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Put Students Before Strikes - Campbell

May 12, 2005

VANCOUVER – A BC Liberal government will not permit students to be held hostage to a labour dispute in our schools, said Premier Gordon Campbell today.

"The choice has never been clearer: education as an essential service with the BC Liberals, or a school system in chaos and paralysis under the NDP," said Campbell.

Yesterday, it was revealed that the BC Teachers' Federation plans to hold a strike vote immediately after next week's provincial election. The BC Liberal government passed a law making education an essential service – which means schools cannot be shut down over a labour dispute. The NDP promised to remove education as an essential service which would let teachers and support workers shut down schools.

"It's a duplicitous plan to engineer a school strike only weeks before provincial exams and days after the provincial election. It explains why the BCTF is spending $5 million to elect the NDP and put its former president in the Cabinet room as education minister,” said Campbell. “The BCTF's union bosses want an NDP government that will put strikes before students and go back to the days when our schools were used as political battlegrounds during labour disputes. They want a compliant NDP government that will eliminate education as an essential service and allow students to be used as political pawns to advance the BCTF's private interests.

"It’s now clear that the BCTF has been hiding its true intentions. It has been actively planning to throw our schools into chaos – regardless of who forms the next government – knowing that if the NDP get in, the BCTF will get its way. The BCTF also knows that if we form the next government, we’ll stand up for students."

The BCTF is spending $5 million on a campaign of misinformation and half-truths in support of the NDP during this election campaign. There are eight current or former BCTF union leaders on the NDP candidate slate led by David Chudnovsky, the three-term former president of the BCTF who previously threatened to shut down the school system when his demand for a 34 per cent pay increase for teachers was not met. Those demands would have cost more than $2 billion.

"David Chudnovsky was one of the most militant leaders the BCTF has ever had," Campbell continued. "He was the BCTF's former president and now the BCTF hope to have him as the next education minister – a person who recently said, 'Teaching is not and should not be an essential service.'

"The choice is clear: Carole James supports the view that education is not an essential service and that teaching is not an essential service. We say that education is an essential service, teaching is an essential service, and students' rights must come first.

"Who asked Carole James to remove education as an essential service? Not parents, not students, and not school trustees. Who really wants to go back to the days when schools could be shut down at any time for any reason? Nobody except the NDP and the BCTF."
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Authorized By Jim Pipe, Financial Agent BC Liberal Party.
Tel: 604.606.6000, 1.800.567.2257