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"The only reason this strike is 'illegal' is because the liberal government abused legislative power to designate teachers as 'essential service'. The "BC government has ignored 9 rulings and directives from the UN (ILO) regarding violations of worker's rights in a democratic society, including one that states teachers are not essential service, and that this designation should be withdrawn and teachers democratic rights to bargain and to strike be restored. This government is increasingly operating like a dictatorship. Abusing legislative power to make laws that violate worker's democratic rights in order to meet their political agenda puts BC in the company of Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela, Guatemala. This government needs to repeal Bill 12, meet with the teachers, and negotiate in good faith. The Liberal government needs to do this to restore some vestige of faith in the BC government's adherence to the principles of the democratic society that all Canadians are proud of. Teachers are standing up for all of us on this point in the face of harassement and bullying by this government." -Rick Rivet

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"When you're a law-abiding citizen, you don't get to pick and choose which laws you want to abide by." -- Mike de Jong

"There is an obvious parallel between the impending teacher protest and the softwood lumber dispute. In both cases, a powerful group refused to honour a contract which was signed in good faith. Both parties on the losing end engaged in due process to protest the injustice. BOTH brought their grievance before an international body (both the NAFTA ruling and the essential service legislation were declared to be unjust, the latter by the UN). Again, in both cases, the ruling was ignored, downplayed, and rationalized.

"Apparently Mike de Jong, ironically a pointman in both disputes, is quite comfortable playing both victim and aggressor. Even as government demands justice from NAFTA and tobacco companies, it withholds justice from the people educating its children. This government's duplicitous approach to contractual agreements ought to be seen as the issue central to the current labour dispute. This is a government that does not honour its contracts. All of the current disputes in education stem from the essential service legislation and the teachers' contract that was torn up two years ago. And if a contract that was good for the Liberals expires, they'll just un-expire it. So who exactly, Mr. de Jong, is picking and choosing?" - Wes Hiebert

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