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EXCERPTS
As the chairperson of a non-profit childcare society, a former ministry employee, parent of four and a foster parent, I have watched with growing interest the government's policies regarding children's issues.
Through their policies towards, and cuts to, education, health care, daycare funding and child protection, to mention a very few, the Gordon Campbell government has demonstrated a distinct distain for children's rights.
According to Canada's treaty under the United Nations, to support workers, this B.C. government has been found to be in violation of the 1972 United Nations Treaty nine times over in its recent history and is reported to be the worst repeat offender in North America. As well, the 2003 legislation requiring teaching to be an essential service doesn't fit our own essential service legislation.
It is very apparent that we, as residents of B.C., all desire a responsible government, and are concerned with government spending. We then need to remember Campbell's government is the same government that has kept a greater than 30 per cent raise for themselves, and yet continue to violate human rights of our educators when they request service under a UN treaty to which we are signatories.
Those of us in private business/industry would never allow the government to tell us how much money our companies were allowed to make or allow them to legislate what our working conditions would be, especially if they were legislated to be worse than what we presently worked under; nor would we sit quietly by if the government froze our assets if we disagreed with what it wanted.
On the flip side, no other corporation would be able to refuse to negotiate or bring in mediation in order to bully their own agenda. Teachers, after more than seven years of being refused their legal rights to negotiate a contract, forced into poorer working conditions and refused their legal right to protest, negotiate or strike, have had enough -- and about time. Legislation is supposed to be created to support its people. In this case, the government is misusing and flagrantly abusing its power by refusing a group of citizens the right to protest or question their own laws.
As Plato said: "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
As a parent of four children I understand the fear and frustration those of us who need new childcare now, however our children are watching us to see how we support each other when Human Rights are violated. It is enough that we struggle to support those whose human rights are violated in other countries; it's horrifying when it happens in our own.
- reprinted from the Penticton Herald