CUPE, Bathurst mother decry cuts to school transportation budget
The union representing school bus drivers in New Brunswick is condemning cuts the Department of Education is making to its student transportation budget.
'The cost to keep our children safe would be less than a sixth of a per cent of the total education budget.' — Delalene Harris Foran, CUPE
The Canadian Union of Public Employees says the $2 million in cuts is particularly outrageous in light of the recommendations of a coroner's jury looking at the Bathurst van crash.
Delalene Harris Foran, president of CUPE Local 1253, said she agrees with the coroner's jury that called for sweeping changes to how students are transported to events, including allowing only school bus drivers with Class 2 licences to drive athletes to competitions.
"We are trained to do pre-trip inspections," Harris Foran said. "We are trained to use air brakes. We are trained in first aid. We are trained in emergency evacuations.
"The cost to keep our children safe would be less than a sixth of a per cent of the total education budget."
The coroner's jury into the Bathurst van crash handed down 21 non-binding recommendations to the provincial government on how to improve student transportation and the province's acting chief coroner added three additional recommendations.
Education Minister Kelly Lamrock said after the jury's recommendations were delivered on May 14 that the province would implement the "vast majority" of the proposals.
Mother criticizes driver training rules
Isabelle Hains, whose son Daniel was one of the seven basketball players who died in the crash on Highway 8 last January, said the provincial government decided on a pilot project for driver training before the inquest and didn't tell her and other parents about it at a pre-inquest consultation.
"The fact that we were not told about the pilot training project at this meeting only two weeks ago proved that this so-called consultation with the parents was not sincere."
The New Brunswick government decided in February that it would mandate more driver training for those who transport students to extra-curricular events. The provincial government is piloting the new training initiative by the end of 2009 to make sure that it covers the required training components.
The union says its members are willing to drive athletes to games if they're paid appropriately.
The 2008 crash occurred when the van carrying the Bathurst High School boys' basketball team fish-tailed on the slippery highway and collided with a truck driving in the opposite lane. Seven players and the coach's wife, a teacher, died.