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On the Record with Green Party trustee Janet Fraser

Fraser voted with Vision Vancouver trustees against the VSB budget
budget janet fraser
Rookie Green Party trustee Janet Fraser cast the deciding vote in the Vancouver School Board's budget decision Thursday night. Photo Dan Toulgoet

Vancouver School Board trustees voted 5-4 against adopting the controversial proposed 2016/17 operating budget Thursday night. With the board split evenly between Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association, the decision came down to the lone Green Party trustee, Janet Fraser. As has happened so often since this board was elected in 2014, it was Fraser who cast the deciding vote, choosing to join with Vision trustees and take a stand against what they say is the chronic underfunding of public education by Premier Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals. Fraser’s role as trustee is her first foray into politics, and one she said she hadn’t planned on while growing up in the United Kingdom.

“If you’d told me at 18 that I would be a politician, I’d say it’s more likely that I’d be the Pope,” she said. “You know, strange things happen in life.”

The Courier spoke with Fraser by phone about the reasons behind her decision not to adopt the proposed budget and what it’s like as a rookie trustee to hold the deciding vote on a board split between Vision and the NPA.

“People who live here have a very personal view of what their school was like and what their education was like and [as an immigrant] it’s interesting to try and map adult life on top of a school experience in the city,” Fraser said.

How has that been [learning about the Vancouver school system]?

Well, I don’t have those emotional ties from my time at school here, so I think I can maybe come in with a slightly different view of what’s happening now. I was in public education in Britain all through all of my schooling career. It’s comparable, but the system’s very different, so it just takes a while to adapt. And as my kids went through the system — my oldest is in Grade 11 now — you learn about it as you get to each milestone.

So what’s been your biggest challenge or biggest concern as a parent in the system?

That when my kids go to school their teachers and all the support staff, everyone in the system, has what they need to help them learn well. If they don’t have enough books for the whole class, or if they go to the library and they log on to the computer and it takes 20 minutes to get on, or if the way the classes work out that you have a lot of special needs students in your class — all these little things that may not be optimal, they build up to not having the best possible education. In a way I’m lucky because my kids are pretty mainstream, they do well in the regular system and they achieve pretty well at school. If I had a special needs child or a particular concern or a physical disability, I’d probably be much more acutely aware of how that impacts those families.

What made you decide to run to become a trustee?

I’m a chemist, I have a PhD in chemistry, and I was working in the biotech industry during the boom years. But then when I was pregnant with my third child I got laid off and I thought I’d take a couple of years off at home with my kids. Trying to figure out daycare for three kids and then two kids and then getting everyone into school and volunteering, I ended up taking 10 years off. When I tried to get back into my career, I just couldn’t find a way back in because I’d been out of it too long. So I started looking around to what else I could do with the skillset I have. [I have] been a PAC chair, and I was very involved with the planning in Marpole — the Marpole plan and the Cambie Corridor plan. And (I learned) how working with municipal government could actually change things in people’s real lives. I put that together to be running as a school trustee.

How has your first year as a school board trustee been?

It’s been very busy. I thought I knew a lot about the school board coming in because I’d been a PAC chair and I was quite involved, but really there was so much more than I could ever have imagined in our complex district.

This is the first political office you’ve held?

That’s correct, yeah.

So has the experience been what you expected it would be?

I would say aspects of it are as I expected it to be, but it’s been a lot more intense and a lot more partisan and there’s just so much to learn about our school district that those pieces were unexpected.

Are you enjoying being a trustee so far?

Most of the time I’m enjoying it and the rest of the time it’s my responsibility. It’s the role I’ve taken on and so this is what I have to do.

What kind of feedback have you received so far, either positive or negative?

It depends on what I’ve voted on. I’ve voted in three chair votes and the first chair vote I got a lot of very intensely negative feedback, the second [time] quite some negative feedback, and for this budget vote the feedback has been mostly positive.

So you’re in an interesting position on the board as you hold the deciding vote whenever trustees from the other two parties are split on a decision. What’s it been like to be in that position?

Well, this is certainly not a position I expected to be in and I can’t imagine there’s anyone who expected to have a 4-4-1 makeup on the school board after the last election. You know, I don’t know any different so it’s hard to say what it’s like. It certainly puts me in the spotlight and I have to think very carefully about how I make decisions. I think the piece I’ve learned is I have to be very careful to explain why I made the decision that I did.

And is that something that you set out to do right away with your blog and on Twitter?

Yes, I did. I was on Twitter all the time but it’s hard to express nuanced thoughts in 140 characters. I started with the blog and I think that that’s another piece that’s really helped.

What’s your relationship been like with the NPA and the Vision trustees?

Well, I like to build a good, constructive relationship with all the trustees. With some people it’s more difficult than others and over certain issues it’s more difficult than others, but I’ll continue to work as collaboratively as I can because we are a board of nine that’s governing our district and we have to work well together to do that well.

Is there one party that you tend to agree with more than other, or is it a pretty even split?

I’d say most of our votes at the board are actually unanimous. There’s a lot of general district business that needs to get done that is not partisan in any way. And as to whether I favour one party over the other: no. No, it’s always on the issue at hand and I choose how I vote and it’s up to other trustees to decide how they vote.

You’ve mentioned now a couple of times how partisan it is and how you hadn’t expected that. Can you elaborate on what you mean?

I thought when we came into this, we were campaigning, we all ran under a party banner and I thought that we could set aside the parties when we got to the board table and just look at the work of the school district and how to move that forward. But it seems like parties come to the table with a preconceived idea of what something should be like or a particular view and sometimes they’re not willing to consider any other point of view and work respectfully with other trustees. I think that’s a challenge.

You said on your blog and again at last night’s board meeting that the decision over whether or not adopt the proposed budget was one of the hardest things you’ve ever had to do. How did you finally make your decision?

Well, in my mind whether we passed the budget or not, I anticipate there will be $24 million in cuts. I couldn’t find a way to get us around that. So I looked at the consequences of voting one way or another. Voting to pass the budget would have kept our elected board in control of our district, but it wouldn’t have got to the question of underfunding of public education in B.C. Voting against the budget, it opens up the possibility of an appointed trustee who will run our district and that’s a tangible result for our students, but balancing up those two pieces, I felt trying to get at a better future for public education in B.C. was more important for our students in the long run.

So now that you’ve had time to digest last night, you’re feeling pretty good about it I guess?

Yeah, you know, I made a decision and I know it’s the right decision for me and I’m reconciled to the outcomes. You know, I hope that the outcomes will be as good as possible, but I’m aware that things could turn out really quite badly. So I just have to be patient, wait and see, and work as hard as I can to get towards a good outcome.

Are you worried about the ramifications of your vote?

Yes, I do worry because you’re looking into the future. I don’t know what will happen and you can always speculate ‘well if I’d done this, maybe something else would have happened’ or not. I think I did the right thing at the time and I hope I continue to think that as time goes by.

Looking forward, what’s next for you and the other VSB trustees?

Well, you know, we’ve made this decision. I think we have to try and reach out to the minister and see what we can do between now and the end of June. The ball’s really in his court so I think we’re waiting to hear what he has to say.

This interview was edited and condensed.

@jameswesmith

jameswesmith@gmail.com