With the penning of “Talking not striking is the only way out of teachers impasse” (subscriber wall), the Vancouver Sun editorial board proved once again that it is little more than a de facto extension of the BC Liberal party and that bastion of backwardness the Fraser Institute.

The issues: the teachers want a 15% wage increase over three years; they want class size limits restored; they want previous funding levels for special needs teachers and librarians restored. The government has refused to continence giving in on any issue and last week decided to impose a two year contract on the teachers which addresses no of the workplace issues and includes no wage increase. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/st ory/CTVNews/20051007/BCte acherstrike_picketlines_2 0051007/20051008?hub=CTVN ewsAt11" title="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/st ory/CTVNews/20051007/BCte acherstrike_picketlines_2 0051007/20051008?hub=CTVN ewsAt11" target="_blank"http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/Art... According the Sun, the onus is thus on the teachers to get back the negotiating table and stop this “illegal” strike.

The Sun’s editorial stance amounts to little more than an outright rejection of the bargaining process. Striking is really the only leverage the teachers have available. Before imposing a contract on the teachers a few years ago the BC Liberals for all intents and purposes took away that bargaining tool by declaring teaching an essential service. Of course the Sun backed that move. However, it remained legal for the teachers to walk out one day a week and to withhold non essential services. (Some school districts in BC operate on a 4 day school week. Thus, the possibility of teachers in other districts to drop down to 4 was a legal option.) With the imposing of the contract, those one day legal walkouts became illegal with the stroke of a pen. This left the Vancouver Sun free to mount the rhetorical high hoarse of illegality.

The Sun’s coverage has been lacking in other notable ways too. Take the issue of wage increases. The Sun has given this issue more coverage then any other issue, even though the other issues have a much bigger impact on the public at large. Moreover, not once has the Sun mentioned that by freezing wages the government is imposing a wage cut via inflation. Instead, every time the wage issue has been raised the Sun makes a point of mentioning across the board public sector wage freezes are government policy and by implication what is good for the gander is good for the goose. Needless to say, the near daily calls for a painful but “necessary” reduction in government spending is at odds with the Sun’s near daily calls for corporate taxes under the guise of making Canada and BC more attractive to business. Just recently the Globe and Mail pointed out just how urgently those tax cuts were needed.

“The pace of Canadian corporate earnings growth will exceed not only the U.S. but all other major global regions next year, and the projected strength is not confined to the energy sector, says a report by UBS Securities Canada Inc.


“While it is true that earnings in the energy sector are expected to be faster than anywhere else, less appreciated is the fact that non-energy earnings are also expected to lead their global peers,” UBS chief strategist George Vasic and analyst Garry Cooper wrote in a 2006 forecast.


Canadian companies will increase their profits by 17.4 per cent on a year-over-year basis, UBS said, compared with a 2006 global growth forecast of 12.1 per cent.


Earnings expectations for the rest of the regions scrutinized by UBS — the U.S., the United Kingdom, the rest of Europe, Japan, the remainder of Asia, and Latin American — range from 11 to 14 per cent.”

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