B.C. teachers celebrated at the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday following a landmark decision that restores class-size and composition provisions stripped from their contracts 14 years ago.
In a quick ruling, the high court found 7-2 in favour of the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and against the provincial government.
The decision reinstates contract provisions that set limits on the total number of students in a classroom, capped the number with special needs and required a certain ratio of counsellors, librarians and other specialist teachers.
The court did not apply damages and its decision was not retroactive, but the BCTF has said the ruling could cost the government $250 million to $300 million a year by forcing the province to hire hundreds more teachers, counsellors and librarians.
The government’s current contract with the BCTF anticipated the decision and sets out a process for the two sides to talk about how to move forward.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong said once talks get underway and the government has a better sense of costs, he hopes to incorporate those figures into February’s budget. “I think we want to roll up our sleeves and get to work immediately.”
The court had been expected to take months to render a decision, but the justices found in favour of the teachers after hearing arguments and taking just a brief recess.
Union president Glen Hansman, who was in Ottawa on Thursday to attend the hearing, said the sudden ruling caught him and fellow teachers by surprise.
“Jubilant, ecstatic, any number of synonyms would be applicable,” he said, describing the reactions. “There were tears, there were hugs, there were shouts of joy and happiness.
“The outcome was expected, absolutely, but the timing was definitely a surprise.”
Despite the time that the issue has been in the courts, the BCTF, which represents about 41,000 teachers, has always thought it would prevail, Hansman said.
“We felt very confident in our legal position and the justness of our cause.”
While the decision could mean more teachers being hired, the impact on school districts and their budgets is unclear.
“We appreciate that there will have to be some practical pieces like hiring people and getting schools reorganized,” Hansman said. He noted that the government has a $1.9-billion surplus. “So it certainly has the money.”
The federation wants changes to be made as soon as possible, before the 2017-18 school year, Hansman said. “Teachers have been waiting a long time for this [contract] language to be restored, and the province has the money.”
The case dates back to 2002 when Premier Christy Clark was education minister and the B.C. Liberal government dismantled teachers’ contracts by passing Bill 28. After the bill was found unconstitutional in 2011, Clark’s government brought in similar legislation to end a teachers strike in 2012.
The B.C. Supreme Court found that the government had simply replaced one unconstitutional bill with another, but the Court of Appeal overturned that decision last year with one justice dissenting. Now, the country’s highest court has sided with the dissenter, Justice Ian Donald, in finding that the government infringed teachers’ constitutional rights by failing to negotiate in good faith.
B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan said it was a “great day for public education” and a time of accountability for Clark and her government. “From 2002 to now, kids have started in kindergarten and graduated only knowing under-funded classrooms,” he said. “That generation has lost the opportunity that they richly deserved because of decisions and choices that Christy Clark made.” Greater Victoria school district chairwoman Edith Loring-Kuhanga said she supports the court decision. “I believe that teachers should have a right to negotiate class size and composition,” she said.
