Premier Clark Announces Labour Peace Proposal for B.C. Teachers Federation

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The proposals for labour peace with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) have been announced by Premier Christy Clark, which mainly recommends formation of a Priority Education Investment Fund (PEIF) for catering the education priorities (including class size and composition).

The overall plan was explained by Premier Clark on Thursday, although it was previously leaked to the media on Wednesday night. The plan recommended formation of a new Education Policy Council, consisting of members from the union, school boards and government “to advise government on public education policy priorities, including allocation of the PEIF.” It turns out that Premier is again attempting to remove class size and composition from the bargaining table, but in that case, BCTF is not likely to let that happen once again. In fact the vice president of BCTF, Glen Hansman, tweeted right after the announcement that this matter won’t fly with the union.

The union previously gave up the rights of bargaining class size and composition in 2002 when Clark was education minister. It was an extremely notorious move on her behalf, giving birth to almost decade-long conflicts between the Liberal government and the union. Consequently, BCTF took the matter in court and won their case, resulting in the Liberals allowing last spring in Bill 22 that teachers are once again entitled to their right of bargaining on class size and comp, starting in 2013. In this context, class composition refers to the number of special-needs students in each classroom.

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