
For a couple of weeks now, the teachers in British Columbia have been on strike. Or, should I follow the lead of the CBC, itself until quite recently shutdown by a labour dispute, and invariably add the adjective "illegal" before the word, "strike"? It is quite remarkable how consistently the national broadcaster does this, as if listeners might otherwise confuse the illegal strike with some other action afoot within the province's school system.
Last Wednesday, no doubt following a script which the Campbell government's handlers had composed well before passing their vindictive and pre-emptive legislation, the inevitable call went out to messianic mediator Vince Ever-Ready. At last, the BC Teachers Union leaders sighed unconvincingly, their concerns would be taken seriously; Mr. Ever-Ready now the harbinger of a veritable spring-like thaw in this gloomy autumnal disruption.
Ha! Even the most gullible - and no one has ever ascribed that quality to the sagacious Ms. Sims -- could surely not have believed that an ostensible neutral called in by one of the sides in the dispute without palpable consultation with the other side, and on the payroll of that more powerful side, and with a history and, no doubt, future of continuing to be on the payroll of that more powerful side, would do anything much different than his paymaster's bidding.
Solemnly Ever-Ready declared an unbreakable impasse very few hours of taking on the well-paid assignment of...breaking the obvious impasse. This set the stage, following the script, for a


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