As you know from the time we started this campaign, we’ve set five great goals for British Columbia. Our first goal is to make sure that British Columbians are the best educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America.
May 12, 2005
Check Against Delivery
Thank you for coming.
As you know from the time we started this campaign, we’ve set five great goals for British Columbia. Our first goal is to make sure that British Columbians are the best educated, most literate jurisdiction in North America.
It’s very difficult to do that if you don’t have a public education system that says that students are your first and your foremost concern in all of the actions that you take.
Late last night, British Columbians learned of a BC Teachers Federation secret plan to hold a strike vote days after the provincial election. It’s a duplicitous plan meant to engineer a school strike only weeks before provincial exams that would throw our school system into chaos. It’s obvious that both the NDP and the BCTF have been trying to hide their true intentions. They’ve run a campaign of deception, half truths and misinformation. They are turning our classrooms and our playgrounds into places of propaganda instead of places of learning.
I think the revelation explains why the BCTF is spending $5 million to elect the NDP and put their former president in the cabinet room. Let’s just put that $5 million in context. That’s 25% more money – just from that one union – than any party is allowed to spend on its entire election campaign activities during the writ period.
The BCTF wants a government that will put strikes before students and go back to the days when our children are barred from classrooms during labour disputes. They want an NDP government that will eliminate education as an essential service and allow students to be used as political pawns to advance the BCTF’s union interests. They are planning to throw our schools into chaos – regardless of who forms the next government.
They know that if the NDP get in, the BCTF will get its way. They know that the BC Liberals stand up for students first. This is the NDP and the BCTF’s hidden agenda. It’s a shameful confirmation of what we have suspected all along. It’s about putting strikes ahead of students; and union interests ahead of public interests. And electing an NDP government that will do the BCTF’s bidding.
If we care about public education we simply can’t let that happen. BC Liberals will ensure a student’s right to learn. We will ensure students’ rights come before strikes. British Columbians are going to have to ask themselves do they really want to go back to the days when 4 million students’ days of learning were lost to labour disputes. Do they really want one of the most militant presidents of the BCTF’s ever sitting as the next cabinet minister in British Columbia.
David Chudnovsky actually believes, and I want to quote this, ‘teaching is not, and should not be an essential service.’ BC Liberals believe that teachers are essential to the quality of learning in the province of British Columbia. The leader of the NDP supports Mr. Chudnovsky’s view. And her official position is that education should not be an essential service. For a leader who says she wants to consult before acting on virtually any issue, this is all the more remarkable.
No one asked the NDP and Carole James to take away students’ rights to attend class during labour disputes. No parents called up and said, “would you please put my child’s education in second place behind a union’s right to strike and bar my child from the classroom.”
No one asked them to put unions’ right to strike ahead of a student’s right to an education.
No one wants another strike in our school system to deny our children their right to learning.
No one that is, except the BCTF and the NDP.
The choice is clear: We say that education is an essential service. We say that teaching is an essential service. We say that student’s right to learn must always come first in a public education system. We believe there are thousands of teachers across this province who agree. We believe that our teachers believe in students’ rights to learn. And they want to contribute to a child’s excitement as he/she learns and understands about the world that’s before them.
We put students before strikes. The NDP will do the opposite.
