Law Times

Page 6 SePTeMBeR 8, 2015 • LaW TIMeS www.lawtimesnews.com COMMENT A shameful performance or a former diplomat, Immigration Minister Chris Alexander shows a remarkable lack of finesse in defending his govern- ment's record on the Syrian refugee issue. From the suspension of his campaign to deal with the fallout of photos of a Syrian boy found dead off the coast of Turkey to his abrasive demeanour on CBC's Power and Politics last week, Alexan- der's performance has been shameful. First, dealing with Syrian refugees should have been a key prior- ity for him all along given that the crisis isn't new. It shouldn't have taken a disturbing photo on a beach for him to decide the issue was now such a priority that he had to stop his campaign. Second, he repeatedly refers to the fact that Canada has taken in 20,000 refugees from Iraq in recent years. That's great, but the biggest crisis right now is the one in Syria as evidenced by events in Europe. Alexander repeatedly politicizes the issue by emphasizing the need to deal with what's happening in Syria itself — namely, the jihadist threat — while failing to mention that a major part of the problem has been the brutal reign of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It's very convenient, of course, for Alexander to talk only about the Is- lamic State in light of Canada's military mission. Alexander then went on to blame the media for not covering the crisis sufficiently. It's probably a valid point, but surely the issue here is the government's response to it, something media outlets have had significant difficulty in getting concrete answers on over the past Ontario's new math doesn't add up always get suspicious when I see an of- fer providing for no money down or payments for 18 months. So when the province announced it had struck deals with the Ontario Second- ary School Teachers' Federation and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Asso- ciation that were within the "existing en- velope" and touted as a "net-zero increase," my radar started spinning. It's still spinning as we await the details of deals with other teachers unions, not to mention the outcome of talks with school support staff who were also threatening strike action as classes begin this week. In the run-up to the agreement, teach- ers ran an aggressive advertizing blitz, saying their fight wasn't about money but instead was all about preserving the qual- ity of education in Ontario. Sure, we all believed that. It wasn't about money at all. They appear to have won a one-per-cent bonus with another one per cent next September along with a half-per- cent increase at the end of the contract. It's true that it's not a lot, but when you mul- tiply that across all of the boards in the province, it does add up. They also got an extra professional development day, which is pretty sweet given all of the days teachers get now for development. In addition, the OSSTF will double the maxi- mum sick days for substitute teachers to 120 days. The government, howev- er, is promising the deal will offset all of those extra costs. And isn't it just a pittance out of the $22.5 billion spent on teachers' salaries? Of course, the sleeper issue here is class size. The real question is who sets the policy for Ontario's elementary and secondary education systems? Is it the teachers or the province? When Ontario passed Bill 122 last year, it formalized what had become the practice in labour negotiations. Unions and the province would meet at the cen- tral table and hammer out the key issues of money, class size, and preparation time followed by negotiations with the individual school boards to work out the local issues such as policies dealing with replacement teachers. It's not an uncom- mon practice in other sectors, and Bill 122 just enshrined it. All of this brings us to the central ta- ble issue of class size, something that's a money issue no matter how you look at it. Smaller classes mean more teachers and hence more members paying more dues and provid- ing more clout. The issue the province has been wrestling with is that class sizes are all over the map. What they want to do is bring class sizes in line across the board, but the unions have dug in. So what exactly did Ontar- io agree to with the two major unions? We don't know. "Let me be crystal clear. There is no change in class size, the funding rules remain the same, no change in prep time or funding for prep time," Education Minister Liz San- dals told a media scrum in making the announcement. "I will say it again that any salary increases are offset in the terms of the agreement." While there's a media blackout pend- ing ratification of the deals this month, enough details are leaking to prompt suspicion because, even if you use the new math, it doesn't add up. You can't dole out more pie until you increase the size of it or cut back someone else's portions. So who's getting less? For a government supposedly found- ed on activist principles and promises of transparency, this latest debacle again only serves to underline how secretive and controlling it has become. That didn't happen overnight. In- deed, the last time the province settled with the teachers and told us it was a net- zero deal, we discovered it in fact cost $468 million. Premier Kathleen Wynne responded that $468 million was mi- nor as the deal to undo the damage of the legislatively imposed wage freeze in 2012 actually saved $2.1 billion overall. She missed the point then and the Liberals seem to be doing so again. The $468 million was a lot of money. With this deal, the province seems set to undo its 2012 effort to bring the cost of education back to reality. The new deal also adds sick and professional de- velopment days and bolsters benefits. The overarching issue is the govern- ment's record and its relationship with the truth. How are we to ascertain the Liberals' credibility? Who can we be- lieve anymore? LT uIan Harvey has been a journalist for more than 35 years writing about a diverse range of issues including legal and political af- fairs. His e-mail address is ianharvey@ rogers.com. ©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. 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The issue arises as certain countries in Europe are accepting tens of thousands of Syrian refugees while Canada has been slow in meeting the very modest targets it has set. Some critics have blamed bureaucratic delays in dealing with private spon- sorship applications while others have emphasized the need to accept more government-sponsored refugees in order to speed up the process. While the situation in Europe is no doubt very different from Canada's, what's clear is that the Syrian cri- sis has become so bad that this country needs to step up its response. It would also be nice to see the minister in charge address the issue substantively rather than engaging in grandstanding as he did last week. I Queen's Park Ian Harvey F

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