Atlantic Insight

About Atlantic Insight

Atlantic Insight, by southeast New Brunswick's W.E.(Bill) Belliveau who analyzes and comments on matters of public policy and the social and economic decisions taken, by all levels of government from local to global. Atlantic Insight Blog is a commentary on current affairs and changes in the marketplaces and/or in the business world. The impact of policy, decisions and changes are explored for their impact on the citizens of Atlantic Canada. You are invited to add your comments.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Liberals Ignore Immersion Reactions At Their Electorial Peril

There was a very interesting advertisement in the Times & Transcript on Tuesday this week, signed by “The Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy and Public Administration”

The Institute, established in 1983 is an independent, not for profit organization located on the campus of the Université de Moncton.

The ad read as follows “Research says: if you want your children to be fully bilingual in New Brunswick (and learn other subjects as well) send them to a French-Language Daycare and a French-Language School”.

In a subsequent newspaper article, Daniel Bourgeois, Executive Director of the Institute, while pointing to research on when young children best acquire another language was quoted as saying
“Neuro-cognitive sciences tell us children will (best) learn the syntax, the grammar (and) the structure (of language) from age one to six.

Yet here we are in New Brunswick fussing about whether French immersion should start in Grade 1 or in Grade 5”. It seems pretty clear to me that the earlier you expose children to a second language the more likely they are to learn it.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from dozens of people concerning the decision of Education Minister Kelly Lamrock to cancel the early French Immersion program in New Brunswick and replace it with an “Intense French” program that would begin in Grade five. 90% of respondents have trashed Lamrock’s decision, most on the basis of personal experience.

More significantly, a majority of them have told me this is a voting matter. Even people who have been Liberals forever are talking about changing their vote unless Lamrock relents.

New Brunswick ranks last in Canada in literacy, math and science and people understand that something has to be done about it. They also agree that the current system of two language training is not working but to use an old adage, they don’t believe that throwing the baby out with the bathwater makes any sense.

They welcome “Intense French” as a replacement for the core French program but they reject the idea that “early immersion” should be scrapped. They believe it should be improved.

Intuitively, people know that language is best learned at the earliest of age. They know that to abandon “early immersion” is to abandon a once in a lifetime opportunity. Intellectually, they believe that early immersion is a powerful symbol of the Province’s commitment to “official bilingualism” and that removal of early second language immersion from our public school system would undermine that commitment.

To make matters worse, Mr. Lamrock’s decision appears to be based on a faulty premise. Here in part is what two university professors, Dr. Diana Hamilton, Mount Allison University, (who teaches advanced statistics to biology students) and Dr. Matthew Litvak at UNB Saint John (who also has taught advanced statistics to biology students) have to say about the French Second Language Report that informed Mr. Lamrock’s decision.

“A detailed review of the Report has revealed numerous errors in methodology, statistical analysis and reasoning. It is a deeply flawed document which fails to provide valid evidence in support of the sweeping policy changes that its authors propose.”

Here’s what a local businessman had to say “Killing the early immersion program was a huge political mistake but more importantly it is a huge mistake in public education policy. They should fix what is now in place, not toss it out to be replaced with an experimental program. Even if Mr. Lamrock should be proven right, it will be eight to ten years before we know it. If he’s wrong, he will have deprived a half generation of people the opportunity to succeed in a second language”.

And from a mother “This is a very personal issue for me. You are talking about my children and their right to learn a second language in a supposedly bilingual province. What kind of a person would take away an early learning opportunity for children when everyone knows they begin to learn language soon after they are one year old? To ask them to wait ten years for their second language is ridiculous”.

Lamrock’s decision has triggered protests across the Province, 100 people in Saint John the other day, more than 300 in Fredericton and another 300 in Moncton. In 1999, the Liberals were defeated on the toll highway issue. In 2003, the Conservatives were almost defeated on the auto insurance issue and then succumbed to the Liberals in 2006.

When things got hot concerning recommendations concerning the restructuring of our Post Secondary Education institutions, the Premier wisely called on the presidents of those institutions to help him resolve the problem. I’m certain that he will find a way to resolve this issue as well.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

posted by Bill Belliveau @ 3:49 PM 0 comments


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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Obama Leadership Speech In Sharp Relief to Minister Lamrock's Approach

There are moments - increasingly rare in modern political domains - when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs.

In the best of these moments, the speaker does more than balm the current political wound he or she illuminates larger, troubling issues. Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state.

On Sept. 12, 1960, Kennedy gave a major speech in Houston, Texas to a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion. At the time, many Protestants questioned whether Kennedy's Roman Catholic faith would allow him to make important national decisions as President of the United States, independent of the Catholic Church.

He said “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office”.

On Tuesday this week, Senator Barack Obama, Democratic candidate for President of the United States delivered a major speech addressing the issues of race and religion, two of the most toxic subjects in politics (another being language). He drew a line between religious connection to his former Minister and Pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his political connection to the Reverend. The distinction was significant after seven years of a president (Bush) who worked to blur the line between church and state.

Senator Obama acknowledged his strong ties to the Reverend Wright. He embraced him as the man "who helped introduce me to my Christian faith," and said that "as imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me." Wisely, he did not claim to be unaware of Mr. Wright's radicalism or bitterness.

Mr. Obama spoke of the United States’ ugly racial history, which started with slavery and continues today in racial segregation, school achievement gaps and discrimination in everything from banking and credit services to law enforcement.

Against this backdrop, Obama said, he could not repudiate his pastor. "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community," he said. "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother”. That woman, whom he loves deeply, "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street" and more than once "uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

In his Philadelphia speech, Obama reminded people that 221 years ago “in a hall still standing across the street” a group of men gathered to declare American independence with these simple words “We the people, in order to form a perfect union…”

He also reminded his audience that “the document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately remained unfinished. It was stained by his “nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years”.

Barack Obama tells the American people “we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren”.

Contrast these defining and forward looking speeches by Kennedy and Obama with Kelly Lamrock’s regressive announcement that he is cancelling Early French Immersion in Canada’s only “Officially Bilingual” province.

In New Brunswick, most of us may look the same but clearly we follow different paths when it comes to language. “Intense French” as a replacement for the existing core program appears to make a lot of sense. Sacrificing early immersion to the program does not.

Obama talks about solving problems by working together. Mr. Lamrock appears to suggest it is better to go it alone. In my view, this province will never be bilingual unless we work together to meet the challenges of second language learning.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

posted by Bill Belliveau @ 3:04 PM 0 comments


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Saturday, March 15, 2008

New Brunswick Changing Education & Health Delivery Principles

There some interesting announcements this week from the Provincial Government.

First, Mike Murphy, Minister of Health introduced his rationalization plan for healthcare delivery and then Kelly Lamrock, Minister of Education responded to the French Second Language Report. Let's start with Murphy's announcement.

The Minister introduced his changes as "transformational" to the healthcare system. In fact what was announced was a restructuring program designed to save some money, improve the delivery of healthcare services and ultimately to add some consumer-driven oversight to the system.

Here's the deal! Eight regional health authorities will be consolidated into two units, one French and one English. I understand the politics of this decision but I would have preferred to see one bilingual unit, centrally located in Moncton or Fredericton. As announced, one unit will be located in Bathurst and the other in Miramichi thus formalizing a two layered system in lieu of one.

A new operating company will be created to manage the provision of non-clinical services such as materials management, technology services, biomedical engineering, energy retrofits, telecommunications, finance, payroll, laundry and presumably food service.
All of this will be coordinated from Saint John and service the needs of both Authorities.

This should help make our healthcare delivery system more cost efficient and that's important. Little or none of it will reduce wait times at hospitals or wait times for procedures. None of it will attract more doctors or nurses to the province but it might free up some dollars to hire them.

To oversee all of the above, a new Health Council is being created. It will be located in Moncton and have as its mandate the task of creating dialogue between users of the healthcare system and providers of healthcare to ensure that services are meeting the needs of our residents.

It's not clear what role the Council will play in an operational sense but its members are clearly Blue Chip. Chair will be Rino Volpé, former executive with the Irving group. Stéphane Robichaud will serve as CEO. It's not clear who the other Council members will be unless they will be the Chairs and CEOs of the Regional Health Authorities and the service company but that would seem to conflict with the Council's oversight mandate.

From an administrative point of view, Mr. Murphy is to be congratulated for his initiative but I question the wisdom of locating the new health authorities in the north when the majority of the population lives in the south. Locating the health authorities away from major centres may seem politically expedient in light of industrial job losses but New Brunswick's health infrastructure is centralized in the south around major medical and educational centres in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton.

On the matter of French Second Language training, Mr. Lamrock has announced that he will accept the recommendations of the FSL Commission and that early French immersion will be abandoned in favour of an intense two year program beginning in Grade 5. Following the intense program, students will have the option of continuing in immersion or moving into the main program with French as a continuing core subject.

New Brunswick ranks last in Canada in the areas of literacy, math and science. We fall far short of providing all students with a firm second language foundation. It's pretty clear; we have to do something about it.

In principle, I reject the abandonment of early French immersion but let me come back to that. Mr. Lamrock's announcement places French, as a second language, clearly in the mainstream. It will not be an optional subject. His target is 70% bilingualism for high school graduates. That's an ambitious target but a commendable target. His choice of intensity is designed for the masses, not the gifted but he may be right in that it could produce a much higher rate of two language proficiency than the current system.

On the matter of early immersion, the Minister has wisely "grandfathered" those who are in the system, meaning children who already are enrolled in early immersion will be allowed to continue in immersion through high school. There appears to be no mention of early immersion in private schools so one would assume that for those who have the resources to put their children in private schools, there will be no loss of early French immersion and that is good for them because I've found no evidence, professional, statistical or anecdotal that would support the notion that late immersion or intensity programs are better than early immersion.

That said I recognize that we are talking about the public school system and a majority of students. Mr. Lamrock's solution has to be better than today's system even if it increases literacy and bilingualism by only twenty percent and here's hoping it will be much more.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

posted by Bill Belliveau @ 2:56 PM 0 comments


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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Balancing NB's Levels of Bilingualism and Literacy

On July 17, 1981, the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly headed by then Premier Richard Hatfield adopted "Bill 88" which established French and English as “Official” languages of the Legislature and the Provincial Government.

The Constitution Act of 1982 also declares the languages as the “Official” languages of New Brunswick and they have equality of status, rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Legislature and the Government of New Brunswick.

“Official” use of language in the administration of government and the delivery of government services is fundamentality different from the notion of a bilingual province or community. It has been suggested that New Brunswick strive for a 70% bilingualism rate but that may be a challenge given that the Province is handicapped a 48% factor of illiteracy.

The Report and Recommendations of the French Second-Language (FSL) Commission on French-Second Language Programs and Services recommends that early French immersion be abandoned in Grades 1 to 5 to be replaced in Grade 5 with an “intensive” French language learning program.

The recommendations offered by Dr. Jim Croll and Patricia Lee appear to be based, in part, on a model used in Edmonton, Alberta where early immersion students can register in Kindergarten or Grade 1 and late immersion students can register in Grade 7 with little or no previous exposure to French. The theory is that nobody should be denied early immersion but equally, students who are not ready for early immersion should not be denied access to later immersion if and when they become motivated to engage in French immersion.

For early immersion students in Edmonton, at least 75% of the day is conducted in French. Late immersion students undergo two years of intense instruction and then blend into regular immersion classes, writing provincial achievement tests, along with their early immersion counterparts, at the end of Grade 9. Modified immersion programs are also offered in high school where two or three subjects are taught in French, typically French Language Arts and Social Studies.

In my opinion, the FSL Commission’s recommendation to abandon early immersions makes little sense. To turn our backs on early immersion would symbolically moderate our commitment to bilingualism. In a more practical vein, Joan Netten, Order of Canada for her contribution to research and development of French education, offers a most interesting thesis.

She acknowledges the high rate of attrition in early immersion and she acknowledges that immersion students fall behind those in the regular English program. However, and this is telling, she says the English skills of immersion students who remain in the program will catch up to and surpass those of students in the regular program by the time they reach intermediate grades. It seems counterintuitive but apparently the way to strong English skills for immersion students is to develop strong French skills first. French reading skills are transferred to English once a considerable degree of reading proficiency in French has been established. The two languages then reinforce each other.

The Croll-Lee Report uses drop-out statistics to justify recommendations to remove early immersion without offering a detailed examination of causal circumstance. There is little discussion about how kids acquire a second language. Some attention is paid to the deficient skill levels of teachers but little is offered in respect to how that circumstance might be remedied. In my opinion, language acquisition is not as much about the teaching as it is about the learning environment and the amount of time a student has to use the language.

Spend a week in a country where there is no English and you quickly learn to hear the language and use bits and pieces of it to communicate.

In many parts of the world, children are brought up to speak one or more languages. Kids grow up in multi-lingual households. They learn two or more languages without formal instruction.

How do they do it? I suspect they hear language, they mimic language and they adopt language in order to communicate. Why should it be so difficult for our language instructors to figure out a way to communicate and teach a second language in an immersion environment without destroying the tools for learning math and science?

There is a fundamental difference between immersion and the inclusion of French in the core curriculum. Immersion, whether early, late, intense or total is a voluntary engagement. Immersion programs provide the environment for learning a second language and acquiring the skills to use it. French when offered as part of an academic curriculum is just one of many courses designed to result in the achievement of knowledge but without the benefit of practical application.

The optics of bilingualism and the pursuit of bilingualism in New Brunswick are important to this province, so too is the need to increase the level of literacy. We have to find the right way to balance the two

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

posted by Bill Belliveau @ 4:57 PM 1 comments


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For Whom The Wind Toils, Creates Windfalls

The Canadian Wind Energy Association, an Ottawa based non-profit association that promotes the development and application of wind energy in Canada, boasts that wind power is the world's fastest growing energy source and has increased in excess of 30% annually for the past five years.

In 2006, worldwide wind-generated capacity exceeded 59,000 MW. Projected global capacity is 194,000 MW by 2013. To put that into context, NB Power’s generating capacity in all its forms today is just 3,324 MW. Projected global wind energy potential is roughly five times the total current electricity use.

Earlier this week, Premier Shawn Graham announced that Université de Moncton’s Dr. Yves Gagnon will undertake a series of community consultations into how individual communities can maximize the benefits of wind developments throughout the province.

Premier Graham says the program lines up nicely with the government's plan for self-sufficiency but what is particularly interesting about this program is that it will be extended to both municipalities and First Nation communities. It’s a chance for these communities to lower their energy costs, create some employment and grow their revenue base by selling into the NB Power grid.

Small scale community farms typically range in the magnitude of five to 15 megawatts, generated from three to seven wind turbines. They are much smaller in scale than large commercial farms and tend to be owned by small communities or local entrepreneurs, leaving the benefits to accrue locally.

Wind is a clean source of energy. It does not produce air emissions or hazardous waste. By way of example, the Wind Energy Association tells us that by using wind to produce enough electricity (2,000,000 kWh) to power 200 or more homes, we leave 900,000 kilograms of coal in the ground and reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2,000 tonnes, similar in impact to taking 417 cars off the road or planting 10,000 trees.

In good wind areas, it’s estimated that the costs of generating electricity from wind ranges from 6 to 12¢ per kWh. That estimation compares to NB Power’s “first block rate” of 9.62¢ and end block rate of 7.62¢ per kWh.

Based on the above, costs of local wind-generated electricity appear higher than rates charged to us by NB Power, so why bother with wind.

Here’s why: wind energy has no fuel cost and operating costs for wind-generated electricity have declined by 3-5% a year in recent years, partly as a result of increasing economies of scale. In contrast, most conventional generation costs are going up and steadily increasing fuel prices for coal, natural gas and oil are making wind power economics more and more attractive.

Canada ranks today as the world’s 11th largest nation in terms of installed wind energy capacity. Provincial governments are planning to put another 12,000 MW of wind energy capacity in place by 2016. This will only meet 5% of Canada’s total electricity demand. Countries like Denmark, Germany, Spain, Ireland and Portugal already generate between 5 and 20 percent of their electricity from wind energy.

Some critics of wind farms are concerned about impacts on wildlife: I suppose it’s true that wind turbines can impact birds and bats by either changing their natural habitat or through collisions with the turbines. In reality, I suspect that wind turbines have a much smaller impact than buildings, house cats or the climatic changes that are already having an impact on many bird habitats.

The U.S.-based National Audubon Society recently announced its support for well-sited wind projects, stating “On balance, Audubon strongly supports wind power as a clean alternative energy source that reduces the threat of global warming”.

Some critics worry about sound. Wind turbines produce an audible sound - the “swoosh” of blades as the turbine rotates. I have driven through acres and acres of wind farms in California without being particularly aware of such sounds.

Drive by the large-scale turbine near Amherst or the one located on the waterfront in downtown Toronto. You won’t be struck by the noise at either site. Experience around the world indicates that in most cases, sound of the turbine is masked by background sounds that also tend to increase with an increase in wind velocity (for example, the rustling of leaves in the trees).

Some believe that wind is an “intermittent” energy source that we cannot count on as part of a reliable electricity system. I was one of those non-believers but electric utilities around the world have discovered that wind is not only easy to integrate into their existing grids but can actually contribute to overall reliability.

I think we should encourage government to promote wind power for small municipalities and First Nation communities.

New revenue for these communities and a more climate friendly province would be the outcome.

W.E. (Bill) Belliveau is a Shediac resident and Moncton business consultant. He can be contacted at bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com Atlantic Insight is a published Blog inventory of opinion articles published weekly in New Brunswick's print media as written by W.E. (Bill) Belliveau, who is a resident of Shediac, New Brunswick, and small business owner, operating his Moncton-based marketing consultancy, Bell Strategic. He can be reached by e-mail at mailto:bill.bellstrategic@nb.aibn.com

posted by Bill Belliveau @ 4:53 PM 0 comments


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