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Labour leader fears end of teachers’ dispute
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Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca
Prince George Teachers Association president Matt Pearce thinks the province is gearing up to announce a legislated end to the five-month provincial teachers strike.
He might be right.
“We’ve heard weekly from the minister [George Abbott] that they’re going to legislate and we think that’s interfering with bargaining,” said Pearce.
“We think from the very beginning, 10 months long now, that bargaining has been undercut by the government deliberately sending that message in the media.
That has led to zero bargaining.” Abbott did not deny a forced settlement could be in the works, but said he’d much prefer a negotiated end to the strike.
“The government has not made any decision yet with respect to ending the job action with a legislated solution,” said Abbott.
“I certainly think that is a possibility, given the lack of progress we have seen in almost a year of bargaining.
“We still have modest hope the parties will be able to reach agreement, but I’m not at all optimistic, based on the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) refusal to accept the validity of the net-zero mandate.”
Last week, teachers asked for a 15 per cent wage increase spread over three years.
The proposal includes three per cent cost of living increases in each of the three years plus market adjustments of three per cent in the second and third years of the contract.
The BCTF also wants more preparation time for teachers.
BCTF president Susan Lambert has said the net-zero policy amounts to a pay cut. She said salaries of B.C. teachers are $20,000 less than what Alberta teachers earn and $15,000 lower than in Ontario.
— see ‘OUR, page 3
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Watchdog calls for pause on girls' jail closure
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DINING 25
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca
B.C.’s Children and Youth Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond wants a moratorium on the provincial government’s plan to close the jail unit for girls in Prince George.
“I’d like to see the brakes put on this,” Turpel-Lafond said Thursday.
She suggested the moratorium should last at least a year to allow proper consultation with community groups and those who work with youth.
The units in Prince George and Victoria will be closed and the service will be centralized in Burnaby, B.C. Children and Family Minister Mary McNeil said last week, with the change occurring in mid-February.
The average daily population for girls in custody is three in Prince George, five in Victoria and eight in Burnaby, and the move will save $2.5 million, which will be focused instead on other elements of youth justice and special-needs youth.
Prime among Turpel-Lafond’s concerns is that girls age 12 to 18 years old will be held in police cells
while awaiting transfer to Burnaby, and questioned RCMP’s ability to take care of them while in their hands.
“I’m not casting any aspersions on the policing; it’s just that it’s not the institutional setting in which to support young women who may have been traumatized,” Turpel-Lafond said.
The distance from their homes to Burnaby is also a problem, said Turpel-Lafond, particularly for aboriginal girls who have a “fundamental right to be connected to their families and culture.”
— see MINISTER, page 3
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