The fighting between Ontario's teachers and the provincial government seems like its never going to end. In fact, the battle keeps sinking to new lows. On the weekend, delegates to the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association convention voted to remove a speech by education minister Janet Ecker from their agenda just one hour before she was scheduled to appear.
Tensions remain at a very high level in education right now.
The rejection of minister Ecker comes just after she announced that the province would be tightening the rules specifying how much time teachers must spend in the classroom. Some boards were allowing teachers to make up that extra time by being on-call for absent colleagues, but this will now be outlawed. Relations between teacher unions, boards of education and the province have been marred by tension and mistrust rather than co-operation over the past number years. The Harris government implemented some much-needed reforms and the educational community has met every one of them with extreme distaste. The latest rhetoric guarantees that tensions will continue, possibly leading to a number of strikes and lockouts in September when contracts expire.