Province Reaches Tentative Deal with BCTF
Prince George, B.C. – A breakthrough in the talks between the provincial government and the BCTF.
Today the Ministry of Education confirmed both sides have reached a tentative Memorandum of Agreement on class size and composition.
B.C. Education Minister Mike Bernier
The ministry says negotiations between the sides began on Nov. 20, 2016 and spanned 27 bargaining sessions.
The BCTF will present the MOA for ratification to its members over the coming week. Details of the agreement will be released once the BCTF ratification process is complete. The bargaining follows the union’s Supreme Court of Canada victory in November.
“This is great news for students, parents, and teachers. If ratified, the agreement means thousands more teachers, more resources and more classroom supports,” said Education Minister Mike Bernier.
“If ratified, it will build on the $100 million for up to 1,100 teachers announced in January’s interim agreement with the BCTF and the record funding increase we just announced in the budget.”
Comments
Yes indeed Mike, a good positive spin is needed. Look at all the money we sre throwing at educacation. Vote me. Not to mention that you were ordered by the supreme court to restore what you took away.
And what an outgoing government threw in to try and get re-elected by the union. Maybe it is the Liberals turn but unfortunately for taxpayers Horgan points to TrueDough’s election as a reason to spend like mad, he says people expect it – they would rather have a government that spends instead of one that is balancing the budget because the budget will balance itself. Won’t it?
Oh, the irony! In just 16 years, the BC Liberals have put BC into as much debt as it took 130 years of successive BC governments to do. It took 130 years to amass just over $30 Billion dollars of debt, these BC Liberals put us a further $30 Billion dollar in debt in only 16 years.
We simply cannot afford to re-elect this reckless and irresponsible BC Liberal government, to do so would bankrupt us!!!
NDP doubled the debt in 10 years, and plan to do more debt raising in the future according to Horgan.
But his reckless debt won’t bankrupt us because he told us first, I get it, thanks for the heads up
Oh, you must be talking about the $17 Billion in debt the NDP was responsible for. So how responsible is it for the BC Liberals to put our province over $30 Billion dollars in debt? It should actually be $40 Billion dollars if we include the $10 Billion in debt the BC Liberals transferred to BC Hydro.
Yes the doubling of the debt they inherited, that is correct
Just so we understand each other, you mean the BC Liberals = $40 Billion in debt compared to the NDP = $17 Billion in debt?
I thought the BCDTA was just whining last month about nothing happening on this file.
What, or who, is the BCDTA? My god man, do you even known what you are even talking about?
PGDTA thanks for the correction but no need to be condescending.
The title should read… Liberal government finally adheres to the courts order…
Or BCTF finally is able to negotiate something
What a strange response. The government breaks the law by trashing a signed, legally binding contract with teachers, and you blame the teachers for not being able to negotiate a contract. Quite obviously, now the courts have forced the government to honour their commitments the teachers can finally get the government to agree to something.
The meaning in this is that the failure to negotiate lay with the government due to its contempt for contract law. The teachers were quite clearly correct the whole time.
Oh man, that was funny!
What the Liberals ‘trashed’ammonra was a sweetheart unsustainable deal gifted to the BCTF by Glen Clark in the NDP’s dying days of power as a failed attempt at a vote buting exercise.
Buting=buying
Regardless of the political spin you want to put on it, it was still a legally binding contract under labour law and contract law. Both parties who signed it agreed to the contract. My comments still stand as true.
Assuming myself to be a judge presiding over this discussion, I rule in favour of ammonra’s lawful comments, and strike down RustyShackleford and Grizzly2’s comments as being illegal and unconstitutional.
I hereby order RustyShackleford and Grizzly2 to publicly apologize to ammonra on this discussion board.
There is no spin ammomra, it’s fact. The BCTF has a long history of fighting with governments of all stripes and having little regard for taxpayers. To their credit, the BC Liberals have done the best job of any political party in a long time of working with this tradionally hatd to work with group.
Well, RS, there certainly is spin being put on it. The government lost in the Supreme Court of Canada and was ordered by the court to make reparations for its illegal actions of arbitrarily changing the legally binding contract it had with the BCTF. That is the basic fact, that is the bottom line. To state that this illegal act by the government is to be praised because they are the only government to take on the BCTF is political spin at its most egregious. The Liberal government broke the law. Do you get that basic fact? The Liberal government broke the law! Now they have to pay, and all the excuses, rationalisations and political posturing by them and their supporters will not change that fact one iota.
In passing, please do remember, as many of us recall, that there was a time when the BCTF had voluntary certification and negotiated School District by School District. It was a Socred government that forced them to take a vote of their members to become a certified trade union and to negotiate province wide. If the BCTF has shown itself to be proficient at that, well blame the Socreds. It is obviously an example of the law of unintended consequences because the Socreds thought they were demoralising teachers and the BCTF. Instead they handed the BCTF authority on a platter and the Socreds and their metamorphites have been complaining about it ever since.
No denying that the government lost the Supreme Court decision. The BCTF had to appeal many times because they lost in previous court decisions.
And you’re right again that the taxpayer will be on the hook. The government is complying with the Supreme Court ruling but you can’t fault them for fighting on behalf of the taxpayer and trying to cancel the sweetheart backroom deal gifted to the BCTF by the previous government.
We can fault our BC Liberal government for wasting our hard earned tax money on a legal case they had no chance of winning. They knew they had done the same illegal contract revocation with the HEU, and lost that case in the Supreme Court of Canada. To expect a different outcome when it came to contract revocation with the BCTF is pure BC Lib-Con folly!
No the BCTF lost the case, they appealed which lost more of your hard earned tax dollars. If you appeal enough eventually you run out of appeals and the one lucky enough to win the last one is the victor
And Hogiebun and NDP would not do the same damn thing eh? BCTF have a pretty good thing going compared to a few of the other unions. Try a component with approx. 2500 members compared to the majority of the union at 23,000 office workers, they have no say whatsoever. Although they do have some minor problems mind you, but once if and when they are corrected they would find something else to say they are hard done by!
“This is great news for students, parents, and teachers. If ratified, the agreement means thousands more teachers, more resources and more classroom supports,” said Education Minister Mike Bernier.
How can you say that with a straight face Mike? The teachers had to fight with you and your government for 14 years to get this, your government lost that fight and now you expect us to believe that you, and your pathetic government, had the best interests of the student, parents and teachers in mind all along?
Two faced hypocrites, the whole lot of you!!!
AND, that was funny too! LOL!
Might be great news for teachers, parents, and students. Not so great for taxpayers.
Right on the money Palopu.
Why are some of you so adamantly against giving children a decent education?
Because they are Conservatives, they don’t need education, they have their ideology!
“This is great news for students, parents, and teachers. If ratified, the agreement means thousands more teachers, more resources and more classroom supports,”
And it only took 15 years and many thousands of dollars.
But of course there are those who will claim that was the fault of the BCTF, that their kids have been short changed for years.
Rusty, according to a teacher that I talked with, the “sweetheart deal” in 1998, teachers signed a contract that gave them 0, 0 and .02 pay raises; in return, the students would benefit from ” more resources and classroom support.”
Those who complain about the cost of education don’t give a sh*t about kids. The are probably the same one’s that don’t clean up their dogs’ sh*t off the school playing fields.
With spring approaching, my teacher friend complained about teaching gym classes on his school’s field.
But of course there are those who will say that he’s just a whiner worried about getting dog sh*t on his shoes.
Comments for this article are closed.