Open letter to Christy Clark
Did you really think coming to the bargaining table this close to the start of school with absolutely nothing would make teachers back down?
Did you think that treating teachers with this level of disrespect would get kids back in desks on Tuesday?
The BCTF dropped their demands by $125 million! Obviously teachers want to get back to teaching B.C.’s kids. What did you bring to the bargaining table?
Hmmm, let’s see. Just the same old rhetoric about “affordability zoneâ€.
You say you want kids back in school on Tuesday?
How can we believe anything you say? Are you clinging to the “affordability zone†so tightly because your real debt load is astronomical? Because under your government the provincial debt has increased by 500 per cent, or to over $40,000 per taxpayer!
You have spent $15 million taxpayers’ dollars on government ads on the disastrous BC Jobs Plan and God knows how much on propaganda over the teachers’ strike. Is this in the “affordability zone�
And what about those two court cases — the ones you lost? Why are you spending more money on an appeal? Why is this money outside of the “affordability zone?â€
What about your credit card bills and the average 10 per cent pay hike your Cabinet staffers got? Where is the “affordability zone†there?
In the vernacular of the children that will not be in school on Tuesday, “liar, liar pants on fireâ€.
Enough is enough, Christy. Bargaining means compromise. It doesn’t mean that teachers make all the concessions and you make none. Get this contract done. Get it done in a fair way. Get the kids back to school and put some damn money into an education system that you have, over the past 12 years, decimated.
Diane Cacciato
Teacher and furious taxpayer