WAS THERE EVER ANY DOUBT?

Last Thursday in the Waterloo Region Record was the first hint of the obvious. The title of the front page article was "Hudak hints at help for Liberals". O.K. so the Liberals have fallen out of bed with the teachers' unions. What an opportunity for the party of anti unionism, pro business and hence anti environment. Yup that would be the Conservatives.

Not a chance they would ever vote against a Bill that would at a minimum slow down the teachers' unions meteoric rise to the top of the money tree. While the Conservative Party has never been my favourite, nevertheless they have been consistent in their opposition to what they see as a powerful, influential union which long ago allowed teachers to forget their primary duty to students. Both the Boards and the Unions have behaved contrary to the public interest and the Liberals belated recognition of this certainly could be interpreted as past failures on their part. My concern is that they are playing politics right now and will make private deals to reward the teachers unions when we hit good financial times again. The teachers meanwhile may have recognized that the pie isn't growing anymore and they want one more bigger share before everybody's paycheques become downsized.

Meanwhile the Teachers' Unions should be realizing that as the average wage and family income is at best stagnant, they can't expect to forever make gains at the taxpayers expense. Good teachers are a fabulous boon to childrens education. Unfortunately as their wages have risen so much higher than the rest of society; far too many people have been drawn into the profession for that reason, rather than due to a real interest in educating our future. That is to the loss of everyone.