TENTATIVE AGREEMENT

B.C. Liberal government negotiators and BC Teachers Federation have come to an tentative agreement that may mean the end of this several month standoff. Once details are also agreed upon today, Teachers will have to ratify this, as will the Liberal leadership. With this hope, school may begin on Monday 22nd September 2014.
UPDATE 5:02 PM Teachers will vote Thurs., 7.5% wage increase over 5 yrs. plus other items I’ll mention later.

WHY TEACH AND WORK IN BC?

I am altering my focus from child protection to education, specifically, the teachers' and the BC government. I may speak about this for a while.

Why Teach and work in BC?

This is the lead of a web page entitled ‘Make a Future’ which is recruitment initiative by the BC Public School Employers’ Association and 60 BC public boards of education, the First Nations Education Steering Committee, and the Ministry of Education. It’s a job board that presents a glamorous description of BC’s beauty, lifestyle and location and compels the reader with, “If you and your family are looking to move, now is the time. Need a little more convincing? Here are a few other reasons to live here:

• BC has some of the lowest income tax rates in the country both for individuals and families
• BC’s healthcare system has some of the best statistics in Canada, including the longest life expectancy of any Canadian province
• The province has a world-class public education system; in fact other countries are looking to BC as a model
• As the world economy shifts to the Asia Pacific region, BC will be (and has always been) the gateway to the Pacific

There has never been a better time to live and work here. Come and see for yourself!”

The last statement should be questioned and the first question should be asked once again and both of them tested with the present negotiation impasse in mind. Has there ever been a better time to live and teach in BC? Why live and teach in BC?

There must surely have been a better time to be a teacher in BC than at the present moment. One would be hard-pressed to expound convincing reasons to teach in BC right now. The most emotional justification from 550,000 public school teachers in this province might be comments such as “This is my home;” and “I love teaching;” and “teaching is honourable.”

LIBERALS DECIDING ABOUT CLARK

Ministers left an emergency cabinet meeting at Canada Place on Sunday afternoon, showing support for Premier Christy Clark even though there are increasing calls for her resignation over the ethnic voter scandal. Hundreds of Liberal party members in Surrey met at Sikh temples around the city Sunday to discuss the scandal, which has precipitated four high-profile departures from Surrey riding associations. Viewed now as an extension of the Liberals’ strategy to woo ethnic voters in advance of the May election, a group of 89 predominantly Indo-Canadian members of the B.C. Liberals have taken issue with Ms. Clark’s decision to spend taxpayer dollars to bid for the Times of India Film Awards. In a Sunday news release they called for Clark’s resignation, saying she had made the ethnic vote a joke in B.C.

MULTICULTURAL OUTREACH SCANDAL & LIBERAL PARTY EMERGENCY

This is Sunday March 3, 2013 and B.C.’s Liberal Premier Christy Clark will either decide or be told what the near future holds for her as the party leader and provincial premier. Today at 4PM an emergency meeting of her Cabinet may offer her three options: 1) Clark steps down; 2) Clark stays but the cabinet distance themselves from her; 3) Cabinet manages all issues from now on.

DOUG HUGHES - NEW DIRECTOR OF CHILD WELFARE / 509

On March 31, 2011 Mary McNeil, the new Minister of Children and Family Development re-established the position of provincial director of child welfare by announcing the appointment of Doug Hughes as the new Provincial Director of Child Welfare. She did this in order to provide greater accountability across the province and improve child protection practice.

In so doing she has effectively reversed the decision of former children's minister Mary Polak and her ex-deputy Lesley du Toit, who abolished the position in 2008.  Doug Hughes, currently an assistant deputy minister with the ministry’s Interior region, holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Calgary.