CHIANELLO

Extracurriculars return to Grades 9-12

A win for Wynne as high school teachers get set to resume extracurricular activities.

Kathleen Wynne’s first day in Ottawa as Ontario’s 25th premier couldn’t have ended better. As she was flying back to Toronto, the province’s high school teachers were getting the go-ahead to resume extracurriculars.

It’s welcome news to Grades 9 to 12 students who have gone without many of their sports teams and clubs for five months of this school year. The breakthrough was a result of “positive, frank and collaborative discussions” between the Liberal government and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, according to a statement released by Wynne on Friday afternoon.

The vote by the OSSTF to suspend its political action allows teachers to choose whether they want to run student activities outside regular school hours. Some teachers have vowed not to return to extracurriculars until the labour contract imposed under controversial Bill 115 is renegotiated, something Wynne has said she won’t do.

Indeed, Wynne said, “The issues that are on the table are not issues that require new money,” but instead are about “respectful dialogue.”

Ontario should view the end of the job action as a “sign of goodwill” on behalf of teachers, said the president of the OSSTF.

“Voluntary activities are just that: voluntary,” said Ken Coran. “We encourage members to review recent information and decide if they are willing to return to participating in the activities we know they feel so passionately about.”

And Wynne said there’s little she can — or would want to — do about teachers who do not want to participate in additional activities at school. But, as parents, students and even teachers have reported anecdotally, many in the school system have been wanting to get back to extracurriculars for some weeks.

“There are a lot of teachers who really do want to volunteer, who want to take up those extracurricular activities and just felt that they couldn’t, given the labour situation,” said John Shea, the public school trustee representing the Orléans and Cumberland areas. “I think that come next week, we will see a number of teachers resume the activities they would have traditionally run.”

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s director, Jennifer Adams, was “delighted” at the news that the extracurricular ban had been lifted, adding that the board would continue to support the 200 community and parent volunteers who have stepped up to fill the void left by the teachers’ political action.

Friday’s announcement caught many observers by surprise.

“If you had asked me 24 hours ago that there was going to be an announcement with OSSTF, I’d have said you were crazy,” said Shea. “It’s a testament to the provincial government of getting down to business and getting to the heart of the issue.”

Still, getting to an agreement with the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario to end its members’ political action is likely to be trickier. The union representing grade school teachers has traditionally had a more fractious relationship with the government than its secondary-school counterpart.

That’s one of the reasons why Progressive Conservative education critic Lisa MacLeod characterized the OSSTF announcement as merely a “partial win.” The NepeanCarleton MPP also warned that this sort of job action could happen again, which is why her party plans to table a motion to ensure that “union leaders can’t fine or intimidate or sanction their members if they want to continue” participating in extracurricular activities.

Despite MacLeod’s protestations, however, the end of high school teachers’ job action was a political win for the new premier — and desperately needed at the end of a trying week. For one thing, Wynne had to own up to the fact she was secretly re-sworn in on Feb. 14 as the minister of agriculture and food because in the original ceremony, the word “food” had been omitted the first time around. Hardly a scandal, but embarrassing for the new premier, especially as the Tories called her out for hiding the error.

Much worse was the revelation Thursday by Ottawa’s Bob Chiarelli, the new energy minister, that the Ontario Power Authority suddenly found 600 more pages of documents related to the cancellation of two gas power plants that will cost taxpayers at least $230 million.

Wynne has said for months that the plants, which faced a lot of opposition in the communities they were destined for, should have been cancelled earlier — and not just before the 2011 fall election. It’s one of the ways the new premier has tried to distance herself from predecessor Dalton McGuinty, who resigned and prorogued provincial parliament in part because of the gasplant scandal.

Unfortunately for her, Wynne also said that the government had released all documents relevant to the gas-plant cancellation. That did not turn out to be the case.

But by late Friday, Wynne had succeeded in setting herself apart from the Liberal government, at least on the education file.

McGuinty alienated teachers by forcing a contract on them through legislation, which led to teachers withholding extracurriculars. In a few short weeks, Wynne has been able to establish a more productive relationship between the Liberal government and teachers.

“It’s about how to we make sure that we continue to work together ... how do we create a new collective bargaining process going forward,” said Wynne. “Because obviously this one didn’t work well enough and we need that new process in place.”