B.C. Notebook
Rod Mickleburgh
Globe and Mail
Jun. 11, 2010

Democracy is a messy business, which is why the leaders of so many countries that don’t have it want to keep it that way. When the voters have a say, you can’t always get what you want, or even what you need.

Which brings us to the astonishing tongue-lashing administered to the Vancouver School Board by the province’s comptroller-general, Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, in her report on the board’s budget problems.

There are some useful suggestions, and the VSB is far from perfect, being run by elected human beings, after all.

But a major message of Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland’s fiercely worded report is that much of the board’s multimillion-dollar shortfall would disappear if only trustees took the advice of their staff.

Check your own beliefs at the door and listen to your unelected bureaucrats, because you’ve done a lousy job, the comptroller-general instructs members of the school board, all of whom were put in office by the voters of Vancouver.

According to Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland, the VSB spends too much time on advocacy “at the expense of stewardship,” some trustees lack impartiality, there is an over-reliance on consensus decision-making and a reluctance to close schools and raise rents for community groups.

These are strange charges to level at a group of trustees, most of whom campaigned on a platform of advocacy and won a thumping victory, with board chair Patti Bacchus topping the polls. Those who felt the school board should continue to be relatively compliant to government wishes were mostly defeated.

Methinks it’s not up to Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland, a government bureaucrat, to lecture the elected school board on its priorities, the alleged poor quality of board discussions and all sorts of other perceived faults. Suggestions, fine. Scolding, no.

At one point, she actually tells the board it “must” improve its governance practices. Or what? Off with their heads?

Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland may be right. She may not be right. But the voters get to decide what’s best for the school district, not the comptroller-general. It’s called democracy.