Canadian Politics

[kelownabomberfan]

2 hours ago, sweep the leg said:

I was pointing out the absurdity of using anecdotes about returning phone calls to disparage a province's civil service. I think the relevance of our stories was comparable.

I am pointing out the absurdity of making a comment about the CRA when I was just pointing out that no one would call me back, even though I was calling their main "Business Opportunities" line.  Like, why would no one call me back?

Edited April 20, 2016 by kelownabomberfan

[Jacquie]

12 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Uh...Jackie, I don't want to get into a battle with you, but yeah the average class size now, with the union not having the power to hire more teachers anymore, is 20-26.  Yup.  The 3 students per teacher was an exaggeration.  Anyway, it's clear where your loyalties lie, and from this post, it's clear you either don't understand what I am saying, or are deliberately spinning to make your beloved NDP look better.  Whatever it is, I don't think its worth going much further with you.

Facts are:
1998 - the BC NDP which was in government at the time, gave the BCTF the power to determine class size and composition.  This was a ridiculous outrage and a blatant conflict of interest, as it essentially handed the union the right to hire as many teachers as it saw fit.  So naturally, they started hiring and running the budget completely out of control.

2001 - BC government comes in and rips up the contract that the BCTF had "bargained" with the BC NDP. 

2001 - 2016 - millions of dollars have been spent in legal fees as the BCTF has tried to get this action deemed unconstitutional.  They found a judge in BC dumb enough to agree with them, but that judge's ruling was over-turned at the BC Supreme Court level, with the justices actually admonishing the judge for her terrible ruling.  Never seen that before.  Now the ruling is being appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court.  I really hope the BCTF loses.

2017 - all of this legal wrangling may be moot if the BC NDP get in again, as they no doubt will just hand the same power over to the BCTF again.  Right now the BC NDP isn't doing well in the polls, as they are opposing all economic development, and so even the union vote is leaving them.  I really hope the NDP become the third party in BC, as we need another alternative here.

 

From what I've read the class sizes negotiated in the 2001 CBA were a maximum 20 students per kindergarten class, 22 for grades 1-3 while grades 4-12 were capped at 30. You think that's outrageous. 

[kelownabomberfan]

7 minutes ago, Jacquie said:

From what I've read the class sizes negotiated in the 2001 CBA were a maximum 20 students per kindergarten class, 22 for grades 1-3 while grades 4-12 were capped at 30. You think that's outrageous. 

Was that negotiated with the NDP or the Liberals?  The NDP were turfed out of office in May 2001, losing 77-2.  What a glorious day that was.

I honestly don't think those numbers are outrageous, regardless of what party negotiated them, if those are indeed true.  What I don't like is the union having the power to determine class size and composition.  That's like asking Matt Sheridan to guard your stash of doughnuts.

[iso_55]

2 hours ago, Jacquie said:

And that's about 9 days more than what Notley got in Alberta. 

1. Notley brought in a carbon tax that wasn't on her platform. Sound familiar??? It'll cost the average Albertan about a thousand dollars in 2017. What did Selinger do that he promised he wouldn't?

[The Unknown Poster]

I always laugh when someone says unionization should be an anonymous ballot and Unions think its so unfair.  How can anyone argue that with a straight face?  I worked for Wilmar Windows when they were unionizing and there were many stories of threats, bullying and intimidation. 

I attended a Union meeting at my current workplace a couple years ago and it was like trying to have a mature discussion with a group of two year olds.  If you raised a concern or asked a question that was not unabashedly supportive of the union AND anti-company, you were met with sarcasm, condescension and a dismissal attitude.

I went with a co-worker and both of us had been acting-managers at various times and the first thing said was "dont trust your manager." and the union leader went on and on about how management were low lifes out to screw you.  And he specifically said front line managers, not just the negotiating team, not just the company executive but the front liners who were not only unionized themselves (brotherhood, right?) but most had been in the clerk union before being promoted to management (and changing unions).  We looked at each other in disbelief.  There were many people in the room who aspired to rise up in the company and join management...but the Union crapped all over it. 

[kelownabomberfan]

5 minutes ago, iso_55 said:

1. Notley brought in a carbon tax that wasn't on her platform. Sound familiar??? It'll cost the average Albertan about a thousand dollars in 2017. What did Selinger do that he promised he wouldn't?

But Iso, doesn't paying that $1,000 extra every year that you didn't before to a government bureaucracy seem well worth it, as it eases your liberal guilt as you now can say that you are doing something to "fight" climate change? I know here in BC every time I get my natural gas bill and there's an extra $25 tacked on it for carbon taxes, I get a special glow inside of happiness as I know that somewhere, man-made climate change is taking it right in the chops, all thanks to me.

Edited April 20, 2016 by kelownabomberfan

[The Unknown Poster]

Just now, kelownabomberfan said:

But Iso, doesn't paying that $1,000 extra well worth it, as it eases your liberal guilt as you now can say that you are doing something to "fight" climate change? I know here in BC every time I get my natural gas bill and there's an extra $25 tacked on it for carbon taxes, I get a special glow inside of happiness as I know that somewhere, man-made climate change is taking it right in the chops.

The Sun doesnt stand a chance.

[iso_55]

10 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

But Iso, doesn't paying that $1,000 extra every year that you didn't before to a government bureaucracy seem well worth it, as it eases your liberal guilt as you now can say that you are doing something to "fight" climate change? I know here in BC every time I get my natural gas bill and there's an extra $25 tacked on it for carbon taxes, I get a special glow inside of happiness as I know that somewhere, man-made climate change is taking it right in the chops, all thanks to me.

It is ridiculous, isn't it? I'm kind of hoping the federal NDP do embrace the Leap Manifesto. That'll kill the party for good in Canada. No one will vote to end prosperity for themselves, their kids & kill jobs.

[MOBomberFan]

You just described a decade of my life, TUP. There are frontliners in the Union that were genuinely trying to do good for the clerks they represented... but the leadership - I've never met a group of more self-interested obstructionist phonies in my life. And when you do move from one Union to the next... they turn on you faster than this forum turns on former Bombers

Edited April 20, 2016 by MOBomberFan

[Jacquie]

34 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Was that negotiated with the NDP or the Liberals?  The NDP were turfed out of office in May 2001, losing 77-2.  What a glorious day that was.

I honestly don't think those numbers are outrageous, regardless of what party negotiated them, if those are indeed true.  What I don't like is the union having the power to determine class size and composition.  That's like asking Matt Sheridan to guard your stash of doughnuts.

I got the numbers from the BCTF website. The contract was negotiated when the NDP were in office.

From the CKNW website:

January 2002:

Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government, with Christy Clark as Minister of Education, tears up teachers’ collective agreements.

**This move cuts $336 million annually from public education.

PLUS

Bills 27 and 28 are enacted and do the following:

eliminate protections on class size and composition

cut support for kids with special needs

strip teachers of bargaining rights.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Jacquie

[kelownabomberfan]

12 minutes ago, Jacquie said:

I got the numbers from the BCTF website. The contract was negotiated when the NDP were in office.

From the CKNW website:

January 2002:

Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government, with Christy Clark as Minister of Education, tears up teachers’ collective agreements.

**This move cuts $336 million annually from public education.

PLUS

Bills 27 and 28 are enacted and do the following:

eliminate protections on class size and composition

cut support for kids with special needs

strip teachers of bargaining rights.

Do you have a link to that story?  Because while you say it is from the CKNW website, you are barfing up all of the BCTF's propaganda.  If teachers were stripped of bargaining rights, then why did they just bargain a new five year settlement last year?  The BCTF was angry because their cosy little deal with their NDP puppets was ripped up, because it never should have been given to them in the first place.  And the Supreme Court of BC agrees with that conclusion.  You can't hand over the right to determine class size and composition to a union.  It's just not right, morally or financially.  But the NDP did it anyway.  Just brutal.

[The Unknown Poster]

12 minutes ago, MOBomberFan said:

You just described a decade of my life, TUP. There are frontliners in the Union that were genuinely trying to do good for the clerks they represented... but the leadership - I've never met a group of more self-interested obstructionist phonies in my life. And when you do move from one Union to the next... they turn on you faster than this forum turns on former Bombers

The union actually started recruiting me for their cause.  I was in a department that allegedly had heavy grievances but no on-site rep.  So I had an issue that required me going through the Union.  They liked me and encouraged I attend training and become the rep.  But then they found out that I was "fair" and "reasoned" and didnt want to screw management, just wanted a fair resolution and they soured on me, ignored my inquiries to take the training and become a rep.

They instead left the department with no rep.  And other employees often came to me knowing I had some knowledge.  Well that annoyed the Union even more and they started telling people to avoid talking to me.  It became worse when I became a Leadhand.  I was still a clerk but they considered Leadhands to be Management stooges, probably because most leadhands *wanted* to be in management and were being groomed for that position.

I've never seen a more insane bunch of paranoid, angry people that went out of their way to fan the flames of discourse.  The last thing they ever wanted was a positive relationship with anyone.

Saying that, my Union has helped ensure some positive things for us.  I make good money.  Good vacation.  Okay benefits.  But as much as the union has done, when I went from an anti-company stance to a fair and reasoned attitude, I got a lot further in the company.  I could be an angry bitter union rep stuck in the same position making the same money I did 6 years ago.  But Im glad I took the Union's snubbing and said screw it, Ill just be a good happy employee that wants to get ahead.

[MOBomberFan]

Did I just become a Conservative? LOL

[kelownabomberfan]

8 minutes ago, MOBomberFan said:

Did I just become a Conservative? LOL

what I think people should do is look at the big picture when voting, rather than just one or two issues, or how the government policy affects only their own lives.  I had a neighbor once who told me that they voted NDP, purely because they felt that the NDP would give them more welfare than the Liberals.  I just hate that mentality, just as I hate the unions always putting millions of dollars and forcing members to work for the NDP, purely for selfish interests which include sweet-heart labour deals, that screw the taxpayers.  If its truly about everyone winning, then this myopic approach just doesn't work in the long term.  You can't just keep upping labour costs and expect there not to be consequences.

[17to85]

3 hours ago, Jacquie said:

And that's about 9 days more than what Notley got in Alberta. 

That's because Alberta never really wanted Notley in the first place, they just wanted to really stick it to the PCs and when they woke up and realized what they had done the night before they regretted it. 

[Jacquie]

26 minutes ago, kelownabomberfan said:

Do you have a link to that story?  Because while you say it is from the CKNW website, you are barfing up all of the BCTF's propaganda.  If teachers were stripped of bargaining rights, then why did they just bargain a new five year settlement last year?  The BCTF was angry because their cosy little deal with their NDP puppets was ripped up, because it never should have been given to them in the first place.  And the Supreme Court of BC agrees with that conclusion.  You can't hand over the right to determine class size and composition to a union.  It's just not right, morally or financially.  But the NDP did it anyway.  Just brutal.

http://www.cknw.com/2014/05/22/36460/

The article is from 2014 but the chronology is fine.  

 

The courts restored the teachers' bargaining rights in 2011. I believe that didn't change after the other court decisions.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Jacquie

[Fatty Liver]

25 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

That's because Alberta never really wanted Notley in the first place, they just wanted to really stick it to the PCs and when they woke up and realized what they had done the night before they regretted it. 

It wouldn't make any difference what Notley does or doesn't do in her tenure, she won't get another.  Ideological hatred is blind.

[kelownabomberfan]

26 minutes ago, Throw Long Bannatyne said:

It wouldn't make any difference what Notley does or doesn't do in her tenure, she won't get another.  Ideological hatred is blind.

I think it actually would make a huge difference.  Blaming NDP failures at the ballot box to just pure ideological hatred is not accepting the real problem, and that is that the NDP policies just don't resonate well with the voters.  The BC NDP had the last election here in 2013 in the bag, until their leader Adrian Dix (who also was responsible for the 1998 deal with the BCTF that screwed over taxpayers) said that he would outright kill a $4 billion economic development project, the Kinder Morgan pipeline.  He dropped about 20% in the polls the next day.  How is that "ideological hatred"?  It's just plain stupid is what it is.  And the NDP just doesn't get it.  You are right about one thing, adhering to a failed ideology no matter what and expecting a different result every election does seem to indicate blindness.  Or insanity. 

[kelownabomberfan]

59 minutes ago, Jacquie said:

http://www.cknw.com/2014/05/22/36460/

The article is from 2014 but the chronology is fine.  

 

The courts restored the teachers' bargaining rights in 2011. I believe that didn't change after the other court decisions.

Thanks for posting that link Jacquie.  All I can say is that the author of that article is being horrible biased and not telling the entire story, not by a long shot.  She also mentions the 2014 BC Supreme Court ruling of Justice Griffin.  That ruling was over-turned in the BC Court of Appeal, and soundly over-turned.  The BCTF and Justice Griffin looked rather foolish, in fact.

http://globalnews.ca/news/1971504/b-c-court-of-appeal-rules-in-favour-of-government-over-bctf/
 

Quote

 

Justice Griffin’s ruling also said restricting bargaining on class size and composition was akin to restricting bargaining on “working conditions”, which was of breach of Charter rights.

However, the Court of Appeal rejected that as well, writing that they were a matter of government policy.

“The Affected Topics involve not only working conditions, but matters of education policy,” they wrote.

“In listening to employees, government must evaluate and respond to their representations with an appreciation of the consequences of its policy choices on their working conditions, but also an awareness of its responsibility to act in the broader public interest.”

At the end of their ruling, they also noted the significant financial impact restoring class size and composition numbers to pre-2002 levels would have.

“A retroactive declaration could expose the Province to liability in the order of $500 million. In our opinion, that sum is such that a retroactive declaration would unduly interfere with the Legislature’s constitutional role in allocating public resources.”

 

 

[kelownabomberfan]

More on the ruling of the BC Court of Appeals:
 

Quote

 

VICTORIA – After the first few glum lines of his speech, it was difficult to tell anything had changed for B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jim Iker as he took his familiar place before the TV cameras last week.

Iker droned on about how B.C. schools are under-funded by hundreds of millions of dollars, echoing demands from the disastrous strike he led the union membership into last year.

The B.C. Court of Appeal had just overturned a bizarre trial court decision that tried to give the union everything it wanted: a trip back in time to the NDP wonderland of 2001, a constitutional spanking for the B.C. Liberal government and a $2 million bonus of taxpayers’ money.

The BCTF must now pay back that $2 million and scrape up whatever is left of its members’ compulsory dues to plead for an appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada, continuing the executive’s self-righteous fantasy of controlling education spending in B.C.

The appeal court didn’t just overturn the judgment of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Susan Griffin. It shredded her legal reasoning and bluntly corrected her, over and over, on evidence she ignored or misinterpreted.

The appeal court confirmed at great length what I said when Griffin’s second decision came down in early 2014: it was far worse for B.C. schools than when judges decided in 2005 that teachers can bring union propaganda into classrooms.

Did the government bargain in bad faith? No. Did they conspire to provoke a strike? No. Did they illegally strip working conditions from the teacher contract? No. Turns out our kids are not just “working conditions” for teachers, and public policy still matters.

And it turns out that making special needs assistants dash between classes to deal with two kids here and three over there was a lousy idea. Now there’s even a credit course offered in high school for students with learning difficulties, which probably has some BCTF minion crafting a pile of grievances about segregation.

In the negotiated settlement reached last fall, teachers shared $105 million to make thousands of baseless grievances go away, after the union filed one for student numbers in every class in the province. This bloated perpetual protest machine drains the public purse in more ways than taxpayers realize.

Parents understand the strikes, though. They remember a union that scrapped report cards, disrupted administration and forced schools to shut down at graduation time.

The strike then dragged into the fall, as the government held the line on public service spending. And what was the key issue that kept schools closed? It wasn’t special needs support, where student performance has continued to improve. No, it was the BCTF demanding a raise twice as big as other public sector unions had already accepted.

In the end, their paltry strike fund long gone, the union grudgingly accepted the going rate. They figured they had the elected government on the run in court. Wrong again.

Next up for the ministry is taking control of professional development. A bill before the legislature will enforce standards, once the NDP is done denouncing it. Singing Solidarity Forever around a campfire and calling it paid professional development (a real example, by the way) will soon go the way of the union-controlled College of Teachers – onto the scrap heap of history.

There are BCTF members who understand how ill-served they are by their union. They are looking critically at the performance of their leaders, who are too often distracted by grandiose “social justice” campaigns as far away as the Middle East.

http://www.thenorthernview.com/opinion/302596081.html

 

 

[bustamente]

Hearing that some NDP dippers are already fleeing to Alberta. that province is in for a world of hurt if there cash cow doesn't rebound in the next year

[The Unknown Poster]

Crybaby Dave Gaudreau:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-election-gaudreau-selinger-1.3544763

"It's clearly the Greg Selinger factor that destroyed everything," he told CBC News in an interview.

"I mean, that's all I heard for the whole campaign. People hated Greg, and I heard it day in and day out for six weeks. I called it Groundhog Day, everyday on the doorstep."

[kelownabomberfan]

2 hours ago, iso_55 said:

It is ridiculous, isn't it? I'm kind of hoping the federal NDP do embrace the Leap Manifesto. That'll kill the party for good in Canada. No one will vote to end prosperity for themselves, their kids & kill jobs.

I think if Notley is interested in political survival, she should drop the NDP moniker and do a center-left alliance with the Alberta Liberal Party of some kind.  I realize that this is easier than it sounds, but I'm not the only one saying this.  After watching Notley getting booed by members of her own party at the convention two weeks ago when she started talking about building more pipelines, I realized that the NDP is really struggling with its identity right now.  The old guard of labour unions and trades is still there, but they are being under-mined by a young, more militant faction of environmentalists, who don't seem to care about jobs or the economy.

Case in point - I tuned in on CPAC to the convention and watched Daniel Blaikie make an impassioned plea for union jobs in the Aerospace sector in Winnipeg.  He came across as passionate and legitimately concerned about Winnipeg aerospace workers.  He wanted the NDP to adopt a policy to protect workers from some unfair legislation.  He seemed to be making great head-way, until another delegate from Quebec, some young woman, stood up and implored the party to vote down the resolution that Blaikie was asking for, because these workers worked on airplanes, and airplanes use "fossil fuel".  So there you go, if you are in an industry that uses "fossil fuel", there are people in the NDP who honestly believe that you shouldn't be working in it.   This faction, lead by Steve Lewis and his brain-damaged son Avi (along with Avi's wife Naomi Klein) are growing stronger every day, and continue to push the Leap Manifesto.  That means that Notley is screwed.  Her own party hates her province and wants all oil industry jobs killed, as well as all future pipeline projects.  If she truly wants to stand up for Albertans, she has to walk away from her own schizophrenic party and fight the good fight via a different party that still believes in jobs and the economy, not insane fairy land concepts that the NDP Leapers want to see.

Edited April 20, 2016 by kelownabomberfan

[Fatty Liver]

1 hour ago, kelownabomberfan said:

I think it actually would make a huge difference.  Blaming NDP failures at the ballot box to just pure ideological hatred is not accepting the real problem, and that is that the NDP policies just don't resonate well with the voters.  The BC NDP had the last election here in 2013 in the bag, until their leader Adrian Dix (who also was responsible for the 1998 deal with the BCTF that screwed over taxpayers) said that he would outright kill a $4 billion economic development project, the Kinder Morgan pipeline.  He dropped about 20% in the polls the next day.  How is that "ideological hatred"?  It's just plain stupid is what it is.  And the NDP just doesn't get it.  You are right about one thing, adhering to a failed ideology no matter what and expecting a different result every election does seem to indicate blindness.  Or insanity. 

Excuse me if I don't put much stock in your justification for ideological hatred.   This is the phenomenon that is destroying political discourse in the US.

 

 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

14 hours ago, Goalie said:

I feel that in 4 years... Ndp will win again tho. Pallister just doesn't seem to be very inspiring 

It's Manitoba. They get 3 terms.

Just like it's Winnipeg. A Mayor is not voted out. They either quit or die in office.

14 hours ago, Goalie said:

NDP seems to be turning in to the Native Democratic party also. Interesting 

They should stick to the PC method and not change. Is there any "colour" in that party?

7 hours ago, rebusrankin said:

Manitoba has over 10,000 kids in care.

Manitoba has the second highest rate of child poverty in Canada.

Politically correct answer: Well those are really the results of the feds handling reserves.

Politically incorrect answer: Well those are really the results of having reserves.

4 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

I suspect there is a lot of uncomfortable people at Hydro today.

 

And Autopac. Hope they dont touch them. We have the lowest Hydro/Auto costs in Canada right?

2 hours ago, MOBomberFan said:

Did I just become a Conservative? LOL

I usually vote **** but man I had to send a message about Selby.