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August 09, 2005
Surprise! Life's Not Fair
Especially Not In Canada
Teachers have the right to post politically charged notices in schools and criticize the provincial government over school funding during parent-teacher interviews, the B.C. Court of Appeal has ruled.
In a judgment released Wednesday, three judges upheld by a two-to-one margin a labour arbitrator's finding that ordering teachers to stop talking politics in the schools was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"Their [teachers'] political expression benefits society as a whole even where the concerns arise out of a labour relations dispute," Justice Carol Huddart wrote in the majority decision.
Susan Lambert, second vice-president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, said the ruling supports a basic tenet in Canadian society -- the right to freedom of expression.
"It's a basic Charter right and it's a right held very dearly by Canadians," Lambert said. "This decision has seen the importance of the case and has decided that school districts are subject to the Charter and that teachers have a guarantee of freedom of expression in the workplace." - Vancouver Sun
This decision has caused considerable comment, especially among conservative Canadian bloggers, who hurried to point out the dishonesty of the BC teachers. The BCTF's supposed commitment to free speech has been given the lie by the its years-long persecution of Dr. Chris Kempling, a British Columbia educator who had the temerity to express in letters to his local newspaper his traditional Christian understanding of homosexuality. For his opinions, Dr. Kempling was suspended without pay at the behest of the BCTF, an act repeatedly upheld by the BC courts - including the same court which has now found that, when they are arguing for a leftist cause, the teachers' "political expression benefits society..." (See here for my previous post on Kempling's fight.)
Now, I admit that the monumental hypocracy of Ms. Lambert's comments is enough to make you throw up, but I think that many of the bloggers' complaints miss the point. For example, in Warwicknews:
Typical Canada. Left-wing teachers have been given the right of political indoctrination by Liberal appointed, Liberal judges.
Of course, if your politics leans the other way, you'll be fired even if you do it outside of the classroom.
I suppose everyone is equal, but some people are more equal than others....
What else do they expect? The sanctioning of Dr. Kempling never had anything to do with fairness or keeping politics out of schools. Everyone knows that the schools cannot and should not be some sort of values-neutral zone. In addition to teaching, the schools' job is to pass on culture, values and truths to the next generation. The question is: whose culture, values and truths? Those who argue for neutral schools are the ones who've lost already - in this case, Canadian conservatives. The point is to wage the culture war with the same gloves-off methods used by the left, not to whine about how unfair life is.
For more on Dr. Kempling's fight, see the British Columbia Parents and Teachers for Life page Standing up for Parents' and Teachers' Rights.
For some of the blog commentary see Western Standard, Civitatensis, and More to the Story. Samantha Burns had an interesting and unorthodox evaluation of the issue and the obviously uneven playing field it reflects - "it is what it is". Sad but true. She was kind enough to post my comments to her blog itself, so I have to give her a special plug! See here and here.
See here for the actual Court of Appeals decision. Thanks to Politics in BC for this and for a good summary of the issue not focused through the lens of the Kempling case.
Posted by John at August 9, 2005 09:29 PM