Hal 9000

But, the employer still has to pay for the problem - in this case the government. I don't know how pensions work for the education budget, but worst case scenario, the gov is paying the teacher full pension and top salary while a young teacher is crying poor because she can't get full time employment and is at the bottom tier. The Union isn't gonna deal with this issue, far from it, they want teachers to be able to pull this scam 3 years earlier...and, I'm sure the government would love to invest in new teachers if the old ones would just retire and stay retired.

I believe that part of the problem is that teachers won't leave. They retire at 55 or whatever, collect full pension and benefits, then get themselves rehired (keeping their high end rate). Once a teacher retires - just leave already. Leave and make room for someone else. P.S - The teachers also want the ability to retire at 52 now. So, that adds 3 more years of double pay

So, you have no answer? Thought as much!

No, I'm serious! If we give the teachers everything they want, how will it improve the education system - if at all?

And what will we wind up with if the teachers get everything they want?

I think Jesus was a Socialist.

Personally, I don't think you get that big of swing in popularity over something like like. I'll stick to my views as I'm sure you'll stick to yours.

I know it's just a wikipedia article, but.... A strong Liberal Party majority was elected under the leadership of Jean Chrétien in the 1993 election. The Progressive Conservative Party fared very poorly in that election, winning only two seats. Although the party recovered somewhat in subsequent elections, it remained the smallest party in the House of Commons until it disbanded itself permanently in 2004, and merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada. During the election campaign, Chrétien promised to repeal the GST, which the Liberals had denounced so vociferously while they were the Official Opposition, and replace it with a different tax..... The decision not to abolish or replace the GST caused great controversy, both within the Liberal party and out. The way I read this; is that the decline of Mulroney and the overwhelming win for Cretien was all about the GST.

How come Vince Ready said they're too far apart and yet the BCTF says they're really close (within $25mil)?

How so? I think the Liberals are doing a fine job of keeping on budget. The union figures they've goy one up on the government and are playing it for all it's worth. they couldn't give a rats ass about the current teachers, it's all about getting more teachers - hopefully for everyone involved the teachers figure this out, but I doubt it.

I didn't elect an arbitrator or a judge to take care of my tax dollars.

Exactly, people don't know or don't care enough about scandals as you think. This is a voting public that provincially kept voting in NDP no matter how corrupt they showed themselves to be. The single thing that brought Canadians together was the outright hatred for GST. The GST might've been something the country needed, but no politician was ever gonna survive it.

The regular people didn't know too much about cronyism, and if they did...whatever, didn't all politicians do that. I know how the GST was sold and I know the history books talk about the manufacturers tax - but all people knew was that when then do anything....anything at all, the taxes would be doubled. It was very unpopular with every working person and every business, the only people who liked it were those lower income people who thought they'd get a GST rebate every so often - those people would never vote conservative anyway. Small businesses felt they would feel the hurt too. Add to it, that people were outraged that we were actually paying GST before it became law. I don't know how old you were when GST rolled around, but it was so unpopular that it would've killed any politicians career.

GST!

Relationships between teacher unions and governments are always toxic. Nothing new here.

Group or assisted support works quite well. I don't know about the US, but here in Canada the programs are pretty good. I have a young person live in my suite and we help him with certain issues and just make sure that he's getting his meds, brushing his teeth, eating properly, getting to his job, doctor appointments, money issues, or just talking about things. etc. But, in the end, he lives his life and makes his own decisions. It works for him and he really likes the set-up.

Look, censorship was Gore campaign platform in 2000, he was gonna save us by censoring ALL media. I could also get into the Fairness doctrine - censoring talk radio, Hillary's (and the other Dems) involvement in FEPA (since you brought up porn), Wikileaks, Congress trying to pass legislation on Rush Limbaugh, even the Redskins scandal. Some of these things you may agree with - fair enough, but they're all censorship and all brought forth by democrats. I could find many more. P.S - You may say Rush Limbaugh should shut-up (and i'd probably agree), but congress going after a private citizen because of his political views is censorship in the worst kind. Here's another good one; The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation that would give the attorney general a virtual blank check to shut down any Internet site that he claims “has no demonstrable commercially significant purpose or use” other than copyright infringement. Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, introduced the bill handing the Obama administration the power to pull the plug on websites that contain no actual illegal material. It is sufficient that a site be declared guilty of “provision of a link or aggregated links to other sites” for a compliant judge to issue a take-down order. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/22/democratic-internet-censorship/#ixzz3CMyw1UHb Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Ohh, That's classic! Squeezing billions out of the government is one thing, but actually getting people who can't afford to make their rent payments to cough up 800 bucks a month is priceless.

Democrats Gore and Lieberman threaten state censorship of US entertainment industry By David Walsh 20 September 2000 "US Vice President Al Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, have threatened to impose forms of state censorship on the film, music and video games industries should they win the November election. Gore and Lieberman, in an interview conducted by the New York Times September 11, declared that they would use “truth in advertising” laws to prosecute studios and record companies responsible for promoting supposedly violent entertainment among minors, if the industry did not “clean up their act” within six months of the inauguration of a Gore-Lieberman administration. This threat goes beyond anything proposed by most right-wing Republicans in Congress. The campaign of Republican candidate George W. Bush has not advocated taking such steps, and in the wake of the Gore-Lieberman comments, still declined to do so."

The women's issues are more of a rights thing. I'll give you pornography though. I was thinking about censorship in the way of movies, music and video games that plagued the 90's with Al Gore at the helm, that 70% of US politicians that want to censor the internet are Democrat, the broadening of what we call "hate speech", and the changing, dropping or marginaliziing of certain books and literature from the public eye or schools.

I believe you and I share similar euthanasia stories. As far as forcing beliefs on others go, you should know that most censorship laws have come from the left. Conservatism is more about keeping things the same, it's the liberals who are continually forcing change. BTW - I'm not religious.

Their potential raise and bonuses will tally nearly a half billion $ per year. Everything the BCTF really wants would cost $6billion over 5years + 2-3% of GDP. At those costs, I just don't think we need to add more teachers....and I don't think I can afford it. This whole size and composition is BCTF manipulation.

But, you do realize that there are different issues at play here...right? It's not hypocritical as in the BCTF and the NDP claiming that Christy Clark has destroyed our economy, only to turn around and ask for a bigger raise based on the provincial GDP.

That was a joke - obviously! Hey...yesterday you were offended and said you didn't have a side, but today, you're sure on BCTF wagon.