was a police raid. It was actually great for students. While the police were outside making the streets safer, all the students were kept safe inside, enjoying free pizza provided by the police. To the average middle school student, especially in a poorer neighbourhood, this was probably the highlight of a week. If you asked the average middle school student if they’d be in favour of more police action to make the neighbourhood safer that keeps them inside enjoying free pizza, I’m sure the results would be heavily slanted towards… YES.

So the more police action happening, dear beloved concerned mothers of Millidgeville, the safer your precious children will be. Besides, this is a city issue, and all the same types of issues affect all schools. A larger school, such as Millidgeville North Middle School, would have been probably been a larger centre of these problems, simply due to a larger student population.

By the way, I am qualified to speak on all sides of this issue. I grew up in Millidgeville, and I attended Lorne School and was regularly encouraged by the teachers there. I got good marks, and went on to graduate from Saint John High School with High Honours, and graduate in the First Division with a university degree in Computer Science. I am now pursuing my Master of Computer Science. My most recent school project has resulted in me receiving calls from media all over the world looking for interviews.

It’s too bad that I went to Lorne School in the North End and not a “better” school. I might have actually amounted to something.

The decision to close any school is always tough to discuss, but the first part of my rant will focus on a sad irony. My curiousity was peaked when I read a newspaper headline saying Chateau de Champlain lends helping hand to Hazen White-St. Francis School library. How sad, I thought, because this school stands a good chance of closing within a year due to its low enrollment, somewhat remote location, and an aged building, and efforts to support could be in vain to some extent.

In the picture above from the newspaper article I linked above, you’ll see a smiling district superintendent, Susan Tipper. This bugs me to some extent since she’ll go to the school smiling for the children and the cameras, and then perhaps return to her office to think about why this very school should close, which would mean students that currently walk would likely need to take a bus to another school.

This is particularly interesting because the NB Education Minister, Kelly Lamrock designated Lorne and Hazen White as Community Schools and their neighbourhoods as priority neighbourhoods in the province a year ago. Now School District 8 wants to close them. How does this make sense?

The following is a letter I submitted to District 8 to be considered as part of their decision in the “reorganization” of the north Saint John schools.

To whom it may concern:

I disagree with the proposal to close Lorne School. I am a graduate of UNBSJ. Prior to moving to Calgary to pursue my Masters in Computer Science, I lived in Millidgeville all my life. I chose to attend Lorne Middle School, and fondly recall my 3 years there.

Lorne has a strong case to stay open. Because most of the building burnt down in the 80′s, it was rebuilt, and is thus one of the newest and most modern school buildings in the Saint John area. It is also the only middle school in the older part of the city’s North End, which has been a struggling neighbourhood, as you know. Residents tired of the crime and other problems have come together to take back their neighbourhood, and have succeeded in making things better, even raising money to build their own police station to raise police presence in the neighbourhood. This is quite impressive to me, and gives me lots of optimism about the potential recovery of this neighbourhood.

Despite this, School District 8 wants to take away the only middle school in the Old North End, a designated community school, perhaps partially because of the perceptions of some parents who believe the neighbourhood is unsafe. If this is a real problem, shouldn’t we work on fixing the problems in the neighbourhood, instead of ghetto-izing it and assuming it will never improve? Obviously those supporting this proposal disagree or simply don’t care.

It’s easy to just get rid of a few smaller schools and bus them wherever. In many cases, the cost savings make sense. But I think such a proposal could be devastating to the Old North End neighbourhood in this case. The report on the district web site lists a bunch of advantages, but in an entirely unbalanced view, fails to list any possible disadvantages. So this proposal is absolutely perfect? The omission of any reference to the possible effects due to the projected “energy boom” for the Saint John area is particularly jarring to me. While school populations have been dropping, it’s not unreasonable to expect these populations to rise significantly once again if the energy boom materializes. How embarrassing will it be to have to have overcrowding in our schools a few years from now because we closed too many schools now without any forward vision?

I feel there are other solutions. If I recall correctly, there have been discussions about rebuilding Princess Elizabeth for years, implying that the days are numbered for the current building. Why is there no consideration about closing this aging school instead of a much newer Lorne school building? I am certain that a sensible solution could be determined that would have some or all of the savings presented in the proposal, while retaining Lorne School in the Old North End.

Thanks for your consideration of my remarks.

Paul Saulnier

You’ll notice my arguments largely are targetted towards Lorne, though most of the same factors apply to Hazen White-St. Francis as well. Moving forward, this proposal has to be accepted in entirety or not at all, so they will close neither school or close both.

You can read the proposal for yourself on the School District 8 web site. If you scroll to the last page, you’ll find an e-mail address where you too can make your feedback heard. It’s too late for written submissions, but there’s no deadline indicated for e-mail.

Additionally, you can write letters to the District Education Council and the Telegraph-Journal expressing your views on this. This is the type of action which actually gets things done. I’ll hopefully be doing more of this myself, and have my blog posts up soon.

At first, it’s tempting to buy into the Harper defence that all “Dion” is trying to do is steal power and go against Canadians’ wishes for who they want as Prime Minister. Some commenters on CBC are calling this a “coup”.

Come on people, let’s set the theatrics aside. This isn’t a coup, no matter how much Harper is going to kick and scream. A coup is when (according to Wikipedia) there is “sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but everything happening here is within the rules of a constitution. Furthermore, all individuals and parties involved were elected by Canadians. No, maybe YOU didn’t vote for them (of course no one voted for all of them), but they were elected. As for stealing power by way of a coalition, wasn’t this basically what Harper did when he gained power after merging his party with the PC party?

Coalition governments seem scary and wrong because they are new to us, but in reality, many countries in the world already use coalition governments regularly.  They probably look at Canada and think its scary and wrong that just one party usually has all the power, and that we really just alternate between 2.

Truth is, more Canadians voted for all of the opposition parties together than the Conservatives, since they still failed to gain a majority. This is despite the fact that Dion seemingly gave up support freely by proposing a new carbon tax, something that many people still don’t understand. Rest assured, this new “tax” suggestion is probably dead now, regardless of what benefits or problems it had, and Dion is still going to step aside in May anyway.

With a coalition, there is finally hope for alternate views in the House. It’s no longer a game between the Conservatives and the Liberals, since we will soon have NDP cabinet ministers. Although I am no expert, I predict the era of majority governments as we know it has ended. With this precedent, minority party supporters (NDP, Green, etc.) will finally begin to vote as they wish, instead of “strategically” voting for one of the two major parties. This will eat away at somewhat inflated support for these parties, but they won’t disappear entirely thanks to the benefits of how coalitions work. Although votes have never been “wasted” entirely (since all parties receive $1.95 for each vote they get), the prospect of coalitions will further discrease the perception of wasted votes in Canada.

Stability of government will no longer need to depend on just one party’s ability to satisfy everyone, a gargantuan task for any society that actually pays attention to politics. Emerging minority views (Green, NDP), which are particularly popular with young people, will play a role in government even before they reach mainstream level (if they ever do). This isn’t quite as far as some countries have gone with proportional representation, but it’s a step ahead for our country. Government representation is now one step closer to including everyone.

What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment.

In this artistic concept courtesy of the Irving press release, you can see what the development will look like. Right now, most of this space is a big ugly concrete field. Since this is currently active port space, this deal is conditional on the former sugar refinery site being transferred to the Port Authority to use instead. There’s no loss. In fact, there’s a gain. The area would continue to act as a secondary cruise ship terminal, keeping the other space always free for other purposes.

Here, you can see the building as an artistic rendering from the ground level. Instead of a high rise, the use of a low-rise structure is more practical and will not block out too much view of the harbour. The press release also cites various environmental considerations leading to the choice of this type of structure.

Exactly why is anyone opposed to this? Some people suggest that Irving should build a taller building or that the location is bad, and they should use the old Centracare site instead. How stupid. It’s clear to see why a large company like Irving would want its headquarters centrally located in a prestigious spot of the waterfront. It’s also obvious to me that this city isn’t yet big enough to be in a position to start demanding high rises when all we need is more appropriately sized low rises.

Some people think it’s a good idea, but a bad location because we’re “losing valuable port space”. That isn’t true at all though because the sugar refinery space would open up as new space. In fact, I think that space would be even more valuable for the port’s purposes since ships could avoid entering the main part of the harbour and dock at the entrance instead.

Those who know me well know that I’m often not the hugest Irving fan, but let’s be realistic, this is a good idea. I hope it goes through. What do you think?

Sure, the young children may know their French very well as they are taking it, and you might be amazed by what you’d hear walking into a classroom, but this is not a proper measure for program success if the numbers show they are losing it by the time they graduate. Would you invest your money in something that had only a 20% success rate? No, probably not, not unless you’re the New Brunswick government for the last several years.

I realize that it is easier and important for children to learn a language in their younger years of elementary before high school. But, I also believe it is important for children to develop a solid foundation in their English language and math skills as well at this younger age. In fact, if I had to choose, I would assign a higher importance to these other skills over learning a second language.

Other provinces do offer early immersion, and some are saying that New Brunswick would be a black sheep by deviating from this. However, with such a low success rate, maybe it is now up to New Brunswick to take an unpopular stance and get serious about doing french immersion a different way, instead of doing what all the others are doing and have for decades. Tom Young, another local blogger, has written a post in which he also expresses this unpopular view.

The government has its share of screw ups, but their proposed changes almost sound good so far. The only changes I would make are giving parents (and students themselves) the choice to avoid taking French altogether, particularly for students already struggling or who already know several languages. Not everyone is planning to move to Quebec or work for the government when they graduate. Additionally, students should have the freedom to move between the different programs if circumstances change, and not be locked into their choice made in grade 6.

This is how I see it. Please free to comment in support of or against my views in English or French, which I am very capable of understanding despite learning it at my own pace in classes, French Camp and in France, instead of early immersion.

Up to this point, this sounds like a bold step, and one that could be beneficial for our province. But of course we have to screw it up New Brunswick style.

Where will these new health authorities be headquartered? Well, one in the North and one in the South, right? Obviously, Saint John would be the best choice for the south since it has the largest hospital which has been recently granted trauma centre status. Sounds like a safe bet? Wrong. The two headquarters are Miramichi for the South and Bathurst for the North. Both of these cities have been hurt by job losses lately, but is it really necessary to move the health authority management away from the population masses just to at least seem like you’re helping these communities? Both of these “cities” (towns by most standards outside of New Brunswick) are really in the North part of the province, and the government is seemingly doing it what it can to maximize votes in this area.

Don’t worry Moncton, you’re not being left out either. You’re getting special treatment. Although you won’t be one of the headquarter locations, you will benefit by being served by both health authorities and will therefore have access to the resources of both networks. It’s hard to imagine any New Brunswick policy that isn’t somehow twisted to benefit Moncton. The reasoning this time is that Moncton is bilingual and language alone is enough to influence the kind of health care that a region should receive.

Let’s hope that the well educated medical professionals come together on this one and talk sense into the government. If you’re going to combine services, at least centralize them in locations that actually make sense.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Enough is enough, and these students should be back in school. But there’s one thing that bothers me. I’ll give you a second to figure it out.

Okay, here’s the deal. Only THIRTY students demonstrated. What the hell? Where are all the other students? They’re falling behind in classes now and could lose the rest of the school year if the strike isn’t resolved, but this does not seem to a huge concern to most students. Okay, so maybe I am overreacting since the government is promising to end the strike by legislating them back to work. But still. It’s not like these other students should have been busy doing anything else, since they would normally be in school during the time of the demonstration.

I can’t say this surprises me. Back when we were holding huge rallies in Saint John to protest the PSE report, relatively few college students chose to participate, even though the report’s recommendations were to affect the college campus in this city as well. The school used the old “gagged by the government” excuse to explain their relative quietness during the whole ordeal.

Bull shit.

Take a close look at this photo I took at the Edmundston Rally. The signs say CCNB and UMCE everywhere. BOTH the college and university campuses in that city were part of the demonstrations, showing their support, and making their voices heard.

I guess the gag order was only applicable to the anglophone college campuses.

For me, it is great to know that all the rallie, letters, media coverage, and public uproar over this issue was enough to change the government’s direction, and prevent a major blow to this city and the province. Is everything good forever now? No, of course not. But at least the Premier is finally acknowledging the importance of the Saint John university and has now created an opportunity for UNBSJ to write a new chapter for itself. We must not become complacent and ignore what the government was originally considering. For now though, we can rest and celebrate.

Early on, I said that a “done” deal CAN be undone. We un-did a “done” deal. Too often, Saint Johners are perhaps too used to situations where government deals go through regardless of what the people want, but this is one notable exception for the history books.

History did repeat itself.

About half of the building (to the left) is already gone.

In this photo, you can see the machine operator sorting out the usable metal and other stuff.  For some reason, my phone decided to make everything appear as if it were glowing.

The top floor which has been blown open now is the gynasium, with lockers below it still in place.

Quite a mess indeed! From start to finish, this is expected to take 3 weeks. As far as I know, the building was fairly healthy, but they are tearing it down to make way for the new courthouse as well as other controversial developments North of Union Street.