Premier Christy Clark is not the type of leader to eagerly eat humble pie, but the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision last week, at the very least, should cause her to blush.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court ordered British Columbia to restore contract provisions that had stripped away long-standing teachers’ rights to negotiate class size and composition. In doing so, it repudiated the government’s action, and identified it as unconstitutional.
In what amounted to a three strikes you’re out ruling, the Supreme Court convincingly sided with two previous rulings by the B.C. Supreme Court that found the government’s position unconstitutional. In doing so, it rejected a B.C. Court of Appeal judgment that sided with the province, and eventually led to the whole issue reaching the Supreme Court.
To its credit, since the announcement of the decision, the provincial government has not tried to re-litigate the case.
Sadly, that had been a government tactic for far too long.
Education has been a political football in this province for decades, and all the players have contributed to long and too often fractious turmoil that in the end has not benefited students, parents, teachers or the government.
Demands from an often-belligerent B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) have not always been reasonable, and equally bellicose responses from the government have sometimes contributed to strikes and job actions that failed to serve either party, or the province at large.
To her credit, the premier seems to have become more pragmatic than usual, and in the daily press she is reported to have said, “We have to sit down with the teachers’ union and talk about what changes come as a result of the court ruling.”
And she later added, “We agree on the outcome. The next step is figuring out how to get there.”
It would seem that the tone adopted when the province and the BCTF reached a negotiated contract in the fall of 2014 has somewhat cleared the air. That new tone gives some hope that reasonableness might be achieved.
Under the best circumstances, that could contribute to better decisions when it comes to improving the education system in a timely and financially responsible manner.
