Editor, the Gauntlet,
[Re: “PC Leadership Candidates Face Off,” Katy Anderson, Oct. 6, 2006]
While a recent Herald column suggests that Lyle Oberg may be making up ground in the PC leadership race with his plainspokenness, I firmly believe that he will never be an appropriate premier for this province because of certain actions taken–or rather, not taken–as education minister.
About eight years ago, at the age of 12, I was preparing to graduate high school in less than two years. Since the law required me to be in school until age 16, but the major universities (including the University of Calgary) rejected me sight unseen due to my age, my parents needed advice from the minister’s office on what to do. His answer was apparently not to investigate the privately-funded options within the province–or anywhere else in the country, for that matter–but to recommend that I seek out an American university and American corporate funding, because there was nothing for me here.
Had he done even cursory checking, he’d have found that the DeVry Institute of Technology here in Calgary was more than willing to take me on. Not only did I ultimately attend DeVry–after they recruited me–but I won a full-tuition scholarship as a top-placer on their entrance exams. No one so lazy and apathetic as to actually encourage “brain drain” from their own province could ever truly lead it.
Jason W. Robertson