B.C.T.F. Sues Premier for Defaming Teachers
[Article for upcoming issue of Substance newspaper, Chicago, IL]
The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation has launched a lawsuit against the recently re-elected B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, claiming teachers were defamed by Campbell, who in the closing days of the election campaign said they were going to strike in June.
In May, during last stages of the provincial election campaign, Campbell raised fears about the disruption the school year, particularly the provincial exams, by claiming that the B.C.T.F. was poised to take a strike vote immediately following the election.
At a news conference on May 12 (and in a press release titled “Put Students before Strikes”) Campbell accused the B.C.T.F. of harboring a “secret” and “duplicitous plan meant to engineer a school strike only weeks before the provincial exams that would throw our school system into chaos.”Campbell also accused the B.C.T.F. of acting in concert with the New Democratic Party, his primary opposition in the election, saying “they have run a campaign of deception, half-truths and misinformation. They are turning our classrooms and playgrounds into places of propaganda instead of places of learning.”
Campbell is also quoted as saying, “this is the N.D.P. and B.C.T.F.’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 … no one wants another strike in our school system to deny our children their right to learning.”
B.C.T.F. immediately declared the Campbell’s comments and the imputation that the B.C.T.F. and the N.D.P. have colluded and conspired to achieve some improper purpose were “false and slanderous.”
During the last week of the campaign, B.C.T.F. President Sims challenged Campbell to explain “why he’s misleading British Columbians with ugly falsehoods about teachers holding children hostage. He’s using children as a wedge issue for his own political purposes.”
The B.C.T.F. called on Campbell to stop spouting inflammatory rhetoric and to tell the truth about teacher strikes: there has not been a single one in the last 12 years.
Here are a few important facts teacher actions in British Columbia:
Since 1993, when provincial bargaining was introduced under the N.D.P. government of Mike Harcourt, not one single school day has been lost due to a teacher strike. There have been some local strikes by school support workers, and in those instances teachers have respected the third-party picket lines. But in the last dozen years, B.C. schools have never once been closed due to a teacher strike.
Teachers first won full bargaining rights, including the right to strike, in 1987 under the Social Credit government of Bill VanderZalm. Since then, not a single student has failed to complete the school year due to a teacher strike.
In 2001, shortly after they took office, the Campbell Liberals attacked teachers’ bargaining rights by imposing essential service designation on education. B.C. is the only province in Canada to do so, and remains one of the only jurisdictions in the industrial world that deems education an essential service. Normally that designation is reserved for police, fire, and health care — services that impact life and limb.
In January 2002, the Liberals imposed a teacher contract through legislation. Bills 27 and 28 gutted the provisions that upheld the quality of public education in B.C., and teachers were outraged. As a result, tens of thousands protested this blow to public education with massive demonstrations in Vancouver, Victoria, and throughout the province.
“January 28, 2002 is the only day that schools have been closed due to a teacher action, and it would never have happened without the B.C. Liberals’ unjust legislation,” B.C.T.F. President Jinny Sims said. “Teachers are deeply concerned that parents are being unnecessarily alarmed by Campbell’s attempt to manufacture a crisis in the final days of the campaign.”
Sims added, “It is unconscionable for Premier Campbell to claim that there are plans for a school strike only weeks before provincial exams and days after the election.” She added, “It is outrageous that the premier would tell such blatant lies to the electorate. This is nothing less than fear-mongering. It is a disturbing act of desperation from a government that has failed our students and therefore needs to deflect scrutiny of its record.”
The suit against Campbell was filed in B.C. Supreme Court on May 25 and is seeking unspecified damages after Campbell and the B.C. Liberal party refused to issue an apology or retract statements made in the last week of the election campaign. The full text of Campbell’s comments can be found on the BC Liberal Party web site.
The suit claims the defendants knowingly committed defamation “in order to enhance the electoral prospects of Gordon Campbell personally, and the B.C. Liberal party’s candidates in the provincial legislature generally.”
Campbell’s remarks were based on a leaked memo from Mission, B.C. teachers that purported to show a strike was being prepared.
“Any decision to strike would have to be made by the [B.C.T.F.’s] representative assembly and that was said right in the Mission memo. At no time was a decision made to strike and even today no decision has been made and no recommendations have been made for a strike by the executive committee,” Sims told The Vancouver Sun [May 26].
“We have been without a contract for a year and we’d be remiss if we didn’t consider all the tools available to us, but at no time has a decision been made to take a strike vote,” said Sims.
Five days after the press conference in which Campbell made his inflammatory remarks, and for the first time in 22 years, British Columbia voters re-elected the governing party, but the new legislative assembly has a significantly stronger opposition. In their first term, Campbell’s Liberal’s hacked away at health care, social programs, and attacked unionized labor at every turn.
The opposition New Democratic Party, which held only two seats in the previous assembly, exceeded expectations by winning 41 percent of the vote (to the Liberals 46 percent). The new legislative assembly will host 33 N.D.P. representatives, with one seat still undecided. The B.C. Labor Federation backs the N.D.P.
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