"It's time we ... restored education as an essential service, to ensure students are never again denied access to the education your tax dollars pay for, simply because of a labour dispute. Every day a child is shut out of a classroom is a learning day lost to that child forever."
- New Era document 2001
Around 4 a.m. yesterday morning, it was announced that a tentative deal had been reached between the B.C. Teachers' Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers' Association.
Details of the settlement have not been revealed at time of writing but it's clear all British Columbians owe veteran mediator Vince Ready a huge vote of thanks for - yet again - bringing sanity to a situation that should never have arisen.
If you, as I did, shook hands with the BC Liberals and voted to approve the deals they outlined in their 2001 New Era prospectus, are you feeling defrauded?
I am.
And nothing reminded me more of that fraud, than to hear current Education Minister Peter Fassbender telling television cameras that "the provincial government has no intention of legislating teachers back to work," and then, on Sept. 6 refusing the BCTF offer to accept binding arbitration.
Of course not; the longer he claimed government had "no more resources," the more government hoped mounting public pressure would convince teachers to give up. Bad move.
Then, on Sept. 1, Fassbender told the media the two parties were less than a newly leaking stadium roof apart.
Of course, he didn't put it that way. Instead, with doleful face, he regretted government and BCTF were still "$300 million apart," as though the problem was insurmountable unless the union caved in on teachers' demands.
This is not to say I was one hundred per cent behind BCTF strategy; I still don't agree with its decision to take strike action just prior to graduation.
But when you consider that no less than four court decisions have come down against a succession of governments, you can't help but think our Families First crew left teachers, parents and their children to shoulder the grief.
So, looking back, what was the first move made by the Campbell regime?
Eight months after the New Era dawned, Minister Christy Clark tabled Bill 27, the Education Services Collective Agreement Act, and Bill 28, the Public Education Flexibility and Choice Act on Jan. 25, 2002.
Those two pieces of legislation not only contained clauses Justice Susan Griffin found to be unconstitutional but, in effect, they tore up a legally negotiated agreement with BCTF and removed the ability of professional educators to participate in decisions involving class size and composition.
Far from settling down the ever-smouldering relationship between the union and the provincial government, the Liberals then had the gall to appeal the Griffin decision.
But with respect to the tentatively concluded negotiations, there are two other important points to be made about the Griffin decision: First, the judge noted that government had acted in bad faith during the previous round of contract negotiations - so why would anyone be surprised the BCTF was determined not to let it happen again?
Second, Griffin anticipated class size and composition would, indeed, be an appropriate item to include in negotiation discussions. At this point, it remains to be seen how the tentative agreement proposes to handle that part of the teachers' demands. However, if we add Griffin's findings to the B.C. Supreme Court cases won by former Victoria school trustee John Young in 1997 and 2006, we see that together, under the School Act, the province is required to provide all resources from the K-12 curriculum that are necessary for students to graduate.
Today, "all resources" means negotiating - and funding - an appropriate number of special education teaching assistants in the classroom for students with special needs.
One teacher can't teach 25 "normal" kids at their pace, explain concepts in English to a kid who doesn't understand the language, all the while tending to students who have a wide spectrum of learning challenges. Everyone suffers in a system like that.
Minister Fassbender made a great play to taxpayers when he claimed the budget had no room for the BCTF demands.
Yet, for 14 years, the "business-savvy" Liberals have found funds enough for "legacy" projects and a bottomless pit for legal appeals, for the leaky roof on BC Place stadium, and for the $36 million they squandered on settling with Boss Energy and Basi-Virk's lawyers.
One decision or another, those and similar items cost British Columbians billions of dollars. Yet Fassbender and his boss - who, these days, has to be dragged away from running provincial affairs via Twitter - couldn't find enough dollars to support fundamental education for our future generation?
If government was so sure teachers' demands were all about money, they should have called their bluff and avoided the strike altogether by agreeing to binding arbitration on salaries and benefits.
This column has been re-written about six times already and the goal posts are still in motion.
As things stand, however, what I'm hoping is that, as suggested weeks ago by a Gabriola Island resident, the two parties will "...unconditionally agree to abide by the outcome of an accelerated court hearing on the matter of breach of contract on class-size and composition with a decision to be brought down before Oct. 31."
