The city of Mississauga is going through a promising transformation. I expect the city centre to look drastically different in the next few years and I like the direction its taking. The city is transforming from a suburb into a major city with its own unique character.

Last year’s “Our Future Mississauga” initiative has produced so many innovative ideas. Watching some of those plans being implemented in the coming years will be very exciting.

The students are hoping to raise $10,000 to support lifesaving research at the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health.

On Friday, I attended a gala dinner the students organized to raise funds for their project. There were more than 100 people in attendance made up of students, parents, teachers and friends. They had a speaker who grew up in Africa and had to endure malaria when she was younger. Her story was an eye-opener.

The sense of accomplishment and enthusiasm at the dinner was contagious and inspiring. Those students are clear examples of everyday Canadian heroes who work tirelessly to help others not expecting anything in return but a sense of satisfaction. They didn’t have worry about malaria and its patients, yet they did. We are fortunate here Canada where malaria is non-existent. But their sense of responsibility towards other human beings motivated them to do something about it. The funds they will raise will save lives.

Such initiatives fill me with pride and is a reminder to all of us that we can make a huge difference in the world if we set our mind to it.

Congratulations to the students who chose to make a difference. If you want to support those amazing students in their effort, you can donate here.

We have one of the highest quality post-secondary education systems in the world. Our universities and colleges have excellent reputations and rich history. However, if we are not careful, much of that success could be weakened as global competition rises.

Canada’s future prosperity, economic and social success depends significantly on the knowledge base of our citizens. Canada is not able to compete with China or India when it comes to low skill manufacturing and unless we enhance the skills of our labour force our competitive edge will diminish.

That means that Canada needs to ensure that all citizens have easy access to higher education. Access to university or college must not be restricted by income level.

Nowadays, students are graduating with huge debt burdens making them think twice about pursuing their higher education. As a society, we need to recognize that crushing student loans over the long term will be a determent to the future prosperity of our country. Also, post-secondary education institutions need sustainable research dollars so they can attract talent and improve our technological developments.

The need to nurture an accessible and robust post-secondary education system may not be top of mind to most Canadians as its consequences don’t surface until years later. This fascinating report reveals a strong correlation between school enrolments in the 1900s and the GDP per capita in 2000. The inescapable reality that if we ignore the challenges faced by students and institutions today, we will pay severe penalties for it in the future. Political and community leaders need to keep reminding the public of the necessity to support post-secondary education, so people don’t ignore those medium and long term needs.

In a complex federation, post-secondary education is not just the responsibility of provincial governments. The federal government can help by doing the following:

In addition to the social and health transfers to the province, the federal government can separate dedicated post-secondary transfers to the province to ensure accountability and traceability and to emphasize the importance of higher learning for the future of our country

Predictable funding for research and development for post-secondary institutions

Grants (not loans) for low/middle income students

Consider exempting the first $100,000 of income from paying income tax after graduation. This will be a great incentive to complete a post-secondary degree and start a professional careers with little shackles

The above are some ideas that the federal government has within its disposal to invest in post-secondary education and protect the future of our country. Doing nothing is not an option.

Students and administrators appear to be the only ones who are sounding the alarm today. We need visionary leadership that will recognize the seriousness of this matter and its ramifications. Those students are doing us favour by insisting that we pay attention. If we ignore their call it will be at our peril.

This is an interesting initiative that promotes what I consider to be the most valuable aspect of development that students gain during their education years: life skills.

Traditionally, students are evaluated based on their academic achievements during their school years, but the most valuable lessons students learn are not how well they can memorize a mathematical formula; they are discipline, critical thinking, team building and that hard work can lead to rewards.

Programs that nurture this softer side of education are crucial. Sometimes there is too much emphasis placed on how high grades are instead of how much have students learned.

Undoubtedly, when proposing such initiatives some questions will surface about the fairness of reducing this recognition to only one recipient even though there will be many students who will demonstrate exceptional leadership skills. This is a reasonable question, and the competition has to ensure that all participants and society as a whole are winners. I am sure that criteria for selecting the winner are transparent and fair.

Ultimately, this competition is no different than the world outside school walls where rewards are limited and competition is permanent.

Congratulations to Erindale school for trying something original. The most important take away from this initiative for students is that leadership at school or in the community will be worth more Mustangs in the future no matter what career they choose.

This had to have been a very tough decision for the Board members. The fact is that we do have a serious problem on our hands. This pattern of high drop-out rates is unsustainable for the future of economic and social success of our community. It is also a symptom of bigger problems that our system is experiencing. But I believe that this decision by the Toronto District School Board is short-sighted and misses the mark. Such a school will undoubtedly complicate racial dynamics in the community. It will probably exacerbate any feelings of racial differences rather than celebrate and embrace cultural differences.

A better solution would be to change the current systems by ensuring that the teacher/staff/counselor population mirrors the students that attend the schools in terms of culture and race. It is important for students to be able to look around and see someone that looks like them when they are being taught, disciplined and counseled.

It is true that we have schools that are art-focused, or science-focused, but those schools are aimed to enhance certain skills and talents. I am concerned that black-focused schools will weaken racial harmony and integration. I also believe that it skirts around the root causes of the social difficulties that kids who drop out face.

I think an argument can be made that there isn’t enough education in the current system about black history and culture, but the response to that should be to increase that awareness so ALL kids can benefit from it creating a more sensitive community to black culture, not just inside the school but outside of it as well. This school will probably create an insular environment. I would rather see schools sensitize all kids to the rich diversity that Africans, south Asians, Chinese, Latin Americans, Europeans, Middle Easterns, Aboriginals and others offer our society; so that when these students graduate, they carry that awareness with them in their workplaces and homes and it is not just offered to one segment of the population, but shared by all.

We can’t deny that there are serious problems with this high drop-out rate of black kids. I understand that some have argued that serious situations require extraordinary measures. But our primal instincts that may support such measure are not addressing the real causes. There has to be an examination of our educational curriculum where we would create more inviting and respectful spaces rather than short-term solutions.