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Petition against education cuts crosses language divide

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , , , , ,

Petition against education cuts crosses linguistic divide

Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism 

Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The Parti Québécois (PQ) and the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) may seem like unlikely allies, but they have joined forces to denounce the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government’s belt-tightening on education funding. Along with former leaders of French-language school boards, unions and parents’ groups on both sides of the linguistic divide, PQ MNA Pascal Bérubé and the school boards’ association, of which the Central Québec School Board (CQSB) is a member, are joining forces to back a National Assembly petition against cuts to education. 

Last month, the Ministry of Education imposed at least $510 million in across-the-board cuts to the public school system; Education Minister Bernard Drainville said at the time that the ministry’s expenses had grown an “unsustainable” seven per cent per year since 2018. Next school year’s increase has been capped at 1.8 per cent – below the rate of inflation – as part of a wider effort to rein in the deficit. Furthermore, autonomous English school boards, which have more control over how funding is allocated than their government-run French-language counterparts, have been told they can’t run deficits or dip into surpluses to cushion the impact of funding cuts. Drainville has encouraged school boards and service centres to “respect the budgets without touching student services … to the extent possible” although school board and union representatives have argued this is impossible. 

The petition on the National Assembly website calls on Drainville to walk back the budgetary restrictions to avoid affecting student services. As of this writing, it has nearly 157,000 signatures.  

Steven Le Sueur is the president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), the union federation representing teachers at English-language public schools. He said the petition was initially drawn up by the Fédération des syndicats de l’enseignement (FSE), the largest federation of teachers’ unions in the province, which encouraged QPAT to get on board. 

“It is important to get the public involved to denounce what’s going on,” he told the QCT. “Our students with special needs and at-risk students will suffer the most. The ‘extra’ services which we may have had in the past will be disappearing. This is not going to attract more teachers to the profession and it may drive some of our younger teachers away.” 

Le Sueur said promoting the petition in both languages is “sending a strong message that the government is hurting the system, both the English and French system.” 

QESBA president Joe Ortona echoed several of Le Sueur’s arguments. “Balancing the budget, with the [funding] the government is giving us, means slashing all sorts of programs that go beyond the bare minimum – music, art, extracurriculars, programs for gifted kids, extra support for kids with special needs, breakfast, tutoring.” 

Ortona, who has served on the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) since 2014, said he has “never seen anything that remotely resembles” the cuts Drainville has told boards to brace for. “The government is claiming the budget is going up, but they aren’t taking into account inflation or the impact of the collective agreements [signed with teachers’ unions after the 2023 strikes]. At the end of the day … we wind up with less than what we had before. We pride ourselves on the quality of education we provide, but if the government doesn’t fund us, there is no way we can provide those services. 

“A decade ago [when the previous Liberal government announced cuts to education] we were in a recession. We are nowhere near that now. We’re in this situation because the government has mismanaged a billion dollars on SAAQClic, Northvolt, $7 million for the L.A. Kings, $10 billion for the third link, and the kids are paying the price,” he argued. He added that the campaign against the planned cuts would be stronger if French-language school boards, which were converted into service centres in 2020, still had the same autonomy as their English counterparts, which have kept their independence through a long and still unresolved court challenge. “The only [school officials] who can speak out publicly are the elected officials on the English side.” 

Le Sueur and Ortona called on parents, graduates and other concerned voters to sign the petition and lobby their MNAs to oppose the looming cuts. “I​ am hopeful [the government] will look at this and try to appease the population and backtrack a little, or a lot – there is an election coming up,” Le Sueur said. 

The QCT asked the Ministry of Education about options available for English school boards to cushion the impact of the cuts, but did not receive a response by press time.

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Union suspends manual workers’ strike before March Break

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , ,

Union suspends manual workers’ strike before March Break 

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

The union representing manual workers at the Ville de Québec suspended its indefinite strike on Feb. 27 after one week, citing “positive developments” in its discussions with the city administration.

The union’s most recent collective agreement expired at the end of 2023, and negotiations have been ongoing since February of last year; members also held a six-day strike last July. Last month, 90 per cent of members voted to reject the city’s final offer. In a statement at the time, SCFP local 1638 president Luc Boissonneault, said pay equity, work-life balance and predictable schedules were major sticking points in the negotiations, and that members were increasingly leaving to work in Lévis or in the private sector.

However, on Feb. 27, Boissonneault said negotiations were moving forward. “The employer’s representatives, like ours, have shown interest in exploring possible solutions that give us hope of finally find- ing a mutually satisfactory way forward,” he said in a statement. “Resuming activities is the right thing to do.”

Over the course of the weeklong strike, snow removal and garbage pickup were delayed and city-run ice rinks, pools, recreation centres and outdoor activity centres were closed. In a series of statements, city officials said normal opening hours at affected facilities would resume by March 3, and snow removal and garbage collection would also return to normal.

“The Ville de Québec welcomes the decision of the Syndicat des employés manuels to suspend its unlimited general strike … in order to facilitate a rapid settlement for the benefit of both parties and all citizens of Quebec. The discussions that took place yesterday, in the presence of the mediator, were constructive and allowed the city to reiterate that the desired solution must necessarily take into account citizens’ ability to pay,” city officials said Feb. 27. Mayor Bruno Marchand told reporters the suspension of the strike was “damned good news.”

“It’s a relief, and I thank them,” he said.

As of this writing, negotiations between the two parties are ongoing.

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Editorial: Power to the public sector

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

Graphic Zachary Fortier

The Link
Local Journalism Initiative

“Guardian angels” is how Quebec Premier François Legault described healthcare workers in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We heard similar sentiments towards teachers who made sure children were being educated, both online and eventually in-person, often putting their health at risk by doing so.

Now, these “guardian angels” are all without contracts and going on strike because the Coalition Avenir Quebec is failing to fairly compensate them for their work.

Teachers in Quebec remain the lowest paid across Canada, even if they’ve been working in the profession for over a decade. According to the latest salary-scale, released by the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers, the base salary of a “regular teacher” has increased 15.6 per cent over eight years, from $39,291 in 2014-2015 to $46,527 today. 

This pales in comparison to the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) who was recently offered—and rejected—a 21 per cent increase over five years. On their website, the SQ 2021 starting salary is $48,386, which rises to $84,366 after five years. The SQ also increases the salary of officers every six months for the first three years, and every year after the fourth year.

Many nurses, who often have to deal with insufficient staffing and lack of beds, have reportedly been sleeping at the hospital between double or triple shifts.

At any given time, Montreal hospitals are at 80 to 200 per cent (or more) occupancy. Nearly 14,000 patients have been waiting for various surgeries for over a year, including over 4,000 in the Montreal area. An estimated 450 further delays are caused every day, that healthcare workers are on strike.

In the last few years, broken promises have led to growing anger. This includes the promise of bonuses to people to work in the healthcare system being cut, and a Quebec tribunal ordering nurses to stop threatening mass resignations.

Quebec has more than enough talent and money to be able to fill vacancies and properly compensate those who take on the exhausting work most often performed by women, particularly immigrant women of colour. 

Previous strikes by various unions have led the government enacting “back to work” legislation, and then continuing to shaft the people who were deemed heroes globally just under four years ago.

Back in 2021, Legault said “We’ve reached the capacity of what we can pay. So when some union leaders say ‘We want more money,’ well, we don’t have any more money,” adding that he had “been patient” with the unions for the previous year. The truth is that our essential “guardian angels” have been patient with you, Frank.

If the National Assembly is looking for extra funding, they can rescind the $30,000 salary increase they gave themselves in June 2023, or one of the other benefits that amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars for travel and “transition” allowances when they get voted out or leave politics.

If any of these politicians gave half a fuck about any of the roughly 570,000 striking workers, they would cap their own salary increases to match that of the lowest public sector employees. 

The Link stands firm in its support of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé, The Fédération autonome de l’enseignement, the Common Front, and all labour unions. We applaud the fight to ensure members are paid more than subsistence wage and given protections from the abysmal working conditions far too many are subject to.

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