Beware the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s bias

Group’s criticism of the public education system is grounded in politics

Re: “Boost choices in education to keep wages in line,” June 25, 2015

Despite its name, I suggest that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is not an advocacy group concerned with the greater public good and the well-being of all Canadian citizens. Instead, it promotes the type of neo-liberal economic policies that have been eroding some long held Canadian social justice values.

With roots in the Reform Party, and links to the Fraser Institute, four former national and provincial directors of the CTF went on to work as Stephen Harper’s director of communications ( John Williamson), press secretary (Sara MacIntyre), issues-management adviser (Adam Taylor), and stategic-initiatives manager (Neil Desai). The political affiliation and ideological perspective of the CTF should be kept in mind when assessing its pronouncements on what is best for Canadians’ education.

While specifically targeting teacher’s unions, this article engages three fronts of the neo-liberal economic agenda. This attack on teachers and the public education system is grounded in politics, not pedagogy.

1) This continues the attack on organized labour in order to enhance corporate profits. The effects on Canadian industry of various free-trade agreements allowing the offshoring of manufacturing have been obvious, and the resulting decline in the strength of private sector unions corresponds with erosion of middle class, and falling standards of living for many Canadians.

The 2011 study, Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising, done by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), confirms the correlation of declining union membership with the weakening of employment protection laws, minimum wages falling behind inflation and the rise of social and economic inequality in 34 countries.

This attack has intensified under the Harper government with the repeal of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act in the 2012 budget, giving non-union companies advantages when tendering for government contracts. Bill C-4 in the 2013 budget changed the balance of power between the federal government and public sector unions by giving federal employers the exclusive right to determine what services may be deemed essential.

Public sector unions, especially those in education and health care, have become specific targets, and the CTF is not afraid to bend the truth to make its case against them. The $94,707 cited to be the “median teacher salary” is in fact the level A4 maximum, earned only after ten years of teaching full time, and with the completion of additional qualification courses. A maximum isn’t a median: many teachers earn much less.

2) The article continues the campaign to allow private companies to get their hands on public monies — our tax dollars. While public schools have done well educating an increasingly diverse student population, the CTF suggestion of remaking our education system on the model of U.S.-style private health care would ensure that children only get the education their parents can pay for.

The recommended vouchers would be a subsidy for the wealthy already sending their children to private schools, and would not be enough to cover tuition for all to afford private education. This would, however, draw money out of the public system most people would be forced to use, creating further constraints, reductions of resources and increases of class sizes. Where such programs have been implemented in the U.S., the withdrawal of funding from school districts has led to further segregation of students by class and race.

This strategy of vouchers and tax credits works with the Fraser Institute’s obsession with EQAO scores, aiming to make public schools look inadequate so that privatized alternatives are more easily justified.

A public education system provides equal access to the type of education that will provide equal access to social and economic opportunities for all Canadian citizens. A publicly educated public strengthens a fair and democratic society.

3) Further concentration of social and economic power in an elite class would be the desired result of such limiting of social mobility, leading to further social inequality. While the disturbing trend of growing social inequality has led to measurable declines in the quality of life for all classes of society, the Fraser Institute, in studies like Measuring Income Mobility in Canada (November, 2012), claims that inequality is a sign of a healthy free market.

While the article purports to be about education, it doesn’t address topics of change in learning environment or outcome, but only promotes a scheme for private, for-profit schools. It ignores questions of whether such schools, which would have to compete for students, could afford to be too strict or have too high academic standards, and who, if teachers were deregulated, would be staffing these schools. Such modifications would make schools accountable to stockholders, not society, promoting profit over public good.

The bottom line: the Canadian Taxpayers Federation does not speak for all Canadians on the issue of public education.

A publicly educated public strengthens a fair and democratic society.