According to Kim Howland, BCCPAC President, teacher’s aren’t comfortable with Bill 12 which forced a contract on them. That’s an understatement. No democratically minded individual should be ‘comfortable’ with the heavily handed use of parliamentary power.
Here’s the problem, the issue isn’t one of comfort. It’s about democratic rights and what it means to be ‘civil’ in society. Any school yard bully knows how to intimidate. If they get their way a bully is nice, he’s friendly and cooperative. Go against him and look out.
Just because someone can say something, can do something, can get away with something doesn’t make it right. But our provincial government believes that it can do what ever it wants simply because it can and it pleases them.
What does this say about how we value education if we compel teachers to work in worsening conditions for what amounts to less and less money. You bet, that’s not ‘comfortable.’
Worried about the way things look? Then I’d suggest that you join with me and many other parents on the teacher’s picket lines. The longer the line; the shorter the strike!
Kim Howland Quoted in CTV news cast.
In her conversations with parents groups across the province, B.C. Federation of Parent Advisory Councils president Kim Howland says she’s hearing from those who support both sides in the labour dispute.
But above all, Howland says she’s hearing concern with the example being set.
“We just have a different opinion about the way those (issues) need to be settled,” she told CTV’s Canada in an interview from Vancouver early Tuesday.
“It’s concerning to many parents when we hear that it’s okay to oppose a law that they’re not comfortable with.
“We know that many of our teachers are looked up to, and being able to hand-pick which laws they’re going to obey and not going to obey is very concerning.”
How do we know which laws can be broken? It might depend upon who you are. Here’s a law breaker that walked away.