October 21, 2005
Check Against Delivery

Thank you all very much for coming this morning. We have had a chance to review the recommendations that Mr. Ready has put forward. This is a constructive framework that allows us all to move forward under the law. It respects Bill-12. It bolsters the learning roundtable and learning conditions. And it respects the common wage mandate that has been laid out by the government. So, today, I can tell you that the government will be accepting the recommendations of Mr. Ready unconditionally.

It is a constructive framework that allows us to move forward. It allows to us put our children back in the classrooms with their teacher and to end this illegal strike.

It allows to us move forward with an industrial inquiry commission process to fix a broken bargaining system, and to address issues that have already been identified by the IIC and by the government relating to the harmonization of the grid and to identify harmonization of benefits across the province.

It allows us to move forward to improve learning conditions for our children in their classrooms.

It allows us to act in concert with our trustees, with our principals and vice-principals, with teachers, and with parents particularly to assure that our public education system works for our kids.

And it allows us to move forward to improve communications with the BCTF and with teachers through regular dialogue and communications about the issues that they face in the classroom – teaching conditions they face in the classroom and learning conditions that our students have.

So, today, I would like to thank Mr. Ready for his constructive comments and to allow parents and teachers to know that we will be accepting the recommendations of Mr. Ready.

I'd just like to take a moment to speak directly to teachers, if I can.

I know that this has been a difficult time for them. I have been a teacher myself; my family's been involved in the public education system for years. My children went to school and benefited from a great public education system here in British Columbia.

One of the most important things for all of us to take from this is we now have a constructive foundation that we can build on, that we can work together on to improve the quality of public education for every single one of our children.

I would hope that the teachers will accept Mr. Ready's recommendations unconditionally. I believe we can build a positive relationship as we move forward because, at the end of the day, I believe all of us are concerned about the education that our children get in the classrooms of British Columbia.

Thank you.