I hope that the irony isn't lost on anyone: The Liberal government, by making teachers an essential service and legislating an end to negotiations, has managed to force a crisis that has kept schools closed for at least nine days.
It's not like they weren't warned. Since the essential service legislation was passed, teachers have cautioned that the very nature of it created circumstances that would compel teachers into taking much more drastic job action than they have for many years.
And the events of the last two weeks have borne that out.
It should never have come to this. Teachers and their employer could have come to a reasonable settlement had the government not hamstrung the employer by creating an artificial zero-zero and nothing mandate. The government knew very well that teachers would not accept those terms.
So, why did they do it? I've called the Liberal government plenty of names over the years, but "stupid" was never one of them. My suspicion is that this is exactly what the government had wanted: create a crisis in education, paint the teachers as the bad guys, use the public outrage to discredit the BCTF, and in doing so, squash one of its biggest political opponents.
And now, closing the second week, and seeing what appears to be the inevitability of a general strike, I have a feeling that teachers are being manipulated like pieces on a game board. There's been nothing in the BCTF action that hasn't been predictable, yet Minister De Jong's counterplay is to feign outrage and hope that the public jumps onside.
But in believing their own propaganda, the Liberals have made their fundamental error. In the small, dank backrooms where Liberal strategy is spawned, the BCTF is the Antichrist and only exorcism of the demon will lead to salvation for the system. But the public sees the BCTF as teachers, and teachers in their view, are a bunch middle-class, conservative, law-abiding people. We teach their kids, we vote, we support their businesses; basically, we're boring, and safe.
So now we're waiting for the end game. Both the teachers and the government have staked their positions and it's the government's move. If teachers are forced to go back to school on the government's terms, I can't imagine how ugly the work environment is going to be. If they throw us a bone, we might all be able to get out of this with a modicum of dignity.
Prior to introducing Bill 12, the labour minister commented that one day out of school was too much; I guess that six days (and counting) is getting closer to being just about right.
Paul Demers is a teacher at Howe Sound Secondary School.
