Both Sides Under Pressure as B.C. Teachers’ Strike Continue

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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As each day passes by with the B.C. teachers’ strike forcing almost half-a-million students out of the classroom, the chances of the government legislating teachers to go back to work is increasing. Regardless of recurring insistence by the province’s Education Minister that it will not.

Approximately 40,000 members of The B.C. Teachers’ Federation are on strike since mid-June. The union’s membership is scheduled to vote on Wednesday whether to end the strike if the government agrees to binding arbitration. Whereas on the other hand, the government has repeatedly rejected any such possibility and slammed the move as a public relations ploy. A professor at the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business, Thomas Knight, believes that legislation is the fastest way to end the current stalemate. He mentioned that “legislating an end to the work stoppage is the most expeditious way and I suspect [the government] has already drafted some legislation to end the dispute.” It was added that “it’s going to be quite a circus in the legislative assembly when the legislation is introduced and debated, but it can be done. Where there’s a will there’s a way. It could be done in a matter of days.”

Whereas on the other hand, Education Minister Peter Fassbender has repeatedly urged for the union to suspend strike action, negotiate at the table and bring in a mediator. It was highlighted that “I think the rush to ask a third party to resolve our issues, or rush to legislation, is something we do not want to do and are not going to do.”