MiddleClassCentrist

It's ignorant and insulting to support state sponsored discrimination. Catholics can apply to their board, and the Public board. Not vice versa. Catholics can enrol in Catholic elementary or Public elementary, not vice versa. Catholic boards can fire you for coming out of the closet, trying to remarry, and anything else they deem not to be Catholic. Why would anyone who believes in equality support that? Unless you actually want to balance the books responsibly and stop discriminating by funding a single religion that keeps opening schools that we don't need that cost millions of dollars so that we have to close public schools that were perfectly fine for delivering education. The majority of Ontarians want to merge the boards. With immigration, it's only going to become more profound. It's an eventuality that the discriminatory system will disappear.

Teachers pay 11.5% of their pay toward pension. Employer matches. It's 50% I did mention above too, that the lowest qualified teacher in Ontario does not exist as my wife has not encountered one in her 10 years of teaching. They are temporary fill teachers who do not have degrees.

If you'd like to explain how language and religion are parallel in implementation and discrimination I'd be glad to hear it. French is a language that can be learned like any other language, and does not require you to unlearn and stop using previous languages. One could practice French to develop the required skills to teach Francophones, if they so chose to.

Where did you get your info on Short Term Disability. They had Long Term Disability plan that they paid for. But if they didn't have banked days and were injured. They were SOL until their LTD kicked in. SOURCE: From family of teachers, wife is a teacher Are you in the KW area of Ontario? Heheh. Those computer science and math people still earn, on average, way more than arts. Also worth note: Teachers can refuse assignments they aren't qualified for. A CS/Math teacher could refuse PE, Art, History, etc if it wasn't on their teaching qualification. An arts teacher earning 90k/year telling their students all of the great possibilities they could be is disingenuous when the reality is minimum wage art shop employee.

I've only ever had Catholics take issue with segregation as a term because the truth offends them. To be honest, it doesn't bother me because it's just emotions that occur when a faith is challenged. One of my favourites when talking about faith discrimination: C - "As a Catholic Teacher I offer faith based instruction to any faith in the context of the faith of that child. For example, I have counselled hindi and muslim students in their religion." MCC - "Then logically, why can't a Muslim individual offer faith based guidance to Catholics equally well as you do for them?" C - "That's offensive! You must really hate Catholics" MCC - "Nope. Just talking about equity and equitable treatment of people without discrimination." For the record: 1.to separate or set apart from others or from the main body or group; isolate: to segregate exceptional children; to segregate hardened criminals. 2.to require, often with force, the separation of (a specific racial, religious, or other group) from the general body of society. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/segregate The segregated school board separates all other religions from Catholic elementary and does not hire non-Catholic staff at any level. It is forcible segregation of themselves from non-Catholics. Non-Catholic students DO NOT have a choice to attend Catholic elementary, they are FORCED into the public system. One of our friends tried because the school was closer and newer, you couldn't attend without a family connection that was Catholic. "This interview is over" was what happened. That's segregation but, the group that's doing the segregating doesn't like admitting it... It is state sponsored discrimination and allows Catholics preferential segregation of themselves from all other faiths.

In spite of the fact that Wynne is openly homosexual and could be fired from the Catholic system for being openly gay and wouldn't be hired by it, she said that she won't touch it. You also can't work in the Catholic system if you try to remarry after divorce. Halton Catholic fired a teacher for trying to remarry. So backwards... state sponsored discrimination. Catholics spend good money every year to lobby for the continued existence of their system. The Government probably likes having the low hanging fruit that is the Catholic union for a fall back strategy. Just whisper "one school system" and watch them pull out pens saying "Where do we sign!!?"

It is worth noting that the minimal training in Ontario is an emergency teacher who is filling in for a class without a university degree and without teacher qualifications. My wife has never encountered such an individual in 10 years of teaching.

Talking an end to racial segregation in the southern states used to be political suicide too. Doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been talked about.

You can always throw your vote behind the Green Party because they are the only party with nothing to lose so are making the intelligent decision to support one publicly funded school board. I will say that EQAO has served a purpose. It has shown that the crazy "new math" that the ministry and boards have been pushing is a failure. Unfortunately, the board and ministry reframed it as a "lack of teacher training"... The candidate pool of teachers is roughly the same as it was 10 years ago, except now we have "new math" that doesn't make sense and doesn't enforce skills through practice.

End Catholic Segregation from Secular Ideas: I agree, we need to end Catholic segregation from secular ideas. Segregation wasn't morally right when it was based on race, it's not morally right based on religion. That's before considering the waste generated in two competing publicly funded systems. In my rural community, we send half filled buses Catholic schools and half filled buses to the public schools. Not only that but, because of newly opened Catholic schools agressively trying to grow their board numbers where no schools were needed, now my local public school board is closing perfectly fine public school buildings that are half empty only because parents like "new and shiny" structures regardless of whether they are segregated or public. Millions of dollars are wasted everytime the segregated board opens a new school in our current declining enrolment situation. Compensation: I'm not sure the compensation change for teachers actually saves money. The 20 sick days sounds like a lot. Until you realize that that those days were actually for everything from paternity to bereavement to family medical emergency(children) to banked for short term disability, and if saved up they counted as a retirement gratuity which not only provided incentive to not use the banked days, it is something that is common for professionals who work for companies for an extended period of time. So the new plan looks better based on accounting purposes by not having unfunded liabilities but, now teachers have 11 sick days, + 5 days for things like bereavement, paternity, etc and 120 days of short term disability at 90-100% pay only requiring a doctors note. They went from 20 bankable days for emergencies and illness that can be banked, to 136 days renewable each year. Joe Public was coached to hate bankable days without understanding what they are actually used for, and now those same people who feel that bad apple teachers abused the 20 days/year can now leach on the system for 136 days off a year... Not only that but, the court case that arises from the way that McGuinty implemented the plan through legislation that restricted teacher access to the human rights code, labour law will cost money. The grid freeze that only targeted teachers... and not any other public service employee is also questionable. Teachers already have one of the longest grids to climb. Nurses can reach their top pay after 8 years. Teachers take 13-15 years in the majority of school boards. If we are looking at making compensation more efficient, I've said it a few times and I'll say it again. Teachers should be paid more in line with their qualifications and skill sets that they bring to the education. I know a few art teachers who were making minimum wage in art shops before they became a teacher and openly admit they do if they lost their teaching job to make money. Why are we paying dime a dozen qualifications the same as in demand qualifications? Art, Drama, Phys Ed, History, Dance? I'm sorry but people with those skill sets aren't as valuable as Engineering, Business, Computers, Science, Technology and Math qualifications. That Phys Ed qualified teacher would likely be making 30-50k as a fitness instructor, similarly for Art, Drama, Dance, History, Music, and all of the other dime a dozen teacher subjects.

It would be helpful if you didn't talk down. It's important to note that Ontario clearly botched last round of bargaining. The Ontario government over reached with bill 115, did not bargain in good faith before imposing the terms, and will be going to court this fall. It will be interesting to follow.

After reflecting on what I've been reading during this campaign, I feel that you are right for this provincial election. The last federal election was sketchy in my view. Although you are correct in that it was, as far as I know, indirect and not direct backing.

You said I couldn't find an economist who didn't believe the public sector jobs were a drain and you are cherry picking your comments. I'm not sure that you are following the line of debate. Not only that but I chose to ignore your hole digging example because it was simply a strawman you made to beat down. I never proposed useless jobs. Said no worthwhile economist ever. ""I am very happy that the government will be removing snow this weekend -- this will make it possible for a lot of private sector workers to generate output,"" Public sector adding value once again. Again, your stance was that no economist would say anything other than public sector jobs are a drain on the economy. Your stance that you portrayed was much like the CEO's. I've provided a rebuttal that economists do not view public sector jobs as drains to the economy because they in fact add value as per award winning economists. It doesn't matter whether it's a public or private job or how the job is paid for, it is adding value. You might be able to cherry pick a few jobs that are redundant but, almost all public jobs serve a purpose whether it's policing, maintenance, teaching, health care, city planning, etc. I'm pretty sure this line of discussion has closed.

No one is going on strike right now. All the article actually mentions is that the secondary teacher's union found a way to improve strike pay. Their contract doesn't even expire until the end of August. You can expect a strike if the government keeps trying to legislate austerity instead of bargaining for it... that much is sure. BC has lost court battle after court battle and just keeps extending their unjust treatment of teachers through more court battles. Those are costing the government money too...

There's plenty of evidence abound as far as generic media bias supporting corporate initiatives and corporate driven policy. Like when Maclean's, owned by Rogers, had an article that heavily criticized net neutrality. As with most of these situations, we know the money is flowing... we know that corruption is present and sometimes widespread in politics. I'm not targetting just the conservatives in my argument either, they just happen to love corporations. The Federal Liberals were just as bad in their long run of power. When one party adopts a policy that favours a specific sector of corporations, there will be money spent behind the scenes to try and ensure that party's success. Corporations and wealthy elite are just better at hiding where the money is coming from. Unions, not so much. For instance, a union targets the direct policies of the political leader. Big business and the wealthy just pay to spread misinformation and astroturf policies/politicians they don't like, while funding misinformation or spin to get the politicians who have taken on policies they like seem favourable. They technically didn't directly involve themselves but, they end up with the same effect. We have seen how billions of dollars are funneled into anti-climate change rhetoric by the wealthy elite so that they don't have to change their business model. It is an ongoing concern, and it happens all the time. http://phys.org/news/2013-12-koch-brothers-reveals-funders-climate.html To think that they don't do the same shady donations or pay people in news media on getting their politicians in who actually control the legislation, when they are willing to spend huge amounts of money just spreading general misinformation, would be naive.

Thank you for correcting that. The overwhelming support was for conservative, and the vast majority of all news outlets endorsed Harper. Also notable is if people were paying attention, they'd have noticed news was also heavily talking about ethical oil and developing the oil sands in positive light in support of Harper's policy.

Oh I know, but I'm just giving examples of corporations weighing into the political debate and using their clout as information powerhouses to sway the electorate in the direction they'd like to see, based on whoever works at the company or whoever has the deeper pockets to get the recommendation from the corporation made public... Just like how when Harper was first elected, not a single media company endorsed anyone else... and all of the editorials were ridiculously pro-harper. Someone was paying for that... Such a slant doesn't happen by accident.

That's not actually true because the economy is more complex than that. Is a private teacher contributing more to the economy than a public teacher? Is a private nurse contributing more to the economy than a public nurse? The answer is that at very minimum, their jobs contribute equally to the economy.

Well, if you want to discount anyone who disagrees with you. Blind partisan faith is the kool aid of modern conservatives. "Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and liberal New York Times columnist" You can read more at http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/feb/15/government-jobs-vs-private-jobs-which-help-economy/ if you'd like. Teacher's add a whole lot of value to an economy. They are public servants. They would add this value if they are private sector as well. It doesn't matter which sector they are in. Whether private or public, they are adding value.

National Post. The Globe and Mail. Endorsements in big media with a clear slant of reporting, specifically on the National Post's side.

So are most corporate sponsored "grass roots" ads and corporate sponsored "news"media.

The thing about union ads is that it tends to be very obvious when they do it. So people can identify the purpose of the ad and understand the context of where it is coming from very easily. Corporations can do things like astroturf discussions with faulty or misleading studies, make sure articles that favour their view are published in their friendly corporate news, and run programs meant to stifle and bully opposing ideas like Sun News. On an ongoing basis the corporate world/elite spend money shaping the minds of people before the election even happens, without the people even being aware that they have been manipulated. Years before Dalton took on the teachers, editorials all over ontario were attacking banked sick day plans and retirement gratuity to prepare the public battlefield. Only someone who is paying critical attention would know where those messages were coming from and be able to put a value to the credibility of the source. Unions and the Koch Brothers alike should have be able to spend on informing the public on issues elections with the requirement that they must personally have their names on it so that people know where the message is coming from. Right now, the wealthy elite make sure to create "grass roots" movements that sound credible but are really just fronts so that the wealthy don't have to attach their name to the message. Because if people knew who was sending the message, it would likely backfire. I favour ads that come from an obvious source, regardless of funding. The union ads obviously come from public sector unions. I don't think that the union ads are working in their favour since they are all doing it. It looks like a public sector beatdown on Hudak and I think that most people would realize the context. I believe it has backfired if you look at the EKOS polling that started since the launch of most of the ads really hit the airwaves.

Sometimes looking at extremes helps us understand the overall effect. Public Sector jobs aren't a drain on the economy. The economy relies on people spending money, that is the essence of an economy. It's not like public sector workers buy all of their products directly from China to export Canadian dollars elsewhere. Because that would be a real drain on the economy, and that is what our big corporations that modern conservatives favour, do. Canadian corporations have record stockpiles of dead money. Giving them more money at the expense of public sector jobs is not going to create jobs. They will export that money into foreign investments and dividends to foreign shareholders. They aren't investing in Canada now when our corporate tax is already extremely low, and they won't invest in Canada when our corporate tax is a bit lower. Eliminating 100,000 jobs to put money into big business with reduced taxes, as modern conservatives love doing, isn't going to get us out of this mess. If Hudak said, I will eliminate 100,000 jobs and take that money to invest in new Canadian entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, he'd get me to buy into his plan a little bit. Because it might actually just work. Investing in our entrepreneurs is how you grow an economy, and how you create Canadian jobs. That being said, Ontario already has a low per capita public sector workforce compared to other provinces and you could create those Jobs just by investing in entrepreneurs without firing the public sector workforce.

I was not arguing to support inflating salaries. Just the existence of having more jobs available and how it helps the economy regardless of whether they are public or private jobs. Heck, I've argued that we should pay Teacher's more in line with what their qualifications would earn in the private sector. (I believe it was earlier in this thread too) Those Arts, History, Anthropology, Gym, etc teacher's making 80-90k/year would barely ever crack 50-60k in the work force. In contrast, Science, Computer Engineering, Computer Programming, Physics, Math, Accounting, Business, etc teachers could very well be pulling in 75k+ in the private sector. On TheGlobeandMail.com a few years back there was a good app to estimate the value of an investment in a degree on the impact of your working yearly salary. An average male with high school only is worth about 35k/year, 5 years after graduation. A male that takes Art as a degree is actually only worth 25k/year after 5 years past graduation... Spending 4 years in an art degree program make you worth 10k/year less than if you just graduated high school and went into the work force.

Fire all the public servants. They don't have jobs and can't contribute to the economy. Every business they used to support with their money suffers. Watch what happens to the economy. If people have no money to spend, the economy crashes. See "The Great Depression" Public sector workers are not the drain that conservative minded people think they are... They provide more jobs to more people. You could argue that maybe their salaries be reduced but, just by providing more jobs where more money changes hands and lets more people contribute to the economy is a good thing. It's not like paying public sector workers is "dead money", that money gets spent in the economy they work in. Giving Corporations lower taxes is often dead money because all foreign owned money is essentially leaving the country when dividends are paid out, or the corporation takes the profit from lower taxes in Canada to invest in more sweat shops in the Philippines. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The real way out of this mess hasn't been addressed by any of the parties. We need a strong investment in new entrepreneurs with innovative ideas. That is how you create jobs in this new economy. Throw a million dollars at an established corp and very few jobs will be created. Throw a new entrepreneur $50-100k and they still need to hire everyone associated with the business operation.