They’re off to the big leagues now.
The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s case, arguing it was unconstitutional for the province to strip class size and composition provisions out of their collective agreement.
The province first imposed legislation that removed teachers’ ability to bargain class size and composition in 2002. After a B.C. Supreme Court judge deemed the law unconstitutional in 2011, the province imposed a new law the following year.
Similar to the previous legislation, it restricted school boards’ power to determine staffing levels and establish class size and composition – the number of special needs students in a class, for example, or how many teaching assistants can be hired per student in a school.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the legislation unconstitutional in 2014.
The dispute led to an acrimonious strike that cut the 2014 school year short and wasn’t resolved until September of that year.
Famously, the Supreme Court never says why it chooses to hear the cases it does.
Only about three per cent of would-be appeals make the cut, but the supremes tend to opt for cases that address major questions about our fundamental freedoms.
The basic question here centres on to what extent teachers can freely negotiate these types of working conditions into their contracts and whether governments have the ability to opt out of contracts when it becomes politically expedient.
And the Supreme Court justices’ ruling will become the law of the land, so no doubt, public sector unions and all three levels of government Canada-wide will be watching the case closely.
Without getting into the minutiae of the legal arguments or even whether smaller class sizes are a benefit to students, it will be nice to have some level of closure.
Every round of contract negotiations between the BCTF and the province and every painful labour dispute since 2002 has been coloured by this unfinished business.
No matter what the outcome, we’re glad to see this appeal will be heard at the highest level.
A battle this long deserves a definitive end.
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