Opening Statement



Friday 12 October 2012

Weekend Teacher Protest Guide 5!

There's a whack of links including video coverage of yesterday's court challenge on my Oct 11 blog below. On here the news links will pick up from there and continue through the weekend. I'm flying north to Sudbury to visit my mom in the nursing home, then flying back for our TSU Staff in service at the Kingsbridge Centre on Monday. It's almost as cheap to fly as to drive, if you get a good deal, and it is only about a hour's flight in a nice Air Canada or Porter Airways turboprop. Maybe 6 hours to drive each way? I'll fly! Anyway, I will keep popping in here to add news links as they come across my scanner. Stay tuned. Happy protests today! Have a great weekend enjoying the autumn colours too. Pure Canadiana; protesting and the leaves changing colour!



IN THE NEWS


October 14 2012

It's a rainy weekend in Sudbury. The temperature is about the same as Toronto despite being a lot further up north, maybe 10 degrees centigrade by mid day. We took mom out for dinner last night before dropping her back off at the nursing home. She was confused about where she was. Today we are celebrating Thanksgiving and my birthday with her at my sister's house in nearby Falconbrige. Mom's got her spirits up and is enjoying good physical health. However she's got dementia. Still has her sense of humour though. Mom: "Yes! My memories very good -it's just real short." She can remember events from 40 years ago in great detail but forgets what that we visited yesterday. She is glad to see us all over again. I wrote a story about mom and I in December last year, before all the political turmoil. It's at; http://tsu3rdvp.blogspot.ca/2011/12/holding-hands.html


Coming this Wednesday! Dalton + Tim's Big Fat Wedding! Some more Protest Theatre at Queen's Park! Our OECTA protesters are also invited to join in. More details forthcoming.
See my Oct 15 blog. Hope too see you there!

London Free Press presents meet OSSTF President Ken Coran at: http://www.lfpress.com/2012/10/14/former-high-school-teacher-ken-coran-now-president-of-the-ontario-secondary-school-teachers-federation

Martin Regg Cohn reviews a week of political games at Queen's Park. Remember, the Conservatives have been high in the polls before but lost come election time, under John Tory and now Tim Hudak. See: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1271152--cohn-how-the-game-of-politics-is-played-and-overplayed

McGuinty attends Kingston meeting against a backdrop of ETFO teachers chanting outside. There is more on this in my Oct. 11 blog. See: http://www.thewhig.com/2012/10/12/local-teachers-take-on-premier

MPP Bob Delany: We've got you surrounded! Give it up about Bill 115! Ha. See: https://twitter.com/StewardCupe2544/status/256840593601355776/photo/1


Sudbury Saturday Nigt: Mom, Maryanne, Janet + I out on the town [so to speak].

October 13, 2012

Sitting at Pearson International Airport waiting to board my flight to Sudbury. Wifi is free.That's kinda neat. The airport seems pretty quiet and laid back this morning. Janet went to the Tim's kiosk to get us coffee and a donut. 

Had quite an exciting day yesterday with a student arriving "unresponsive" on the school bus. I stayed on the cellphone while the 911 operator told me what to do. The ambulance took 55 minutes to arrive! Fortunately we revived and stabilized the student who'd had an epileptic seizure. As you might well imagine , I am on a real union executive roll about  proper safety plans and medical procedures now. 

Ironically, I am executive OECTA TSU liaison for our Joint Health and Safety and Joint Medical Physical Procedures committees, as well as my new Sped committee. I also sit on Joint Safe Schools this year. Looks like we have our work cut out! There was virtually nothing in place to deal with the situation. We  were winging it. 

Fortunately I had come in early to see my AU-DDME's get off the bus. I worry a lot about them. They are a great bunch of students despite their many challenges. Also very helpless when a crisis inevitably occurs. It's all about Health and Safety first, a constant uphill battle. Hopefully under Bill 168 that will all change, but so far it's just been grievances and hazard reports galore.

Tim Hudak fondly reminisces the Harris Year cuts and layoffs:  http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1270495--tim-hudak-says-ontarians-ready-for-some-common-sense-cuts

Wawa Ontario's financial goose is cooked! In northern Ontario folks are very angry with the Liberal's Toronto-centric policies. I remember being stuck hitchhiking for 2 days beside the big Wawa Canadian Goose monument in 1975 on a cross country trek. Locals came out and brought me coffee. Very nice. Too bad this is how they are getting treated. See: http://www.torontosun.com/2012/10/11/mcguinty-government-bankrupting-wawa

St. Catherine's Standard article on the cancellation of extracurriculars: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/2012/10/12/students-fear-for-extracurricular-future

Hamilton teachers pumped and protesting for the court challenge. See: http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2012/10/11/hamilton-teachers-court.html

Hudak + McGuinty protest effigies: https://twitter.com/JoeyColeman/status/257178441726693376/photo/1

Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School in Toronto has become Mayor Rob Ford's controversial football school. Ford coaches and finances team, allegedly on the public dime. Visible minorities and academic achievers suffer from the negative image. TCDSB bans media from school property. School community works hard to bolster the students' self confidence and postive image. See:  http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/education/article/1268645--don-bosco-holds-give-your-school-a-hug-day-event-to-combat-negative-image

Canadian press do not allow politicians to "polish" quotes before they are published. Wow! Not so in the United States. This is truly bizarre. See: http://m.thestar.com/opinion/publiceditor/article/1270610--public-editor-the-politics-of-quote-approval-north-of-the-49th-parallel


October 12, 2012

Teachers' protest awaits McGuinty in Kingston. Bagpipes are a nice touch. Also stomping your feet to stay warm. See: https://twitter.com/debiwells/status/256820358496280577/photo/1

A nice group shot of the dedicated protesters. Apparently Dalton promised them a meeting. Well done! See: https://twitter.com/DianeMaude/status/256814786132725763/photo/1

Teach 'em when they are young! See: http://instagram.com/p/Qshe1yBAeJ/

Hundreds of Orangeville student's cut classes to march on MPP's office chanting "Kill the Bill!"This is becoming more fun than the sixties. Too bad about Bill 115 though! See: http://www.orangeville.com/news/local/article/1516468--orangeville-students-stand-up-and-walk-out

October 12, a day that will go down in teacher protest infamy! Check out ETFO's list of Toronto MPP offices for after school today. See: http://ett.ca/media-centre/whats-new/let-ontario-liberals-know-well-never-forget-october-12-2012

A total  of 76,000 ETFO members vote to strike! The results are in from across the province. Check out the complete results at:  http://www.controlyourfuture.ca/etfo_news/etfo-members-vote-in-favour-of-strike-action/

Here's a printable ETFO petition against Bill 115: http://www.controlyourfuture.ca/wp-content/uploads/Bill115Petition.pdf

The Toronto Star reports on the possible outcome of the union court challenges. Remember, there are four individual challenges in all. The results won't be available anytime soon. The legal views run the full spectrum on this challenge into uncharted constitutional waters. Brace yourself for the long haul. See: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1270241--ontario-teachers-have-strong-case-in-court-challenge-legal-expert-says#.UHg2puuBHL0.twitter

Unions blame Liberals. They made us do it. Dalton's confident. He thinks he'll win. And so it goes and on and on and on. See: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1270241--ontario-teachers-have-strong-case-in-court-challenge-legal-expert-says#.UHg2puuBHL0.twitter

A Barrie Examiner letter to the editor demands the democratic process be re-instated to solve our school problems. I can remember past OECTA TSU PAC campaigns when we had contests to see who could get the most letters to the editor published. I won. Ha. However, you need a directory to all the Ontario newspapers, big city and local to spread out the messaging effectively. Anyway, just a thought. See the letter: http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2012/10/11/bill-115-not-helping-kids

New service: Tips 4 Modern Living [Canadian Edition]!!!

Canuck Alert!!! Canada: The true north strong + cold. Yup "cold" not "free". It's darn expensive living here!Anyway be forewarned. First snow at noon today in Ottawa Valley. Better start thinking of winter! http://bulldogottawa.com/oh-my-gawd-its-snow/#more-1289


Brace yourself: Another Canadian winter is on it's way.................

More links below............................................................................................>>>

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A recent reply to a member's email to ETFO....

Hi Steve,



Thanks very much for your email.



Very glad to see that you are following us on Control Your Future (www.controlyourfuture.ca). We have many OECTA members who have contacted us throughout the summer expressing their concerns about what’s happened and apologizing to us (even though there’s no need to do so – individual OECTA members had no part to play in these unfortunate events and just as much victims of those events as ETFO, OSSTF and CUPE members are).



I know David Chiarelli and read his blog faithfully, as do many other ETFO staff members. We respect and value David as a colleague, and I make it a point to invite David to all our press conferences and alert him to any other major event that ETFO is putting on. Apparently he has a special announcement he’s going to be posting today or tomorrow on his blog – haven’t checked it yet but am looking forward to reading what he writes.



As far as ETFO is concerned, it doesn’t matter what federation a teacher belongs to – we’re all in this together. Any court challenge we launch will be on behalf of all our colleagues in the profession, not just ETFO members.



Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.



Collegially yours,



Lisa Mastrobuono

Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario

Collective Bargaining Communications

480 University Avenue, Suite 1000

Toronto, Ontario M5G 1V2

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