I believe

I believe that an effective society has a strong public education system, that its members engage in the pursuit of truth, and that its values centre around a functioning democracy. I am very concerned about all three of my strongly held beliefs today, as they seem to be disintegrating before my eyes.

I believe in  a strong public education system.  I believe it is intrinsically worthwhile to ensure that everyone has access to a quality education, no matter what kind of wealth they may or may not have.  Maintaining a good public education system not only ensures that our population can read, write and understand their finances, but it also creates a population  that is be able to critically examine events and use knowledge to solve problems. It creates a population that is able to contribute meaningfully to our democratic society. You don't have to look too far in the world to see that countries with no or a poor public education system are suffering. There is greater poverty, more violent crime and very little critical thinking. It is because of my belief in the value of public education, that I cannot fathom why anyone would want to destroy it-which is what it seems our provincial government is intent in doing. If you don't believe our British Columbia Government is out to undermine public education, then you are not paying attention. Government subsidies to Private schools has increased 45.6  %  since 2005. Whereas, public schools have had to make cuts to keep up with inflation and increased costs to overhead. The government is not being dishonest when it says it has increased spending for public education, however, they have not increased it enough to cover new, inflated costs, and certainly not to the same degree as the funding for Private Schools. Another way our government has been undermining public education is their continual attempts to break the British Columbia Teachers Union, public education's biggest advocate, at all costs.  Before some of you scoff at the notion that the BCTF is public educations biggest advocate on the basis that they use strike action to put pressure on the government, I ask you this: WHO else stands on street corners with signs that ask for more money for special needs students? WHO else gives up salary so that maybe, just maybe someone will pay attention to the fact that students need more one on one attention? WHO else writes countless letters, blogs, and articles explaining what their classrooms are like with too many students, too many needs and too many students not getting the support they need? WHO else is talking about how to make our schools better????? WHO else would have the first hand knowledge to know HOW to make our schools better?  Every time there is a disruption to schools, more students go to the private sector.  If a government wanted students to go to the private sector, wouldn't they ensure there were continual and lengthy disruptions in the public school system? I know some of you are still stuck on  the "teachers are greedy and militant" mantra that has been repeated often throughout the media, and are probably blaming teachers for the disruption, but consider this: in 2012 The BC Supreme Court found the Provincial government bargained in bad faith due to the fact that they deliberately "provoked" a strike for political gain. Private education costs the government less because parents pay half the costs out of their own pocket.  If a government was intent on keeping down costs of education, wouldn't it make sense to fund private more, and public less? Making public schools undesirable sends people to private-unless you can't afford it. Then, you have to settle for a less than adequate public system- which is just plain wrong, and does little to promote a well educated society.

I believe in truth. Truth can be a tricky concept for some. My truth may be different from your truth. Experiences can change, alter or even discount many truths. For example, many people at one time believed it to be true that the world was flat, but of course we now know that the truth is that it is not. The truth I believe in is KNOWING truth.  That is, I believe in telling what I KNOW to be true.  That is to say, saying something you KNOW to be untrue is wrong.  This includes misleading others for sake of your own personal gain. For example, when Minister Fastbender explained why his government had not negotiated all summer with the BCTF, he said the reason was because the BCTF was in Kamloops. First of all, the only truth stated here is that the BCTF were, on that particular day, in Kamloops. The summer has been long. Even if it was true that the BCTF was unavailable for a few days in August ( which they were not... have you ever heard of conference calls? or Skype?) What happened to the rest of the summer? Mr. Fastbender KNOWS that the BCTF was available all summer, but chose to mislead the public so that the public would believe that he was available "24/7," whereas the BCTF, had the nerve to frolic in Kamloops. Or, another example of this constant "mistruths" is when our premier stated that she wanted a long term deal with the teachers so that we don't have to bicker about "wages" every few years.  She knows better than anyone, that the biggest stumbling block to bargaining  since 2002 was her, now deemed illegal, legislation that took away the BCTF's right to negotiate class size and composition ratios.  Now, believe what you want about the effectiveness of strict ratios to determine class size and composition( I personally believe that classes were easier to manage with these ratios, which translated to better learning), but that legislation left a 275 million dollar hole in the education budget every year since then. There are way too many "untruths" to list here, but here is the most important lie of all: the government's real motives for only agreeing to mediation with pre-conditions.  They say they will agree to mediation but the parties are "too far apart. " When actually, the biggest problem with mediation is the government's "pre-conditions." The BCTF has no conditions. They just want mediation. Does the government not trust Vince Ready to be fair in his recommendations? I will talk more about these conditions and why the BCTF would never agree to them later, but  if they want the BCTF to agree to their terms, and they want the BCTF to sign something they don't agree with, how is this different from legislation? I personally think, and this is my truth: THEY DONT WANT AN AGREEMENT, THEY WANT TO BANKRUPT THE BCTF AND ITS MEMBERS. If they put teachers on the brink of bankruptcy, they will agree to anything to get back to work, wont they? Who cares about the students who are supposed to be in school! Lets get those teachers! Funny how they don't mention their real "true" motives for not meeting and imposing "preconditions" to mediation in press conferences.


I believe in democracy. I believe in it even though it is not efficient-it takes time and effort. For starters, it means voting and electing leaders, which take time and money. But democracy doesn't end once the election is over. Just because a person or group of people are voted in does not mean that the job of  upholding democracy is done.  It means taking time to respect all points of view. It means taking time to make sure you consider the rights and freedoms of others. It means making laws in a democratic fashion-which means that laws cannot be oppressive or infringe on rights and freedoms of others.  It also means taking time to ensure that there is a system in place to keep the values of democracy alive-that is to say, to make sure that people respect the values of democracy in both their actions and speech. One person, or one group of people cannot just impose their will on the whole because they believe it to be the best course of action. They have to follow the democratically created laws.  In short, even those democratically elected cannot do whatever they want. I am proud to live in a democratic country, but I am angry that these values are currently being mocked by the British Columbia Government.

In 2002, then Education Minister, Christy Clark, did something that imposed on the rights of the BCTF to collectively bargain their contract: She created a law that disallowed the bargaining of class size and composition.  This law essentially stripped any language that was previously collectively bargained by the BCTF and disallowed any further bargaining around class size and composition. Luckily, we live in a democratic society, and we have the courts to ensure that our democratic principles of rights and freedoms are observed, so the BCTF took the BC government to court. And won. The BC government did indeed overstep their authority by contradicting The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and were given one year to remedy it.  They were told the law they created was invalid. THEY DID NOT APPEAL THIS DECISION. Instead, they chose to ignore it and create a virtually identical law in its stead. Luckily, we live in a democratic society, and the BCTF took the BC government to court again. And again, the BCTF won. Only this time, the government was ordered to pay the BCTF $2 million dollars, and were found to be bargaining in "bad faith." It was found that part of their strategy in dealing with the BCTF labour dispute was to provoke teachers to go on strike so that the public would support back-to-work legislation. For the second court case the government decided to use their democratic right to appeal. As I said, I believe in democracy, so it is certainly within their rights to appeal.  However, when one uses their power to undermine any outcome of any court proceeding IN ADVANCE, you are undermining the very foundation of that system they swore to uphold when they were elected.  One of the preconditions to mediation is in fact that should the appeal process not go in either parties favour, either party has the right to rip up the agreement and start fresh. The BCTF would never want to rip up the collective agreement. The government has an endless supply of money (your money in the form of tax dollars) to pursue countless collective bargaining sessions, with a variety of high paid lawyers.  The BCTF does not. The government knows this. If the BCTF were to agree to this precondition, they would basically be saying that it doesn't matter what the court says. And, it could potentially bankrupt them. Essentially, it is a clause that guarantees the BCTF will not sign the contract.  Not only is the provincial government mocking the democratic process as demonstrated in the courts but it is showing its sinister motives. The biggest obstacle in getting their way in dismantling public education as we know it, is the BCTF. Breaking them, is their primary goal.

The opposite of democracy is Tyranny.  When are we all going to wake up and stop talking about teachers wages and summers off and see the real threat: a government who uses and abuses democracy as a way to achieve their own narcissistic, sinister agenda. I also wonder, if we don't stand up now and say this not right, what will happen to us as a society when public education ceases to be important, truth is ignored and democracy is dead. We, as British Columbians and Canadians, citizens of a democratic society, need to stand up and say this is not acceptable!

I believe  it will be worth it.