I have sent letters to George Abbott and Eric Foster asking for their comments on a couple of sections of Bill 22 and I wonder why the media hasn’t been examining the bill as it is written either. Specifically, section 27 which flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision regarding teachers’ rights around class size and composition.
When I ask myself how can the government ignore a Supreme Court ruling, I read further and found the section titled “Retroactive Effect,” which states (and I’ll quote from the bill itself here):
“Despite any decision of a court to the contrary made before or after the coming into force of this section, words, phrases, provisions and parts of provisions deleted, under section 8, from a collective agreement between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the B.C. Public School Employers’ Association must not for any purpose, including any suit or arbitration commenced or continued before or after the coming into force of this section, be considered part of that collective agreement on or after July 1, 2012.”
To me, this sounds like the government is creating a law that allows them to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and ignore what Judge Griffin calls our charter rights.
Why is the media not picking up on this? Does this not strike people as being completely undemocratic?
Bill Trickey, Vernon
