I don't know where my original post on this ended up. I posted it and blogger promptly crashed on me - the same old song and dance - so here's the redux.

Last week was the Adult Ed. Graduation, held at JO for all of the grads from our 6 different schools. It was my first, and I found it a particularly moving event. In all my grad-going days I've never seen a prouder looking bunch, and I think that's a testament to all of the diverse barriers our grads have overcome by the time they walk across that stage. At any grad, you can usually tell which election is coming up by which level of government sends the most candidates, and the upcoming civic elections were made more than obvious by the swath of counselors who were a part of the platform party.

A full eight seats on stage were occupied by civic politicians: four school boards trustees and four counselors. Not bad when you consider the whole city gets 11. I wish I still had the note where I scribbled down their names during grad, because frankly, the performance they put on was DREADFUL! Not a third of the way through the ceremony, before any of our valedictorians had spoken, the entire flock of eight less one trustee evacuated the stage. Can you imagine? Midway through a graduation and half of the platform party walk off the stage? It was atrocious and very obvious political maneuvering. Clearly they weren't actually there to honour our hard working grads, but rather just for the few minutes of air time in a packed gymnasium. Cheap.

And they seriously all got up and left the stage at once, before a single grad had walked across it. So thanks for coming counselors, but if you're going to use our ceremony as just another opportunity for political opportunism and behave disrespectfully towards our grads, then please, don't come. Judging by how the people I talked to this year felt about the whole thing, if it were to happen again I suspect the resulting letter to the editor campaign would be even more damaging than just being eaten away by the guilt of knowing you acted shamefully on what may be the most important day yet for hunderes of young people and new Canadians. It might even damage a political reputation or two, and based on what I've seen, that's the one thing they can't abide.