Editor, The News:
Marc Dalton, MLA Maple Ridge-Mission, it’s no secret that you used to be a teacher and that you crossed your own picket line when a strike was called.
You have tried to justify this action by stating that the courts had ruled that the strike was illegal.
Now here we are in 2014 and the teachers have been forced into a strike position once again.
In today’s case, the courts have ruled twice in favor of the teachers and have said that class size must be restored to the teachers collective bargaining, and not a word from you about the illegal actions of your government.
So Mr. Dalton, which is it?
Stand with the courts, stand with your constituents – which includes teachers, parents and schoolchildren – or continue standing with the premier and her illegal ways?
If you stand with the teachers and speak out against Premier Clark and Education Minister Peter Fassbender, then bravo.
If not, then you are a hypocrite and have failed your constituents and must resign.
Ed Nicholles
Maple Ridge
Post-secondary education now affected
Editor, The News:
I just thought you might want to know how the B.C. teachers strike continues to affect the graduates of 2014.
Not only did it affect many of their graduation events and ceremonies in June – the most important event in their young lives – but now in September the strike is affecting the second most important event for them: post-secondary education.
Students are being denied access to the funds that were to help pay for the cost of their post-secondary education.
For example, bursaries that were awarded in June and have to be redeemed through the school aren’t being processed because the office staff won’t cross the teachers’ picket lines.
And the Passport to Education funds aren’t being made available to the graduates to pay for their tuition because the striking counsellors are in charge of this.
So these students that worked so hard in order to earn these funds and make it possible to attend post-secondary education are now being adversely affected by the action of the teachers that supposedly care about them.
It is sad to see that so many students are being hurt in so many different ways by a negotiating system that is so out-of-date and so out-of-touch with reality.
Terry Stanley
Maple Ridge