Premier dispels predictions of education cuts as ‘fear mongering’

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This article was published 25/05/2016 (2889 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Had Education Minister Ian Wishart hung around two more minutes Thursday morning, he would have learned that Manitoba teachers fear Wishart and Premier Brian Pallister are barely-disguised demons about to unleash a fiscal doomsday on public education.

“We live in a different political climate now,” Manitoba Teachers’ Society president Norm Gould warned the union’s annual general meeting moments after Wishart brought greetings. “There is a degree of complacency (among teachers), and a sense of entitlement.

“Other provinces have been faced with austerity, taxes are considered a dirty word. They’ve been balancing their budgets on the backs of teachers — those winds are swirling around Manitoba.”

But Pallister declared to reporters Thursday afternoon that he has no austerity plan, and that if there is no unexpected drop in enrolment, there will not be fewer teachers employed in Manitoba at the end of his four-year mandate. The premier blamed an NDP campaign of fear mongering for frightening teachers and families.

Earlier Thursday morning, asking at the teachers’ AGM for a show of hands from those teachers who started their careers after the Tories last left office in 1999, Gould saw a sea of hands.

“All we know, year after year, education funding increased at or above economic growth,” said Gould: during those years of NDP government, teachers have known annual wage increases and improved benefits and working conditions every year.

The 1990s under Conservatives saw freezes, cuts and teacher layoffs, Gould said: “Those were dark days, war time, a battlefront. Some people may say, ‘Gould, why are you bringing this up?’ It’s the elephant in the room.

“Across Canada, governments have stripped bargaining rights. We defer responsibility, and we watch as every other teachers’ society in this country is under attack. We would be naive to expect the status quo.”

Gould accused the Pallister government of planning to balance its budget through austerity that will hurt the quality of public education.

Gould said teachers must be ready to wage a battle for public opinion and support of education funding. The public values teachers, he emphasized: “I believe we can control that landscape and that narrative.”

Later Thursday, Pallister accused the NDP of trying to frighten teachers, parents, and children with a campaign of fear-mongering.

“He’s seen the books — will he tell us whether he will fire teachers?” NDP education critic Wab Kinew (Fort Rouge) demanded during question period.

Said interim NDP leader Flor Marcelino: “Does he cut now or does he cut later?”

Wishart said the Tories are focusing on getting good results for Manitoba education. “There are people in (the NDP) and possibly in MTS (Manitoba Teachers’ Society) who have been listening to rumours,” Wishart said.

Pallister fired back in much stronger language when he spoke to reporters after question period Thursday afternoon. He called the NDP’s tactics deplorable, and twice said that he foresees no drop in public school teachers over the next four years unless enrolment unexpectedly drops.

“I have had teachers, and children of teachers, tell me how much (fear-mongering) impacts on them. The NDP has made every effort to frighten everyone at MTS…exhorting them to be fearful,” Pallister said.

Speaking after Gould Thursday morning, Canadian Teachers Federation president Heather Smith of New Brunswick immediately poured gasoline on Gould’s fire.

The privatization and commercialization of public education are at our door, Smith said.

“Edubusinesses point to our public schools as failures, and then offer easy solutions,” Smith said. Those “edubusinesses” package tests and curricula they say will rectify the failure of public schools, and they’re already rampant in the U.S. and showing up here, Smith said.

“Here in Canada, austerity is the word of the day,” she said. British Columbia has told its schools to cut $29 million in administration, on top of earlier cuts of $35 million to the system, she said.

Smith pointed out that Alberta teachers recently agreed to lobby that province’s government to opt out of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s international testing.

Testing of randomly-selected students in industrialized countries happens every three years, in reading, math, and science. Manitoba students have been at or near the bottom of Canadian provinces in the last few rounds of OECD tests.

Earlier, Wishart, blissfully unaware he was minutes away from being demonized, pointed out to the teachers that Pallister is a teacher, that they consider teachers an integral part of the community, and that, “I’m interested in opening a dialogue with our education stakeholders.

“I am not a stunning speaker, but I am a very good listener,” Wishart said.

In a brief interview after his speech, Wishart reiterated that the Tories will deliver the operating grants for the next school year that the NDP promised in January, and on which school boards and postsecondary schools planned their budgets.

But, Wishart said, “We’re reviewing everything.”

He repeated Pallister’s pledge to support front-line workers in the public service, but, like Pallister, would not say if front-line workers are classroom teachers, or all certified teachers in a school, such as resource teachers and counsellors.

“You need support staff,” he said. Nevertheless, “We’re trying not to define front-line workers.”

Wishart promised the teachers he would have more time to talk with them at their banquet Thursday evening.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca