Dear Editor:
It's hard to be hopeful that the June 10 mandate given to education minister Peter Fassbender by premier Christy Clark is meant to produce a less dysfunctional relationship with the province's teachers.
The mandate directs him to "present options to cabinet on ways to restructure collective bargaining with the B.C. Teachers' Federation." There is no mention of a desire to repair relations, much less express a need to come up with a more collegial approach to resolving disagreements.
Some might argue that this does not necessarily mean the government will not be open-minded about finding a new and improved way to do business with teachers.
But Fassbender has doomed any possibility of that outcome by publicly stating he is looking for a restructuring that provides "longer-term agreements."
Inasmuch as the system already in place provides for that, it's safe to conclude what he really wants is to find a way to dictate contract terms.
Once you do that, of course, you invalidate the collective bargaining concept.
And that, as we all know, is what the Liberal government has been trying to do for the last 12 years.
Bill Brassington, Burnaby
