I heard over the grapevine the other day that the word on Ontario education minister Stephen Lecce is that he is too old to be handsome and too young to have learned much. And all along, I thought he was just deaf. Why people waste time talking to the man is the wonder. Yet we let him pretend to run a $30 billion operation called the Ontario Ministry of Education.
That seems to indicate that the man who gave Lecce the job of minister was stupider than we thought. And what either Lecce or his boss know about bargaining with unions, is obviously not very much. The conservative government’s attitude towards unions is what created unions in the first place. The support workers who help keep teachers in their classrooms don’t deserve the treatment they have been getting.
In bargaining with a union, you don’t keep offering the same insulting amount and then lie to the legislature about what they asked for. In face of galloping inflation, it is unrealistic to stand firm on poverty wages. Decent offers often get a decent response. Standing firm on poverty level wages gets the response it deserves.
But what else would you expect from a premier and a minister who have absolutely no experience that might help them do their jobs? Lecce can hardly rely on his private school experience to help him understand public education. What he has ever done or learned to help him do the ministry job seems to be a secret.
He actually said this week that if the union would take strike action off the table, he would have another offer. And if the union took the strike off the table, they would be at the mercy of people who do not care. Strike is their only option.
Lecce’s boss, premier Doug Ford is more of an open book. Doug Ford failed municipal politics 101 under the tutelage of his late brother Rob Ford. And after failing to win the mayoralty, he moved up to provincial politics. Maybe his father was a one-time member of the legislature but the younger Ford learned nothing from him. When he entered the legislature to sit as premier of Ontario, his first six months was a series of gaffs and mistakes. He interfered in a municipal election in process in Toronto. Cronyism filled his appointments schedule. Pay-offs for developers and other donors was his game plan, He knows nothing of good government. The other day he had the sergeant at arms escorting the NDP members from the legislature. It seems you are not supposed to call a lie a lie in Mr. Ford’s Ontario. I am pleased that there are some people there who know a lie when they hear one.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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