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Lunch time and locked out at South Park today |
Dear Saanich South,
Many of you have contacted me about the current labour
dispute impacting public schools. I'm very concerned about this, and the impact
of this disruption on hundreds of thousands of kids and their families.
I'm also angry at how the BC government is
treating our teachers and the school system. Premier Clark and her
government have not only failed to negotiate an agreement with teachers, they
have escalated the conflict with a “partial lockout,” that disrupts school
activities, including academic field trips, graduation activities, exam marking
and report card updates.
Premier Clark has been a constant factor in this
government’s decade of conflict with teachers in B.C. As education
minister in 2002, she passed a law that led to larger classes and less support
for students with special needs. The B.C. Supreme Court struck down this law in
2011, and when the BC Liberal government introduced virtually identical
legislation in 2012, they struck that down as unconstitutional as well.
In the court ruling released earlier this year, the judge
chastised the government for bargaining in bad faith and attempting to provoke
a full-scale strike in B.C. schools. Regrettably, recent attempts to provoke
teachers and escalate tensions show the government has not changed its tactics.
Along with my colleagues, I will continue pressing the
government to turn the page on twelve years of political failures that have
harmed the education of a generation of kids and worsened the quality of
employment of public school teachers. We will continue to support all
good-faith efforts to reach a negotiated settlement.