In its haste to legislate an end to the public school teachers' dispute, the provincial government has introduced a heavy-handed bill that has infuriated teachers and is the reason they took job action this week.
Bill 22 could have stuck to the net-zero mandate, mediation on issues of scheduling, job security, teachers evaluation and the local-provincial bargaining split, added a cooling-off period and left it at that. Instead, it also meddles with class size and composition without providing appropriate funding and supports.
Obviously, there was no way out of the net zero mandate given that dozens of other public sector unions, most notably CUPE school support workers, have accepted the wage freeze for other trade-offs
But on other matters the teachers' hold dear, such as class size and composition, Bill 22 opens a Pandora's Box of uncertainties. This was not the time for the government to pull the cap off of the number of special needs students in the class even though these quotas are distasteful to parents. This was not the time, either, for removing class size averages, although the bill provides some compensation.
The problem is the Learning Improvement Fund - the $165 million available for making improvements, such as compensation for larger classes and hiring more teachers and education assistants - appears arbitrary at best, and at worst, entirely inadequate to addressing all the issues Bill 22 will raise. These changes are also being introduced when teachers want control over these provisions through bargaining - at the very least, a status quo option would have been better until they could be addressed properly.
Bill 22 does promise to put class size back into in bargaining but not until spring of 2013, when, coincidentally, the next provincial election will be held.
And cooling off is that last thing that's likely to come from this piece of legislation.
