STRAIT AREA: Hundreds of teachers held protests across the region last Friday, as thousands of their colleagues descended on the provincial legislature in Halifax to protest Bill 75, the Liberal government’s attempt to legislate a new four-year contract between the province and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union (NSTU).
With the NSTU announcing a one-day province-wide strike for February 17, the union’s Inverness local scheduled six-hour “home rallies” at all six school sites within the local’s coverage area of Inverness County and the Town of Port Hawkesbury. Similar efforts took place within the other NSTU locals serving the Strait regional school board (SRBS), as well as the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP). Members of the Antigonish local held a march two days earlier that took them to the Main Street office of Antigonish MLA and Finance Minister Randy Delorey.
In the meantime, thousands of NSTU members and supporters from the Strait region and across the province descended on Halifax late Thursday evening and throughout Friday to voice their opposition to Bill 75, formally known as the Teachers’ Professional Agreement and Classroom Improvement Act. The bill, introduced in the provincial legislature on February 15, came in response to NSTU members’ rejection of three consecutive tentative agreements reached between negotiators for the province and the union, which has been without a formal contract for the past 16 months.
Close to 100 members of the NSTU contingent spoke to the provincial Law Amendments Committee shortly after Bill 75 passed the second-reading stage last Wednesday evening. Liberal MLAs sitting on the all-party committee refused to approve any of the estimated 700 additional people who had applied to speak, resulting in criticism from Nova Scotia’s two opposition parties.
However, in a statement issued on Thursday, Cape Breton-Richmond MLA and Liberal House Leader Michel Samson accused the provincial Tories and New Democrats of blocking government efforts to hold concurrent Law Amendments Committee sessions in separate locations to enable more members of the public to be heard.
“On both Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Liberal MLAs proposed that Law Amendments run concurrently in both the Red Room at the legislature and across the street in the Legislative Committee Room at One Government Place,” Samson declared.
“Unfortunately, rather than allowing that to occur, the opposition parties saw an opportunity to once again put politics over people and blocked the motion on both occasions.”
The Strait area’s lone opposition MLA, Inverness Tory Allan MacMaster, was unable to attend last week’s legislature debates on Bill 75 due to a surgical procedure that took place earlier in the month. In a statement released Thursday, MacMaster declared that he does not support Bill 75.
“It further poisons the relationship between the provincial government and teachers, which will not help the educational or personal development experiences students receive in and out of the classroom,” the Inverness MLA insisted.
On Tuesday morning, hours before Bill 75 reached its third and final vote, the Liberal government confirmed that it had accepted an NDP amendment to the bill. The amendment will see an arbitrator brought in to resolve any disputes that may emerge between members of the Council to Improve Classroom Conditions that will be established by the new legislation. This council, to be made up of classroom teachers and representatives from the NSTU and the province, will be accompanied by a $20 million provincial investment to improve classroom conditions over the next two years.
Despite the government’s acceptance of this amendment by her party, Antigonish NDP candidate Moraig Macgillivray denounced the Liberals’ approach in a statement issued last Friday.
“Many in my generation grew up thinking our labour rights were untouchable, that all those battles had been won,” Macgillivray stated. “Today we see those rights are vulnerable, and that every generation must do its part to defend democracy.”