Prince George, B.C. – About 300 teachers, members of the Prince George District Teachers Association, lined both sides of Highway 97 between 5^th and 10^th Avenues yesterday afternoon to mark a special occasion.

 

It   was to mark the one year anniversary of the end of their previous contract says PGDTA President Matt Pearce. “We are also protesting Bill 22 which we believe is the latest in a series of illegal, charter violating legislation put forth by the provincial government.”   Pearce says the teachers in B.C. will be heading to court in December to challenge the legislation “We don’t believe they’ve (Provincial Government) done what the Supreme Court ordered them to do and we just want to make everyone in the public aware this issue is not resolved and it’s a long way from being resolved.”

 

With classes virtually over for the school year, and people’s minds turned to summer weather and summer vacations, is there a danger the teachers will lose steam? Pearce says no, “We’ve been out for the past two months, every day, we’ve had teachers out with signs for the public to see and we’ve had an awesome response. Lots of very positive honks and waves, it’s been really encouraging to us to be out there and see the public really understands the issue and we understand we have a lot of support.”

 

Pearce says teachers will be busy over the next couple of months. “We are hoping the court is going to dismiss Dr. Jago as the mediator in the mock mediation that is going on right now, and that will throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the government’s plan. We do anticipate they are going to legislate a stripped contract on us and that of course will exacerbate things and create turmoil in the fall.”