Yes, I know the history. I was referring to the present as this post is describing something happening now. Canada's past is just as sordid as others. I thought you meant something had gone down recently.

I come from a long line of union leaders and volunteers, and the corporations trying to crush them make me fucking sick.

The BC government just got their ass handed to them with the Supreme Court ruling that their stripping of teacher's contracts (namely class size and composition) was illegal, and have now had to pay redress so that districts can hire more teachers and special education teacher assistants. One for the little people!! However, it shouldn't have taken a decade and the teachers shouldn't have been legislated back to work. The government was arguing they were "an essential service".

What upsets me more is that the public turned on the teachers, saying this was about money. It was about how many kids are in a class (currently at 30+), and how many special needs kids are in a class without a support teacher (currently abysmal). The parents were more upset about having to pay for childcare.. it's pretty sad when your child's future means less than having to pay for child-minding.

Now we just need to vote out Crusty and friends in May and get the NDP back in :)