01.11.2013 08:37 AM

Breaking the law is breaking the law

McGuinty was right. The renegade unions were wrong. Their “protest” was and is illegal.

There’s a lesson, here, for a couple Ontario Liberal leadership candidates, I’d say.

UPDATE: Comment from a teacher:

“AT WORK AND LOVING EVERY SECOND OF IT!

Sam Hammond is a disgrace and this ruling should be considered a repudiation of so much of his rhetoric and ETFO’s position.

Get the eff out of the way and just let me do my job, Sam.”

26 Comments

  1. Chris says:

    But comments from other teachers that don’t support your position are deleted?

  2. TJ says:

    The simplistic view that every single law created is good and justifiable will be a further reckoning for Liberals. I imagine guys just like you told women in the 20th century that their inability to vote was justified based solely because it was the law.

    It’s interesting that many of you support first nations ability to protest against Cons, but not teachers against Libs imposing draconian laws. The selective anger and mental contortions Ontario Liberals display lately is laughable.

    • Kevin T. says:

      For the record, it really is a shame that teachers have to live in plywood and tarp shelters too. If only teachers had better than third world living conditions, they could get out of that vicious cycle of neglect and poverty.

      Yep, totally see the parallel.

  3. Skinny Dipper says:

    The teachers lost the battle this time. However, they will win the war against the Liberals in the long run. The Liberals will lose the next provincial election. The teachers will win the constitutional challenge against Bill 115 and its stain.

    • Sean says:

      If the Liberals lose the next election, that means teachers lose big time, for a long time. You won’t even recognize schools.

    • Nicole says:

      Hudak is chomping at the bit to campaign on this issue and the way the union leadership is behaving, there will be many people willing to hold their nose and vote PC so that the public sector unions are controlled and punished. Liberals need to stand up to the union, especially when there is a massive debt to deal with. If they are not perceived as being strong, then Hudak will seize on the general public’s frustration with the union’s behaviour and it will be Mike Harris all over again. And this is also what happened in Toronto creating a situation for Rob Ford to be elected. Punishing the Liberals will turn to be just as great a decision as getting rid of Bob Rae and the NDP, at least for teachers and public servants.

      The anger against teachers is palpable, especially because there are many in Ontario who have had to already sacrifice wages and benefits and they are not sympathetic to a group claiming outrage over the alleged loss of an esoteric right, when they still have a great salary and benefits.

      Private sector unions have had to take significant cuts because of market forces over the years, public sector unions have never done so, but now they need to, especially since the middle class has shrunk and the decent paying private sector jobs have started to disappear. And in this case, other than not banking sick days, there is not any cut in salary or benefits. The union leadership has completely misread this negotiation and needs to get in touch with what is going on in the real world.

  4. M-J says:

    I’ll remember your “breaking the law is breaking the law” nostrum the next time you post about Pussy Riot.

    • Warren says:

      Oh, yeah? Screw you. Like most sensible people, I’ve always said PR shouldn’t have protested inside the church. I also haven’t said (and no has anyone) that there should have been no penalty for that. All of us, however, said the penalty was far too harsh.

      Like using kids as pawns to get more money, for example. That, too, was too harsh.

      • reformatory says:

        Nobody used kids as pawns to get more money. Strike actions are legitimate forms of expression. Also.. for your information…. teachers are not asking for more money. They are asking for their democratic rights not to be trampled on. The Liberal gov’t has trampled on their rigths and freedoms . They are also asking not to be stripped of previously negotiated earned and banked days which they are being robbed out of. They are also asking to negotiate and collectively bargain their contracts without lies and rhetoric from their gov’t.

        What’s rich is that McGuinty agreed and sided with teachers in 1997 under similar circumstances. The interesting thing now is that McGuinty and any of his supporters have no comment when they are reminded of this fact.

  5. Peter says:

    Sorry Warren, I disagree with you on this one.
    Stikes, wildcat strikes, general strikes…are the only tool to fight injustice.
    And if one waits for the “law” to say one can strike, well, of late with Harper and McQuinty that will be a cold day in hell.

    Winnipeg 1919…that too was considered out side the lay. The federal government arrested all the union leaders over a general strike. 25,000 strong went into the streets to strike…and big business had the government in their back pocket…the RCMP was sent in to arrest and crack heads…were 25,000 workers wrong?
    History proved those brave men and women right. Some died that day.

    Now how many teachers does Ontario employ? And can they all be wrong? The student protests in Quebec? Were they wrong. We live in time when the Harper’s can shut down government at their choosing, as did McQuinty, arrest a thousand peaceful Canadians illegally at the G8 and get away with…or better still have a Prime Minister’s government fall on contempt of Parliament and the PM doesn’t even address it.

    Canadians are getting fed up…look at the Idle No More, our government scientists crashing MP press conferences, teachers taking to the streets…

    And yet somehow the people are wrong????

    No, Canadians have had enough…just as they did in 1919…and they’re taking it to the streets because the lame media seems to always split hairs in favor of the establishment.

  6. Michael says:

    If Bill 115 was unconstitutional, then the legislated CA is unconstitutional and so is this back-to-work order. The OLRB should have deferred to the courts, but I can understand not wanting to cede even a little bit of your mandate to another institution.

    If 115 gets struck down, the OLP just got a pass from the media on a serious rights violation. But what can ya do? Unions have always been really bad at the air war.

    • Michael says:

      I am not sure what part of Bill 115 the teacher’s think is unconstitutional. The right to strike is not enshrined in the constitution.

  7. Peter says:

    When was the last time this country has witnessed such upheaval. Idle No More, a Chief on a hungry strike, teachers in the streets, B.C. communities fighting to the last against big oil pipelines, Quebec students, Canadians in the Maritimes protesting an unfair U.I system, protests in Newfoundland over the shutting down of rescue station…so one must look to the “leaders” in this country, that are finally reaping the caca of their self-fish and personal politics.

    It’s only going to build. It’s only going to grow, this unrest among Canadians…our country is being turned into a corporate sponsor for big business and small minds in the position of leadership.

    It’s not business as usual as a Harper or McQuinty would like you to believe…there is a shift coming…and the average Canadians will make it happen.

    • bill says:

      If you look at all of your examples of this new “shift” they all boil down to same thing, people wanting more stuff from the government. Except for the pipelines, those are people wanting the same from the govt but telling them to do it without oil revenue. The protests you’ve mentioned have been going on for 40 years now so I cant see them being a shift.

      • dave says:

        I dunno, Billg, seems to me its the pipeliners and the rest of the oil and gas industry want more. They already have public subsidization with the legislated caps on their accident liability. They have lobbied successfully in getting provincial legislatures to trash environmental and employment standards. With the Omnibus Bills, they are making giant steps in getting almost complete immunity for the consequences of any thing that goes wrong with their operations. To me, that all adds up to a heck of a lot more ‘wanting something’ than what you are referring to.

  8. Matt says:

    I spoke with a friend today who is very active in another well known union. He was apoplectic about what the teachers/union did to themselves today. Positioning this as a great battle over workers rights and having nothing to do about money only to retreat once the spectre of money being taken out of pockets for an illegal action in this persons mind a great sell out. It just proved it had nothing to do with students and a union that was out of touch to the detriment of other negotiating in the future. Sam is done, and this was more a shot to the temple rather than the foot. Sad.

  9. dave says:

    “renegade unions?” …are those the unions that are run by Big Union Bosses?

  10. Mom says:

    Our DEFICIT is UNSUSTAINABLE. That is the crux of 115 and that is the message that everyone needs to understand. The libs know it was heavy handed and that is why this power has been repealed in the future.

  11. Thomas Gallezot says:

    Right. Much like the student protest in Quebec were illegal. Civil disobedience. United We Stand. Liberez nous des liberaux.

  12. Steven says:

    My question is: Has anyone heard from Andrea Horvath on all this? Why isn’t the MSM calling her and the Dipps out on this one?

  13. Steven says:

    My questions are:

    Has Andrea Horvath been seen or heard about all this?

    Why aren’t the Dippers being put to the test on this?

  14. Steven says:

    Have not heard anything from Andrea Horvath about all this.

    Why isn’t anyone calling her and the Dippers out on this?

  15. Steven says:

    Sorry for the two repeats, WK et al.

    I kept getting a “wrong CAPTCHA” message and had to re-send.

Leave a Reply to Steven Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.