ISSN 0542-5492 Second Session - Thirty-Second Legislature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba STA NDING COMMITTEE on INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 31-32 Elizabeth 11 Chairman Mr. G. Lecuyer Constituency of Radisson VOL. XXXI No. 6 - 8:00 p.m. , MONDAY, 15 AUGUST, 1983. Printed by the Office of the Queens Printer, ProVInce or Manitoba

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thirty-Second Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation Name ADAM, Hon. A.R. (Pete) ANSTETT, Andy ASHTON, Steve BANMAN, Robert (Bob) BLAKE, David R. (Dave) BROWN, Arnold BUCKLASCHUK, Hon. John M. CARROLL, Q.C., Henry N. CORRIN, Brian COWAN, Hon. Jay DESJARDINS, Hon. Laurent DODICK, Doreen DOERN, Russell DOLIN, Hon. Mary Beth DOWNEY, James E. DRIEDGER, Albert ENNS, Harry EVANS, Hon. Leonard S. EYLER,Phil FILMON, Gary FOX, Peter GOURLAY, D.M. (Doug) GRAHAM, Harry HAMMOND, Gerrie HARAPIAK, Harry M. HARPER, Elijah HEMPHILL, Hon. Maureen HYDE, Lloyd JOHNSTON, J.

Frank KOSTYRA, Hon. Eugene KOVNATS, Abe LECUYER, Gerard LYON, Q.C., Hon. Sterling MACKLING, Q.C., Hon. AI MALINOWSKI, Donald M. MANNESS, Clayton McKENZIE, J. Wally MERCIER, Q.C., G.W.J. (Gerry) NORDMAN, Rurik (Ric) OLESON, Charlotte ORCHARD, Donald PAWLEY, Q.C., Hon. Howard R. PARASIUK, Hon. Wilson PENNER, Q.C., Hon. Roland PHILLIPS, Myrna A. PLOHMAN, Hon. John RANSOM, A. Brian SANTOS, Conrad SCHROEDER,Hon. �c SCOTT, Don SHERMAN, L.R. (Bud) SMITH, Hon. Muriel STEEN, Warren STORIE, Hon. Jerry T. URUSKI, Hon. Bill USKIW. Hon. Samuel WALDING, Hon. D. James Constituency Ste.

Rose Springfield Thompson La Verendrye Minnedosa Rhineland Gimli Brandon West Ellice Churchill St. Boniface Aiel Elmwood Kildonan Arthur Emerson Lakeside Brandon East River East Tuxedo Concordia Swan River Vir den Kirkfield Park The Pas Rupertsland Logan Portage la Prairie Sturgeon Creek Seven Oaks Niakwa Radisson Charleswood St. James St. Johns Morris Roblin-Russell St. Norbert Assiniboia Gladstone Pembina Selkirk Transcona Fort Rouge Wolseley Dauphin Turtle Mountain Burrows Rossmere lnkster Fort Garry Os borne River Heights Flin Flon lnterlake Lac du Bonnet St.

Vital Party NDP NDP NDP PC PC PC NDP IND NDP NDP NDP NDP NDP NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP PC NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP NDP PC PC NDP PC NDP PC NDP NDP PC PC PC PC PC PC NDP NDP NDP NDP NDP PC NDP NDP NDP PC NDP PC NDP NDP NDP NDP

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRI AL RELATIONS Monday, 15 August, 1983 TIME - 8:00 p.m. LOCATION - Winnipeg CHAIRMAN - Mr. G. Lecuyer (Radisson) ATTENDANCE 11 - QUORUM - 6 Members of the Committee present: Hon. Ms. Hemphill, Hon. Mrs. Smith, Messrs. Filmon, Lecuyer, Nordman, Oleson, Ms. Phillips, Messrs. Santos, Scott, Steen and Harper WITNESSES: George Marshal! and John Johnson (MAST) Dr.

Linda Asper, Manitoba Teachers' Society Tom Ulrich, Manitoba Teachers' Society Aubrey Asper, Manitoba Teachers' Society Ralph Kyritz, Manitoba Teachers' Society Max Schatz, Rolling River School Division Fred Gross, Lakeshore School Division, Grant Russell, Manitoba Home and School Parent-Teacher Federation of Manitoba Alex Novak, River East School Division, Linda Macintosh, Rhineland School Division and Garden Valley School Division, George B. Buchholz, Manitoba Association of School Superintendents Linda Macin tosh, St. Jame s-Assi niboia School Division Dr.

Norman lsler, Seven Oaks School Division Glen Cum mings, Beautiful Plains School Division Jean Beaumont, Seine River School Division MATTERS UNDER DISCUSSION: Bill No. 77,

An Act to amend The Public School Act; Loi modifiant la

loi sur les ecoles publiques. MR. ASSISTANT CLERK, G. Mackintosh: Committee will come to order. Since the Chairman is no longer a member of the committee, are there nominations for the Chair? Mrs. Smith. HON. M. SMITH: Gerard Lecuyer. MR. ASSISTANT CLERK: Gerard Lecuyer is nominated as Chair. Is the Committee in favour of Mr. Lecuyer as Chair? (Agreed) Mr. Lecuyer. 102 MR. CHAIRMAN: Is it the wish of the committee that we proceed immediately with the persons who wish to make presentations? (Agreed) That being the case is Mr. George Marshal! present? You may proceed, Mr. Marshal I. MR. G. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. With your leave, Mr. Chairman, there's a number of school boards who are here from throughout the province, in particular with respect to the proposed amendment to tenure and I'd like to recognize them, those that are not making presentations. Would you like to stand trustees, who are from other boards? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again with your leave, Mr. Chairman, I would like to call upon the Vice-President, John Johnson, from the Lakeshore School Division to speak to the record with respect to those amendments in which there is accord or a reasonable accord.

I will then return to speak to the question of primary concern to trustees and remain to answer questions of your committee, if that's all right, Sir. MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you just clarify again the name of the person who is speaking. MR. G. MARSHALL: John Johnson, Vice-President of the Manitoba Association of School Trustees. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Johnson. MR. J. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Issuing of an interest arbitration award. As a result of our success with a joint ad hoc committees, the Manitoba Teachers' Society and ourselves, it has been indicated that while

Section 126(1) and Sections 192(1) and (2) will be put before the Legislature, they will not be proclaimed. One could only assume that the Minister is willing to allow the suggested solutions in the joint report to be given a chance to work. We must, however, make comment to the Minister on these sections both on the principle, or lack of principle, found therein and the subs tantive issue found in these clauses. We notice the absence of the right of the Minister to amend or add to the statement of items in dispute before the Board of Arbitration has made its award.

The Minister's function in referring matters onto an arbitration board has been recognized in the past, in court cases, and in arbitration awards, as merely procedural part of the process. In other words, she has been likened to a conduit through which information flows. lt is important that items in dispute placed by either the school division or the local association be dealt with by an arbitration board for resolution. We feel this

section has been changed to deal with the specific problem in the Tiger Hill School Division, where the teachers have incorrectly stated what items were in

Monday, 15 August, 1983 dispute. When the division attempted to correct this, the society then objected, claiming it was an issue settled at the bargaining table. We have taken the position, on behalf of the Tiger Hill School Board, that it is up to an arbitration board to decide what is properly in dispute and not the Minister. I trust you can appreciate the need for an arbitration board to be the party to decide whether or not an item is properly in dispute and not the Minister of Education. You will note that

Section 126(2) does allow the Minister to amend the award only after the award has been made. A rhetorical question might be: if an issue is known to be in dispute before the arbitration board sits, then why must the parties wait until an arbitration board has published the award before having them deal with the other issues? We note the

section dealing with, where within such longer periods as may be agreed upon by the parties, or as may from time to time, be allowed by the Minister has been left out. We would have no problem with - . . . or as may from time to time be allowed by the Minister being left out, however we must remember that the principle behind collective bargaining process is a consensual process and to deny the two parties their wishes when there is agreement makes no sense whatsoever.

A fundamental principle of good employer-employee relations is that when two parties can agree, then the agreement should not be stopped by statute. The teachers' concerns are somewhat mitigated now that most local associations are receiving interest on back pay which, by the way, teachers originally argued would solve their problems regarding delays.

Section 129(1) of the proposed legislation is a change from the 14 days for an arbitration board to deliver an award to 60 days to deliver that award. We have by signed agreement with the Manitoba Teachers' Society on Page 5, Subsection 5 of the agreement therein, states that in the letter of appointment the Minister advised the chairperson that pursuant to

Section 129, the time for making the award is 14 days after the delivery of the statement required by

Section 126 or of any amendment or addition thereto, delivered before or after making of the award, and that if a longer period may be required, that the Minister will allow a longer period, as may be reasonably required to make an award, but in most cases not to exceed 60 days. Our agreement seems most reasonable.

Section 129(2) mitigates the principle of a tripartite board settling differences by way of a unanimous or majority award to the parties. This has worked well in the past and we believe it was intended to keep the arbitration boards conservative in their awards. Again the principle of consent comes to t'le fore regarding a reasonable time to make an award.

If the parties can agree to further or different periods of time, which by the way, is the agreement we have with the Manitoba Teachers' Society, then it should be allowed. lt would appear to be only one further small step before we find ourselves with a single member arbitration board for interest arbitration. We are not in favour of that.

Section 72(2), our main concern with this legislation is that it is not to be considered retroactive. lt is only fair that school divisions know the rules for making long-range plans for their school divisions. At the meeting we un derstood, when we questioned the 103 removal of the word "rent" from the original wording, were given to understand that "lease" included the right to rent as well.

Section 48. 1; this is a new idea. lt fills a need. We do not see any point in it that we would recommend for change at this time. As with any new legislation, it will require testing to see if it is effective. We can support the principle and we support the legislation for school participation in the extended immunization program. Thank you for giving me the oppo rtunity to read this into the record. MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Are there any questions from the members of committee? Seeing none, thank you Mr. Johnson. Mr. Marshal!. MR. G. MARSHALL: Mr.

Chairman, I speak to the question of proposed tenure, portability, extension of tenure for teachers. I refer to amendments in Sections 92(5) and 92(6) of The Public Schools Act. Our complaint is not with the teacher, the teacher in the divisional role. I define the teacher in a divisional role as the function for which he or she has been hired. The teacher in the classroom - the focus of all teaching and learning. Educational leader� in their own right, dedicated, skilled, better educated for their task than ever before. Nor is our complaint with the teacher in the representative role.

I define the teacher in the representative role as a teacher who is a member of an association, an association whose purpose is to argue for improved benefits and conditions for teachers. Nor is our complaint with a representative teacher in a leadership role. A teacher from the classroom dedicated to the improvement of the station of his or her fellows, who works long hours at the local level, with little or no compensation. Certainly school trustees are not unfamiliar with such sacrifice. We can appreciate and applaud such motiviation and performance. Nor is our complaint with the Manitoba Teachers' Society.

Advocates for their members. Their dedication too must be admired. Their purpose to enhance the status of teachers in this province. They perform their task in a personable and presentable way. They are very skilled at what they do. They are ded icated solely to the people for whom they are accountable - the teachers of Manitoba. Not so, the Minister of Education. The Minister of Educ ation has a much broader res ponsibi lity to Manitoba society as a whole in education. Not so the Government of Manitoba, its responsibility is even broader.

All matters relating to citizen welfare under provincial jurisdiction and particularly not so, those leqislators who come from the teaching profession and it; many facets and there are many of those in this government. There are many of those in this Cabinet; there are many of those in this administration. I know they would agree with me that to feather the nest of the Teachers' Union in their new broader responsibility to all the citizens of Manitobe would be a misuse of office. The government has insulted the school trustees of Manitoba.

This insult does not arise out of any occasion or occurence that relates to school trustees as a group. This insult does not arise out of any affront to any

Monday, 15 August, 1983 individual school trustee. School trustees, like legislators, are politicians and insults intended or otherwise come with the territory. The offence, the government has insulted the communities that school trustees represent. The government has said to the communities of the province i.e. the school divisions, through this proposed legislation and its notion of portability that the stranger who ride s into town is more important than the community itself. That this stranger who comes to town is more important than the education of the children who live in that community.

If the stranger has met the terms of this proposed legislation somewhere else in Manitoba and his rights are more important than the rights of the children of the community, his rights are more important than the educational rights of the children of the community.

Because if there is offer and acceptance, if there is contract between the stranger the communi ty to teach, then before the ink is dry on that contract the decision as to adaptability, suitability, capability of this stranger to teach in this community, to teach the children in this community is taken out of the hands of the community. lt is taken out of the hands of the duly elected school board and it is entrusted to a third party. This right of the stranger is not permissive, it is not bargainable, it is not part of the new offer and acceptance. lt is mandate.

There is not one year, not one month, not one day, not one minute, where the community itself can access if the skills of the stranger are adequate to its needs, if they are adequate to the needs of its children. Does the stranger need to prove that he is fit to teach the children of that community; that he has the skills, the nature, the morals, the suitability to the community and its children? No. The community, on behalf of its children, through its school board, must prove to a third party that this stranger cannot teach. This whole notion is irrational. lt offends common sense.

The community and its children are less important to this government than the stranger who rides into town. This propo sed legislation fails and offends the ultimate test of any lawmakers. lt offends the common sense of the people of Manitoba. The stranger who comes to town is more important to this government than the community itself. This stranger who comes to town is more important to this government than the education of the children who live in that community. The Minister has quoted in closing second reading, that the government went down the middle on this bill.

Well the government certainly didn't go down the middle from our point of view. Twenty months to zero days for experienced teachers, 20 months to 10 months and one day for new teachers.

The government didn't even go down the middle from the government's point of view, because if that is the principle of the bill that they went down the middle, then from the trustees 20 months in 1 day, we said two years, but we mean two teaching years which is 20 months, the trustees' position of 20 months and one day and the Teachers' Union position of day one, is not 10 months and one day in portability, it is 10 months and one day.

So if the announced principle of the bill as described by the Minister in the House is to go down the middle between the position of the trustees and the position of the Teachers' Union, then this Legislative Committee, as is its duty, should examine the details of the bill to 104 assure that the government's announced principle of the bill has been achieved and I'm sure this committee will find that position is not 10 months and one day in portability, that position is 10 months and one day.

Our own position is that it's in the interest of both the teachers and the children, that there should be 20 months and one day under 92(5) and that there should be no change under 92(6). School boards are ultimately responsible for the quality of educational opportunities available within the division. The quality of opportunities depend, to a large extent, on the quality of teachers in the classroom.

Boards need to have time to fully evaluate new teachers, to see if their performance as a teacher is acceptable and if they are suitable and compatible with the particular educational environment and specific educational goal. Nine months is not sufficient time in most cases. The pro posed changes to The Public Schools Act contained in Bill 77 would seem to work to the detriment of teachers, as well as school boards. Boards would be frustrated at the inadequate time for evaluation and teachers would be frustrated at having their contracts terminated without adequate assessment.

Assessment itself can be done fairly quickly, but teachers should have sufficient time to respond to the help provided by the board's administrative staff, in order to raise his or her performance to an acceptable level. The proposed legislation strikes at the very essence of our being as school boards and school trustees and what that implies: vocal control and representation of the community in education. The local representative in education who is directly accountable to the public for the performance of the division and its teachers, is the school trustee.

Your proposed legislation upsets the important role of trustees in education in the community and turns it over to the Teachers' Union at the expense of the parents, the communi ty, and the children in the classroom. The school system must ultimately be accountable to the public. The Teachers' Union is accountable only to its members. A perception already exists in the communities of the province that the strength of the Teachers' Union is preventing divisions from dismissing the mediocre teacher from the classroom.

What you are proposing eliminates the opportunity for divisions to properly access its newly hired teachers before confirming tenure or permanent status. Your proposed legislation breaks face with the bargain presently enshrined in legislation between school boards and the Teachers' Union, in that teachers have given up the right to strike in exchange for tenure status. In this arrangement, tenure status is a two-year trial period, in which the school board, thr ough its professional admin istration, assesses a teacher's competence and approp riateness to the division's direction and setting.

Your proposed legislation offers nothing for the competent teacher. A teacher with experience being hired by a division has instant tenure on Day One of his emp loyment. There 's no other occupation in business, industry, in the professions, that I am aware of, that offers such a condition. Your proposed legislation, for all practical purposes, reduces to one year the time in which a teacher, just out of teacher­ training, may be assessed. lt may have been more

Monday, 15 August, 1983 worthwhile for you to have considered the teacher's first full year in the classroom as an internship, rather than an instant move to tenure after one year. The present two-year non-tenure status for this group is a bare essential. I believe the proposed legislation will be restrictive and unworkable to divisions attempting to properly staff their schools with the best teachers available. Your proposed legislation is a move to increased and legislated acceptance of teacher mediocrity. lt is not in anyone's interest for a school division to be unmanageable.

I urge you to withdraw this proposed legislation in the interests of the children, the parents, and the communities of this province. This proposed bill enhances the special status as employees that the teachers of Manitoba already have. This special status was given in 1956 in lieu of the right to strike. lt was given by mutual agreement of the government, the trustees, and the teachers. The Minister is proposing to unilaterally change the agreement, a change that will hurt students, a change that will circumvent that agreement.

Teachers already have all the due process rights of all other employees of the province. They have the right to apply to the courts. Now with the Minister's new bill, they will have an improved special right to an arbitration board, after only one year and one day of teaching in Manitoba. This right then continues as long as the teacher works in the province. I would like to provide a few responses from some member trustees.

Our board does not guarantee lifelong employment to incompetent teachers, but arbitration procedures are expensive and arbitration boards have difficulty dealing with the barely competent borderline teacher. We object to having to accept someone else's evaluation as the basis for granting tenure to one of our teachers. Taxpayers are supposed to be in control of the evaluation and this forces them to accept someone else's evaluation. The board will have to terminate first­ year teachers on inadequate information, inadequate opportunity for assistance.

Teachers who are competent in an urban division may be totally unsuitable to teach in the North or in a rural area. This will create an even greater turnover problem in the North. The superintendents, as we unde rstand, have indicated support from their organization for the position of the school trustee. Seven or eight months is not sufficient to give anyone a fair or thorough evaluation.

This is obviously a political decision. lt cannot be justified educational ly, not in the interests of the students, not even in the interests of the teachers, unless perhaps, it is leading to something else, a provincial seniority system of employment for teachers. We get four years to evaluate the government. Where would they be if we only had seven or eight months? The Minister of Education talked to us at convention, indicated respect for school boards and for local autonomy. This is an infringement on local automony. She is saying to us there are more votes on their side than on ours.

Teachers who are terminated in their first year will be in limbo, they will face unemployment on a long­ term basis. We will not hi re people who will get automatic tenure. We will have to go to those who are beginning. No longer is the contract between an 105 employing board and a teacher. With teacher lay-off, a Grade 2 teacher may be totally competent. but if the job disappears, how can we employ that teacher, say, at the junior high level?

Evaluation is done by the principals or members of the Manitoba Teachers' Society and the position of the Manitoba Teachers' Society is that all evaluations should be positive. Another comment from a trustee; teachers already have due process through the courts. This legislation is over and above the rights of other employees. So far, arbitration boards have only been able to identify disaster in the classroom. The role of the school trustee is an advocate of the children in the schools. This move by the Minister is at the expense of the children.

I would like to respond to some board reactions, in particular, the School District of Churchill, who can't be here. "The Board of Trustees of the School District of Churchill has to register its unequ ivocal opposition to the proposed Bill 77, an amendment to

Section 92(6) of The Public Schools Act. Because of our financial and geographical limitations, we are not in the position to await the pleasure of the Law Amendment s Commi ttee," and that's the In dustrial Relations Committee, "to present a brief un our opposition to your proposal. We have difficulty in accepting your assertion that the sole purpose of the legislation is to ensure due process for teachers in that we doubt there is any group in the workforce better protected against violations of due process than that of teachers.

"it is not our intention to waste your time on specifics, but we must bring to your attention that in areas such as ours, teachers require a longer period of adjustment to community philosophies and needs. Your proposal will, in our opinion, necessitate hurry and perhaps unjust evaluations and will most certainly precipitate more terminations of first-year teachers who will not be afforded the opportunity to improve performance through continuing counsel and assistance from the more experienced.

"lt is agreed that the various systems of evaluation are also in need of improvement, but it is our considered opinion that the proposed legislation will retard rather than promote the necessary changes. lt is to be regretted that students may no longer benefit from the energy and freshness which youth brings to the system and we foresee future staff complements as what can only be described as aging and complacent.

"You are aware that trustee ship is frequently demanding and exhausting, in particular, in the past few years, and this proposed legislation can only make the position less attractive to prospective trustees. In the more remote areas, it is already difficult to attract highly-competent administrators with the necessary experience to effect perceptive and positive evaluations of staff performance, nor those with the demonstrated ability to promote and develop professional skills, such as effective techniques, initiative and adaptability and all the other criteria which separate the wheat from the chaff.

"At least four districts, of which we are one," that's Churchill, "have no establishment for a superintendent and must rely exclusively on the opinion of one, in the person of the principal, who is himself a member of the Teachers' Society and who may not be completely

Monday, 15 August, 1983 objective at all times. Invariably this person could well be relatively inexperienced in the field of administration and may also need a longer period of development in order to ensure that the evaluation process that is employed is an efficient and creditable one. The district sees no merit in the proposed legislation other than that of political expediency and despite the declared intention to remain firm in its resolve, we beg you, the government, to consider the implication of its passage.

The personal ideologies of our trustees cover the political spectrum of the province but the opposition to this legislation is unanimous." That's from Shirley Kernaghan, Board Chairperson in Churchill. Copy to the Honourable Mr. Cowan. The people in Garden Valley say that the Garden Valley School Division is gravely concerned about the impending changes to Bill 77 and the adverse effect on our students. The Dauphin-Ochre people say, "In a number of her speeches over the past year, the Minister of Education has indicated that there was to be no further erosion of the powers of local boards by your government.

However, our board sees these sections of Bill 77 as possibly the greatest threat yet to the powers of boards and the quality of education in Manitoba." Copy to the Honourable Members, Lyon, Hemphill, Plohman and Filmon. Another sampling, the people in Beautiful Plains School Division No. 31, "The change to

Section 92(5) would be to substantially reduce the opportunity of local authorities to work with beginning teachers in a process of evaluation and improvement before deciding whether to grant tenure. The result will be that a number of these teachers will have their services terminated before having an adequate time to develop their full potential. We believe two years is much more realistic for this process than one year . "The change to 92(6) forces a division to give due process from Day One, for all teachers that have taught for more than one year in any other division in the province.

We believe this also is an unacceptable reduction in local participation and education. The proposed change severely reduces the effectiveness of a board in its role as advocate for the right of parents and students and its attempt to provide the highest quality of education. "We believe the proposed change is also detrimental to the welfare of teachers, as it may lead to discriminatory hiring practices. Boards will be very hesitant to hire teachers with experience in other divisions and will instead hire the inexperienced teacher in order to gain a one year period of evaluation.

This forced lack of movement of teachers cannot be good for teachers and canno t be good for education, generally." Signed the Chairman of the Board, Mr. Cummings, copies to honourable members Ad am, Oleson, Penner and Filmon and the letter was to Mrs. Hemphill. Another sample from one of the poorest divisions, Duck Mountain School Division No. 34.

"Teaching for the first time in a rural community requires a period of pedagogical and social adjustment which cannot, in all fairness, be totally assessed in the first year." From the people at Portage la Prairie, "In the best interests of all concerned, the board urges you to withdraw this legislation." 106 An example from the suburban region, River East School Division No. 9.

"The board unanimously passed a motion indicating their support for the MAST position regarding these amendments and are opposed to reducing the tenure period to one year, as well as being strongly opposed to the portability of tenure from one division to anoth er.

The board approved that a letter be sent to the Minister of Education stressing our opposition to the proposed amendments regarding tenure and its portability and a copy of the letter be sent to each of the MLAs representing our school division." lt looks like a baseball lineup and it's all New Democrats: Honourable members, Schroeder, Eyler, Fox, Doern, Bucklaschuk, Lecuyer, and Anstett.

One of the provinces mentioned in the House was New Brunswick and our information, if tha t's an example, from the Treasury Board of the Province of New Brunswick, is it's non-tenured or portability period is three years and there is no provision for portability of tenure. We have information relative to professional engineers which does not approach the legislation set out by this government. I'd like to come to a few press comments. From an executive member, past member of the Teachers' Society, "However, when there are long delays and no action, the waiting can become tedious.

To date our only commitment from the Minister is that she intends to introduce legislation on some of our issues." Well, I guess that's what she's doing. That was from the Winnipeg Free Press. From the Winnipeg Sun, "The Manitoba's Teachers' Society spends an inordinate amount of time dealing with personal priorities of its members and far too little time dealing with the needs of our children." From the Winnipeg Free Press dealing with the Quebec problem in the abolishing of school boards.

"Education Ministers of other Canadian provinces would also like to be spared the annoyance of school trustees, whose public election requires some deference, forever finding fault with provincial education pol icy, and drawing attention to the needs of their communities." Recently in the Free Press, "M s. Hemphill's acceptance of the MTS position in a matter where she had no reason for acting, apart from the MTS requests, shows that the teachers have a direct line to the Minister's office." lt is not necessary for the Minister to agree with us. lt is necessary for the Minister to agree with the Minister.

From the Winnipeg Free Press, "' Local autonomy is sate,' Ms. Hemphill tells trustees." From the Winnipeg Sun, "The education system will have to learn to bend a little to accommodate the wishes of the community,'' Ms. Hemphill said. In tough times like we're in now, difficult education decisions should be made with the community. Maybe sharing the decisions will make it easier." I'd like to think that if someone has to bend, it should be in favour of the parents and the child. School trustees have trouble sw allo wing those statements these days.

This proposed legislation takes the decision right out of the community. The Minister's credibility is in very serious doubt among school trustees at the moment. The stranger who rides into town is more important to this government than the community; the stranger who rides into town is more important than the education of the children who live in that community.

Monday, 15 August, 1983 For the government to place The Public Schools Act on the table and say to the teachers, what are you in favour of, what don't you like, and to say to the trustees, what are you in favour of, what do you like? Of course, the teachers are going to say we want this and we want that. lt is their prerogative. it's their duty to maximize the benefit of their members and their focus is quit e simp le. They're accountable only to their members.

Of course the trustees are going to say this and that will impact negatively our ability and our responsibility for the management of the school and the interests of the communities of the province. The Minister says there's no consensus, therefore, I must act; I'm reluctant to act, poor me. These groups have failed and, therefore, I must act. If this is to be the methodology, teachers - I want this for myself; Trustees- this is not in the public interest; the Minister - there is no consensus, therefore, I must act. God knows what The Public Schools Act will look like by the time the government finishes its term.

If the Minister and the government want to give the teachers union sole right to decide who may teach in this province then let them tell the communities of Manitoba that. If the Minister and the government want to create huge regions, remove the community's right to self-determination as the teachers union advocates, then let them tell the communities of Manitoba that. If the Minister and the government want to remove meaningful decision-mak ing at the local level by elimi nating prop erty tax as the teachers union advocates, then let them tell the commun ities of Manitoba that.

Let the Minister and the government be responsible for its actions. Let them not say it's because the local organizations could not agree and, therefore, we must act, that's a cop-out, let the Minister and the government take responsibility for what they do with the communities of the province.

The basis of this legislation seems to be a lack of trust; a lack of trust in the system, a lack of trust in the communities of Manitoba; a lack of trust in those elected to represent the communities of Manitoba; a lack of trust in those professionals retained by the communities of Manitoba through their school boards to manage the school divisions on a day-to-day basis. The Minister says parents are concerned about some teachers, the Minister does not assume that the non­ performing teacher is already over-protected by legislation.

The government's presumptions, again, seem to be negative but school authorities work from the basis of dismissal without cause, rather than staffing to needs. The Minister's decision is to take the decision out of the community, to have the decision made by some non-educational third party, to have the decision made on human rights, not on educational competence. There's some qu estion in our minds whether a government, if it is operating from the base of a lack of trust, whether that government itself can be trusted.

Those who advocate that teachers do not have due process are, in a sense, pract ising intellectual dishonesty. If all the teachers want is due process of law before the courts than there's only a need to remove tenure. The Minister has confirmed the courts are hearing such cases. If the court sets aside a hearing, a teacher application because it is deemed frivolous or is of low priority in the mind of the court, then surely that is for the court to decide.

The Minister and the 107 government through this legislation are not only challenging the democratic process, they seem to be challenging the judicial process as well for the purpose of serving a private interest group. The Minister indicates that the decision to terminate a teacher is still the school board's to make. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, this proposed legislation promotes accountability without authority, an untenable position to place a school board and those responsible for the governments of a school division.

The people ultimately accountable to the community for the delivery of educational service to the children is the school board. Under portability from Day One of employment the final decision on who has earned the right to teach in the division is determined by a third party. The decision has been taken out of the hands of the school board, it has been taken right out of the community. The Minister may say, as she does, in her letter that the school board decides and the teacher has the right of appeal but the reality is that the school board does • not make the final decision.

The school board essentially only has the power to recommend. The only way the decision will be made at the school board level is if the teacher does not appeal and that decision is not made by the school board either. The right to be heard and told why is, of course, already a requirement under the act. The Minister is apparently taking the view that everything in The Public Schools Act is negotiable. When the teacher union advocates greater control for themselves and the school trustee disagree because it's not in the public interest, then the Minister chooses some middle ground.

The result can only mean, over time, the slipping away of control in education from a community and its elected representatives and its assuming of control by the Teachers' Union which is a private interest group. The proposed legislation ups ets the balance of interest. The school board remains fully accountable to the community for the total operation of the school division. The Teachers' Union ha s no direct accountability whatsoever to the community.

If the community turns out one-third of the school board, for whatever reason, because it is dissatisfied, would the Teachers' Union allow the community to turn out one­ third of the teaching staff and would the community be allowed to make those choices too? Not likely. You see, the Teachers' Union want the authority but they don't want the accountability and who can blame them, if they can become the alter ego of the government, if they can become the mentor of the government, if the government is prepared to give it to them. There is a need for a balance of interests in the educational community.

There is a need for a balance between authority and accountability. Again, in the interest of education in this province and the interest of the children of this province, on behalf of the school boards of this province and the communities they represent, I ask the government to withdraw the proposed amendments to 92(5) and 92(6) of The Public Schools Act. There seems to be a penchant for the importation of legislation and education in some other provinces; from Ontario, from Quebec, from Alberta, from British Columbia. There clearly must be discord in education

Monday, 15 August, 1983 in these provinces that we would do well to avoid. We don't need a government to sort out what other governments do for application here. Use somewhere else is not justification for implementation here. What we need is creative thinking to address our needs, within our jurisdiction, to meet our aspirations, the aspirations of the people of Manitoba. This is legislation by exception. lt seeks perfection in an imperfect world. lt seeks to protect the teacher anywhere, in the event of anything and in the process, it ties up the staffing of 56 school divisions.

The Minister has said in the House that MAST, MTS and MASS could not agree. In fact, MASS and MTS do agree; indeed, virtually all those with anything to do with governments in the school divisions in this province are opposed to this legislation. These people face - and indi vidual right s are important - a conglomeration of 150 or 250 individual rights which take precedent, and so they should, but understand their problem. They have to develop, or attempt to develop, cohesiveness and co-ordination in the delivery of educational services to children.

Even a single arbitration case in a school division can be an exhaustive process for all involved. This propsed legislation will cause our limited administrated resources to be siphoned off and focused negatively to build cases for recommended termination, instead of being focused positively on the education of the children in their care. The government is going in the opposite direction from the Faculty of Education. I asked retired Dean Dr. McPherson at U. of M. at a MAST executive meeting why certification was increased from one year to two years for students with a BA or a BSc.

The primary reason, he said, guess what, lack of experience in the classroom. The faculty has gone from one year to two years to enhance classroom experience and the government has gone in the opposite direction, from two years to one year for new teachers, from two years to zero for others. The government has failed to demonstrate that the present tenure system is inadequate. The government has failed to demonstrate that the proposed system is an improvement in any way.

There's no consensus in the House for this legislation; there's no consensus among interest groups for this legislation; there's no consensus in the communities for this legislation. The only consensus seems to be in the minds of the government and perhaps in the minds of the Teachers' Union. Perhaps, and just perhaps, that is because the Teachers' Union and the government are of one mind. If that is the case, then the communities of this province have a much greater problem than this proposed legislation. The government is not bolstering a weak union that needs assistance in order to have effect.

The government is catering to one of the strongest unions in Manitoba, whose influence is everywhere and who, in the end, as a corpor ati on, have no dir ect accountability to the public for the school system. The government expresses two concerns, wanting to provide due process for teachers and not wanting to offend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. There's no point in duplicating in statutory law, that which already exists in constitutional law.

The government can achieve both of its goals by removing the tenure clauses from The Public Schools Act and requiring teachers to seek due process through The Constitution Act, 1982, a process available to all Canadians. I anticipa te in advance that perhaps what the government wants and what the Teachers' Union wants is not due process at all but, rather, instant tenure in the name of due process. The present bargain, the present understanding, the present status is a fairly reasonable balance of interest between the teacher, the school system and the community.

The teacher has given up the right to strike, that is the significant contribution to the elimi nation of discord in the educational community, a potential discord in which the children would surely be the losers. 108 A community has two years, 20 teaching months, in which to assess a tea cher's com petence and appropr iateness to the community's direction and setting. Should the community, after two years, wish to terminate a teacher through its elected representatives it seems reasonable such a teacher should have third party arbitration without the need to seek due process through the courts.

The opposition to this proposed legislation amongst school trustees is really quite extraordinary. No politician in Canada has ever been elected by the margin by which the school trustees reject this proposed legislation. These school trustees come from every walk of life and they come from every corner of this province.

This legislation is opposed by trustees who are farmers, cattlemen, miners, town folk, housewives, railroaders, businessmen, people in the service industry, trustees who are union people themselves, trustees who are former or practising teachers. lt covers the whole political spectrum, it covers the whole of the province. The opposition may not be absolute, it is virtually total. These community leaders, these school trustees, may be small in number compared to other groups but they have a very high multiplication factor because they are all elected.

One trustee who heard the Minister's speech on local control and education at our convention described the legislation as a sham, sugar-coated, dressed-up, and paraded as due process and a fair hearing. This legislation breaks a basic princi ple. The government has broken the integrity of the communities with portability of tenure. The government has removed the right of the communities to decide, the government has done so without consultation and probably without even their knowledge. This government has, for the first time, rendered the school division boundaries as porous.

God knows where it will all end now that this government has set this precedent. lt isn't a little thing as the Minister has described, it's part of everything. We ask you to modify your legislation to respect the rights of the parents to decide in education, to respect the governm ent's own professed belief in local autonomy. If you pass it as it is we will work to change it, we will work to change the mind of government or we will work to convince the mind of future governments. This principle is crucial to the notion of communit y decision-making in education.

So that there might be no further future surprises to Her Majesty's 32nd Legislature, we will oppose with fervor and without restraint, nor are we prepared to negotiate the following: Firstly, we will oppose any notion that public enterprise, i.e., the public school

Monday, 15 August, 1983 system should be accountable to a private interest in whole or in part. That any processes which take place within the public school system must have, as their ultimate sanction, referral to the people of Manitoba through their elected representatives, the school boards of Manitoba and/or the Minister of Education. Secondly, we will oppose any notion that Public School Boards of Manitoba should lose entirely their right to levy on property to meet their local needs. A public body that cannot levy and cannot make laws is reduced to the roles of administration and advice.

Thirdly we will oppose any notion of regionalization, the combining of any number of school divisions without consultation with and consent of the communities under local school boards. The Teachers' Union plan of regionalization of rural school divisions nearly the size of federal constituencies is interesting but it is evidence of their lack of accountability to the communities of Manitoba. These four principles, local autonomy, accountability to the public, the right to levy and amalgamation only by consent are crucial to the sustenance of the tradition of communit y control in educati on.

These four principles, if offended, particularly if offended together represent a dramatic shift in decision-mak ing in education away from the communities and their school boards. Changes in these basic principles shift power which is what politics is all about, either to centralization and bureaucracy or to the Teachers' Union, a private interest group. If we take this process of centralization to the nth degree we end up with no local control in education at all, we end up with the government and the anti­ government, we end up with the government and the Teachers' Union.

The Provincial Government, any Provincial Government, will rue the day that that happens and it's not that far-fetc hed. lt is complementary to the government's "decentralization." We will soon have a "resident expert" to serve a cluster of divisions; how this centralization - and it is from the school division and communi ty's point of view, centralization - will function and practice relative to local autonomy is yet unclear.

The Minister has said, and we're happy for that, that she's prepared to live with the messiness of local government. lt remains to be seen whether the local communities are prepared to live with the messiness of this government. If I have learned anything at all in 20 years of community work, it is that Manitoba is very much an association of communities. Local jurisdictions within the province do not coincide completely with these communities of interest.

I believe, though, that there has been an honest attempt to achieve coincidence and 1 believe, as well, that the present school division boundaries come the closest of all to achieving this. Provincia l go vernments which deal with these communities of the province with impunity are prone to extinction. Provincial governments which impose their will arbitrarily on these communities of the province are prone to extinction. Provincial governments which legislate without consultation with, or political mandate from, these communities are prone to extinction.

A provincial government which becomes arrogant has a life expectancy of four years. This legislation serves one interest group at the expense of all others, and it doesn't even serve the 109 individual teachers. This legislation is particularly despicable because it is invisible to those to whom it brings injury- the children of the province. The Teachers' Union will be up here and tell you it isn't quite what they want, and they will want more. The stranger who rides into town is more important to this government than the people of the community.

The stranger who rides into town is more important to this government than the education of the children of this province. MR. CHAI RMAN: Have you comple ted your presentation, sir? Are there any questions? Mr. Santos. MR. C. SANTOS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Marshal!, if in order to avoid the effects of portability of tenure among experienced school teachers who are already possessed with tenure, school trustees under I this policy would tend to hire only those whom they can evaluate; namely, inexperienced, newly-graduated beginning schoolteachers, and if the school boards, in order to cling to their cherished authority to exercise its own rather than another's evaluation of teaching competence, would therefore tend to deny rather than grant tenure to these new, beginning schoolteachers, would you agree that such a consequence would increase the time for teaching for these beginning teachers without ever a chance of acquiring tenure and, therefore, would tend to increase rather than lower the level of teaching competence for the total public school system in the province?

MR. G. MARSHALL: I don't think I caught everything you have said. I am not convinced it was complimentary in any event. MR. C. SANTOS: Well, I have; I cannot . . . MR. G. MARSHALL: I think I got the gist of your question. I think my impression of school. trustees and school boards is one of sacrifice. I don't have any great feeling of authority, and that's why I used the comments from trustees right as they came. You see in their comments the dilemma. We are saying that what is in place is fine, but you have really closed the doors on us; and they are, in their own mind, reacting.

There are only two reactions: one to hire tenure teachers and one to hire new teachers. Obviously, they are already expressing a dilemma, and it's a dilemma that I think that you are going to hear from the people who have governance over the system on a daily basis, from the superintendents. MR. C. SANTOS: My question is too complex and too involved. Can I cut it up into pieces? MR. G. MARSHALL: If I could hear it, it's not too complicated. MR. C. SANTOS: Okay.

Because the school trustees would like to exercise their own evaluation rather than that of another, the obvious effect to avoid the portability of tenure, instead of hiring experienced teachers with tenure, they will tend to hire new, beginning teachers? That's one of my basic premise.

Monday, 15 August, 1983 MR. G. MARSHALL: The premise that's shared by some, but not by all. MR. C. SANTOS: Okay, and also, not only that they will hire new, beginning teachers, but because they do not want these teachers to readily acquire tenure and thus join the group of tenured teachers, they will tend to deny rather than grant tenure? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, they are going to have to make that decision. Let me say, the trustees are community leaders and they hire educational leaders to share that assessment. MR. C.

SANTOS: If these assumptions are correct, then there will be more beginning teachers who will be teaching for longer periods of time before they succeed in obtaining tenure; and, if that is the case, then before they acquire tenure, they would have experience in many varieties of school communities so as to increase the level of teaching competence when they acquire tenure? That's my question. MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, I am hearing a dilemma that we're sharing. I am not sure I get the precise question, but obviously the time frames are smaller. The purpose is not to deny tenure; the pu rpose is to assure competence.

MR. C. SANTOS: This is the point of my question, because it will be more difficult now for any beginning teacher to acquire tenure, despite the fact that they will be the ones that will be hired all of the time; then they obviously will have to go through a number of experiences in various communities before they finally succeed in obtaining tenure. In so doing, the total effect would be to increase the competence of those teachers. MR. G.

MARSHALL: This legislation does nothing for any teacher that acquires a second experience either within the division or outside of it. lt does nothing at all for a teacher that needs a second, and they very well deserve a second exposure. lt does nothing for that teacher at all either in the division or in the next one. MR. C. SANTOS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Phillips. MS. M. PHILLIPS: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Mr. Marshal!, I am a bit confused with your presentation.

You seem to, on one hand, say that you are concerned about the principle, about the right of due process, although it's in the school act now at two years, or 20 months. So is the basis \or your argument the fact that we are suggesting, you are proposing that it should be at 10 months rather than 20 months, rather than the principle itself of an evaluation time for teachers before they acquire the right to due process? MR. G. MARSHALL: I have all kinds of problems with that understanding of due process.

Due process of law, quite simply, is a course of legal proceedings carried 11 0 out regularly in accordance with established rules and principles. They can go to the courts like any other Canadian. We think it's reasonable that they should not have to do that after there has been a period in which they have had an opportunity to be exposed to the division and to its needs, and to show their own competence. We have no quarrel with it at all; we think it's reasonable that after a period of time that this process should be available, and we are saying there is nothing wrong with the way it works now.

There is a wanting for the wanting, and to suggest that there is no due process in the very real sense is an exercise in intellectual disho nesty as far as I am concerned. MS. M. PHILLIPS: So we are squabbling then about the time frame as to when teachers have to be given cause and have a hearing? MR. G. MARSHALL: Right on. MS. M. PHILLIPS: Okay.

If the basis of your concern, as you suggest throughout your brief, is for the children and the parents and the quality of the education that's happening in the classroom, and other employers are in a position with a lot of different professions, such as social workers, to be able to evaluate and have a performance appraisal within three months in a lot of cases - the MGEA contract is three months - if your basic concern is for the quality of education and what's happening to those children, which I am sure we both share, would it not seem reasonable to you that if there was a mediocre teacher or a teacher who one could evaluate in ten months, surely, that that teacher should not be allowed to go on and pass on mediocre education to another class of 28 children for another year in terms of waiting for a two-year term before that evaluation takes place?

MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, there are degrees of competence. lt may very well be that teacher deserves a second setting, a second circumstance, a second opportunity within the covenant of the original contract, but in all fairness, we are not making widgets. The two-year period has been a reasonable one, but the thing that is particularly damaging is the notion of portability because that simply takes it right out of the community completely. MS. M. PHILLIPS: I would like to address that notion.

You made several references to the "stranger" riding into town, and conjured up lots of images of western movies with the slant-eyed guy in the dark hat, etc., sort of jumping in a depraved manner onto all these little children, and the community had no resources to protect themselves from this terrible stranger, but so be it. My question is when this "stranger" comes riding into town, in other words, a person from another community has applied for a job in your division, how now does the school board assess that person's capabilities or qualificiations? MR. G.

MARSHALL: Well, I've been around Bob Rose and John Johnson so long I wear cowboy boots; but

Monday, 15 August, 1983 there are many analogies that you can strike relative to a new person. A new person is essentially a set of credentials; that's what a new person is to a new community. So that person is really very much of a stranger to that community, and that community is a stranger to that other person. lt's a stranger-community relationship, and the only basis you have is a set of credentials, nothing more. MS. M.

PHILLIPS: You would also, in the case of this stranger having prior teac hing experience, have references to check out, I assume, and would be able to check with other communities as to their experience and how they performed; and would you not take all that into account before you chose, the school board, not the government or the Department of Education or the Minister, but before you chose to hire that individual in your community, you would, specifically nowadays when there is a large number of teachers on the market as it were, it would be up to the school division to make that assessment and the school division's arbitrary choice as to which teacher they hired for that particular position?

MR. G. MARSHALL: The school board doesn't work in a vacuum. They have a team. One thing that is missing in the equation is the aspirations of the community itself. The notion of education in a local community is not an imposition downward on the community of somebody's particular educational philosophy. There's a need to respond to the aspirations of that community, and the communities are all different. •· Roland Penner sure knows they are all different. They are different, and that's the match that has to take place, quite apart from any competence.

But is it reasonable, is it rational to make that decision on credentials? Credentials create eligibiliW; it does not necessarily bring performance. MS. M. PHILLIPS: If this proposed legislation is passed, Mr.

Marshal!, when you are doing those interviews, would you not, through the interview tor a new teacher, whether they had past experience or were straight out of university, would you not try, as you have in the past, to do that kind of matching and try your best through the interview process to assess whether that particular "stranger," as you put it, whether that individual had the personality, capabilities, whatever you were looking for that were the necessary match for your individual community as you have all along, would you not continue to do that? Would this legislation interfere with that process? MR. G.

MARSHALL: If this legislation passes in its present form, I guess the first thing we'll do is pick up the pieces. We will have to weigh, within what has been identified as eight or nine months and no time at all, between applicants for particular roles. Sometimes when a role becomes a requirement to a division, it's an immediate requirement. You have to fill a need. Filling that need in the long-term interest of both the teacher and the division is not always a spur-of-the-moment decision, but you're right. In some cases, it is going to be a roll of the dice. That is precisely what we don't want. 111 MS. M.

PHILLIPS: So if it's a roll of the dice, the only difference that this particular

section of the act is suggesting is that where in two years now, you have to give that individual cause for dismissal and the right to a hearing, in this case, you would have to do that sooner. Is that not the only difference? I am trying to find out why you're so upset. I really am. Doesn't it boil down to that? MR. G. MARSHALL: We think the present system, after two years and one day - and the one day is only to confirm the two years - is a rational one, because after two years a mutual responsibility does develop. There is a mutual responsibility.

That mutual responsibility doesn't exist except for the contract between the two parties before that person has been put in a position to perform. You know, it's a substantial difference, particularly when you tell me that the time available is no time at all. There is no time. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Filmon. MR. G. FILMON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have, like a dutiful student, been taking copious notes. Those teachers in the room will please forgive me if I get them in the wrong order. The Member for Wolseley asks if I can read.

Yes, fortunately I was taught in the public school system in Manitoba with good teachers. That's a compliment to them and to the system that existed in the past, and hopefully will continue to exist in the present. Therefore, I can read and write. Thank you. Mr. Marshal!, in response to the question of Ms. Phillips just a moment ago, she, I think, tried to draw you in on several occasions to say, isn't all we're squabbling about - I think is what she said the first time - the time period? Then the second time, she said, I am trying to understand why you're so upset.

She said, isn't it just the difference between two years and now one year or eight months, as some say, for the evaluation period for a teacher to be given due process of tenure? Isn't the situation really that once having taught one year anywhere in Manitoba, that teacher will now be entitled to due process without the benefit of any evaluation period by the next division hiring them? MR. G. MARSHALL: Precisely. lt isn't just a question of two points in time though.

That two-year point in time is a reasonable assessment in order that we might collectively go the road of a third party arbitration and avoid the nonsense of the courts. The courts are not nonsense, but it's a long time and they regard some things as frivolous. At some point, a mutual coming together takes place. That takes time. So you're not just talking about two points in time. You are talking about something that has been agreed upon and now is arbitrarily moved.

The question is whether in fact there can be a reasonable assessment with respect to the competence of that teacher and the needs of the individual community, the aspirations of the individual community and the suitability to the direction of the particular school division because these people don't work in isolation. They're a team, and you have to look at them.

Monday, 15 August, 1983 MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Chairman, as well when Professor Santos was questioning Mr. Marshal!, as part of his

preamble, he stated that he was assuming that school divisions do not want teachers to readily obtain tenure. Is this so? MR. G. MARSHALL: That's nonsense, what we want to assure is competence of the teacher and suitability of the teacher to that particular community. We are not arguing against the present process. We are saying that we need that time in the interests of the teacher and in the interests of the community. Particularly, we simply just cannot understand that there should be no time at all. MR. G.

FILMON: Further, Professor Santos, in putting forth his thesis to you indicated that he thought that, because of the fact that more beginning teachers would perhaps not have their contracts renewed after the first year, this would cause them to move from division to division before gaining tenure. Is the problem not that, under the proposed legislation, the day after they were hir ed by a new division, having had one year's experience anywhere else, they now have tenure? MR. G. MARSHALL: Precisely - (Interjection) - MR. G. FILMON: Okay, sorry. Yes, that's a good point. Ms.

Phillips indicates that the term is due process and not tenure. I am surprised that the Minister of Education has not already chided both you and me during the course of this meeting - (Interjection) - yes, she says she's going to, but I gave her the opportunity to ask questions first. So I'll pre-empt her, and ask the question that she is going to ask you. That is, the Minister has taken great pains during the course of debate on second reading in answers to questions in the House to indicate that there is a vast difference between due process and tenure.

What is your position on that since you have utilized the two almost interchangeably? You started, I believe, by referring to the fact that you were going to concentrate on the tenure provisions of the bill. Later on, in the course of your presentation, you said that teachers gave up the right to strike for two-year tenure status. Then you referred to instant tenure as being one of the consequences of this bill. So what is your position on the interchangeability or the similarity between those two terms? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well I'm prepared to go by Webster.

He describes tenure as, "a status granted after a trial period to a teacher protecting him from

summary dismissal." Due process, Webster describes, "due process of law is a course of legal proceedings carried out regularly in accordance with established rules and principles." That due process can, of course, be before a court of law. lt doesn't have to be to a board of arbitration. Tenure, thou gh, is essentially ar.bitration after a waiting period and that waiting period has been deduced to one year, and to zero by this government. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Marshal!, you said that the Minister, and I think you quoted her accurately, has 11 2 said on a number of occasions in defending this change that all it really gives the teachers is the right to be heard and told why they're being removed from a position. You've said that that is already a requirement under The Public Schools Act. Can you explain that? MR. G. MARSHALL: I don't have a copy with me. lt's under 92(6) now, as I understand it. In any event, it's under that section. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Marshal!, at a meeting in Dauphin on Saturday afternoon, the Minister of Government Services, Mr.

Plohman, who is the Member for Dauphin, met with a group of school trustees and parents. During the course of that discussion, I am given to understand, and I'm sorry he's not here to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm given to understand from persons in attendance at that meeting that he indicated that this change in The Public Schools Act was a fulfillment of an election commitment by the New Democratic Party Government to the Teachers' Society.

I know that you probably, as an elected representative and an active interested participant in the Manitoba scene and probably followed the 1981 election campaign closely, were you aware of this promise? MR. G.

MARSHALL: Well, the Premier has said himself that even policy and convention, given circumstances, need not be enacted by the government, and if that's the government's position on its own policy and convention, then I hope that whatever comment may have been made by anybody with respect to an election, and to any group, would be assessed by the government under the circumstances under which the government is working, and that the government would take into account that some of these changes impact other people.

That's my hope, that whatever might have been said, it is in the end the legislators who must decide. lt seems to me that's the way it should be. I would hope the government's approach, any government's approach, to legislation would be that it would assess any of its commitments, whatever they were, in view of the interests of the people of Manitoba, and they would make that decision on that basis.

I would be very disapp ointe d if anybody in government, the Premier or otherwise, because of a comment in a hall in the midst of a long election campaign - if that's what you're describing - would commit the people of Manitoba to something, which in the analysis of the people who serve government and the decision of government itself, would not be in the interests of the people of Manitoba. MR. G. FILMON: Well, I can appreciate that you're being diplomatic in suggesting that even if the promise had been made that you can find justification why it shouldn't be carried out.

I can add to that justification, because during the election campaign the Premier promised that he would turn around the harsh economic cir cums tances that face Manitoba and that no Manitoban would lose their home, or their job, or their business. Those are other promises that some of us would rather that they kept. But I just wondered if you had any indication that that was a promise of the 19 81

Monday, 15 August, 1983 election campaig n, because I have asked others, perhaps who haven't been involved with the educational scene as you have, and I can't find anyone who acknowledged that that was a promise. MR. G. MARSHALL: I read it in the newspaper, as a claim of the Manitoba Teachers' Society, that such a promise had been made at some point in time. My own position is that government should look at legislation with respect to its impact on the people of Manitoba, and government is not just a fulfilling of promises, although all governments like to have a reasonable ball score, I imagine.

Every piece of legislation must take into account its impact. This particular piece of legislation impacts negatively the communities of this province and the children of this province, in our view, and that's a very widely-held view throughout the whole of the province amongst trustees who don't always agree on everything. MR. G. FILMON: Yes, Mr. Chairman. As well, I would like to ask Mr. Marshal!, he referred to the special status or bargain that is enshrined today in legislation, which saw the - I believe in 1956 - teachers giving up the right to strike in return for tenure status.

What was the length of - due process, as Ms. Phillips reminds me - what was the length of service required in order to obtain that due process under that bargain. MR. G. MARSHALL: The old Public Schools Act was 20 months and one day. When the act was rewritten, that clause became fuzzy, and our thrust has simply been to clarify it and put it back where it was. We have made no further claims. Our position is 20 teaching months and one day, as it was in the old act. MR. G. FILMON: The position that the Minister has put forward over and over again in defending this seems to rest on, Mr.

Marshal!, the fact that this only gives the right to be heard before an arbitration board. I think I understood you when you said that the arbitration boards are not normally made up of educators or educational adminis trators. Who sits on the se arbitration boards generally then? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, they are appointed by both sides and each side appoints a chairman.

Relative, though, to the kind of educational assessment that takes place in the division, it seems to me - and this is my opinion - that arbitration boards tend to award on the rights of the individual, and maybe that's not a problem on their part. Maybe that's not a fault, that's their particular point of view. But what's missing in this whole thing, and what's changed is who makes the decision. it's not whether you get a hearing and have a right to be heard, it's who decides. And for an experienced teacher who comes to a division from Day One, somebody else decides, the community doesn't decide.

The community doesn't have a year, they don't have a month, they don't have an hour , they don't have a minute. Before the ink is dry, the Minister is taking that decision out of the community, and saying on behalf of the teacher, from Day One, based only on credentials you make this decision, and the community is going to have to 11 3 live with it.

The school division, and its people, will have to defend their position, and take these scarce resources out of the division, part of the team that delivers educational services to children, and they're going to have to prepare a case of recommended dismisal for someone who has never taught in the division before. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Chairman, is Mr. Marshall saying then that the onus is on the employer to demonstrate conclusively to the Arbitration Board why they are recom mending dismissal then un der these circumstances? MR. G. MARSHALL: The onus is on the employer. MR. G.

FILMON: Then there' no onus on the part of the teacher to prove competence? MR. G. MARSHALL: The onus is on the employer. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Marshall, I'm sorry if I'm repetitious but you didn't say to me what types of individuals normally sit on the arbitration boards. Are they educators, or educational administrators? MR. G. MARSHALL: They tend to be people in the legal or quasi-legal profession. MR. G. FILMON: I'm sorry, I'm being helped at this point, Mr. Chairman, by Ms. Phillips who says they could be minors, they could be anything. Is that m-i-n-e-r­ s, or m-i-n-o-rs? MR. G.

MARSHALL: lt can be everybody except a stranger. MR. G. FILMON: Everybody except a stranger. Mr. Chairman, if the two arbitrators don't agree on the Chairperson of the Arbitration Board who then appoints the Chairperson of the Arbitration Board? MR. G. MARSHALL: That's in the process of change. I can't quite frankly recall whether it's the Minister of Education or the Minister of Labour. MR. G. FILMON: I'll help you. it's the Minister of Labour. MR. G. MARSHALL: Thank you. MR. G. FILMON: A teacher. MR. G. MARSHALL: Another one? MR. G.

FILMON: If you would - yes - would you like to know some of the appointments she's made recently as Chai rpersons of those Arbitration Boards? - (Interjection) - Art Coulter, Nels Thibault. I don't think either of those are educational people. You're making the point - that's a matter of question, a matter of opinion. The Member for Wolseley, Ms. Phillips, in questioning you asked about the ability that you would have to judge people based on their credentials, and perhaps a report on one year's previous experience with a

Monday, 15 August, 1983 division, and asked about the effectiveness of an interview. I'm sure, Mr. Marshal!, in the course of your experience, either your business experience, or your school trustee's experience, you must of interviewed people before. Have you ever met or encount ered people who sold themselves very well in interviews and didn't perform worth a darn on the job? MR. G. MARSHALL: You've got a very good chance getting somebody that's good at interviews. MR. G. FILMON: I think I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chairman, thank you. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harapiak. MR. H. HARAPIAK: Mr.

Marshal!, as a former school trustee I can identify with many of the comments you made. As a former school trustee I have witnessed examples of where the evaluation system for teachers was less than perfect. I believe that your organization and the Manitoba Assoc iation of School Superintendents and the Principals' Association at MTS have recognized that there's a need for support in the area of evaluation so there has been several seminars put on to give the principals more direction and support in the evaluation of teachers.

Do you believe that the children of the community will benefit because - probably the need for a better evaluation system because of this legislation? MR. G. MARSHALL: Quite frankly, I don't see anything in this legislation that complements proper evaluation. In our own division it's primarily professional people with trustee representation who make the assessment, who make the intervi ew. But as you kno w in a democracy the community has the last word.

I don't think anyon e's op posed to improving evaluation processes but quite frankly we're bewildered how shortening the time for assessment is going to, in any way, positively impact the process of evaluation. MR. H. HARAPIAK: Under the portability of tenure do you think there will be more hone sty in the recommendations of teachers' ability between school divisions in the entire province which may help eliminate some of the incompetent teaching that some people say exist in the school system? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, we're trying to prevent incompetency from getting in.

You've heard some of the descriptions that I read, and they were verbatim from trustees in the field who have been present at arbitrations. In attempting to identify and remove incompetence one trustee regarded it that it has to be disaster in the classroom. I think the approach to evaluation generally is pretty positive. Everybody wants good teachers. I think the professional people themselves who have governance over the system want good teachers too. But they need, and we need, a period of time to assess a new teacher in a new community setting because they're all different. MS. M. PHILLIPS: Following up, Mr.

Marshal!, on the questions from my colleague about evaluation and I 11 4 started a little bit into it with my first questions. I really have difficulty understanding the inability of the professionals in the school system, such as the supervisors, the principals, the superintendents, and ultimately, the board, of not being able to assess a person's capabilities or performance in one year, in a 10 -month period. We have, for instance, in the public service, in the Manitoba Civil Service, many different professional categories.

We have teachers; we have nurses at the Manitoba School at Portage, who are dealing with children; we have social workers; we have all kinds of professions, engineers, whatever, and they are assessed within 90 days, in a three-month period. After that, they have recourse through their union to the arbitration system.

I really have problems when you say on one hand that you are wanting to protect the education of those children in saying you were not able, with all your professionals, to assess a teacher in 10 months and allow that teacher that is, well, "iffy," because you haven't quite decided, to be a teacher to another classroom of children for the next year around. Now, could you please explain to me, clearly, why you do not have the capabilities to assess them in 10 months and need 20 months? MR. G. MARSHALL: I'd like to respond in two ways. First of all, if you're offering 10 months for everybody, I'll take it.

Secondly, what's missing is the opportunity for a second setting to place a teacher in a second setting, because the teacher may very well respond in a second setting. lt may be unfair to terminate a teacher after 10 months. But we now have to make that decision. So, all we've done is moved up the decision on the position, that's all we've done. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Scott. MR. D. SCOTT: Mr. Marshal!, you made repeated references to strangers. I want to know who invites these strangers to town? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, out west, Mr.

Scott, anybody who comes to town, who we don't know, is a stranger. lt may be a teacher, and that doesn't mean necessarily that they are a bad person. lt simply means that they are unknown, and as such, except for their credentials, all their attributes are unknown to the community. MR. D .. SCOTT: You still haven't answered my question. Who invites them to town? Who hires these strangers to come to town? MR. G. MARSHALL: There is an offer, there is an acceptance, I assume. Let's assume that happens, that may not happen.

The stranger may come to town and a stranger may leave town, but I think what you're referring to is that when the stranger comes to town, there is an offer, there is acceptance, and there is a contract. MR. D. SCOTT: And that is with the school board? MR. G. MARSHALL: That's right. MR. D. SCOTT: Another point I'd like to make, given the tone, I guess, of your reference to strangers, which

Monday, 15 August, 1983 kind of surprised me because I come from a small town myself, if it wasn't tor strangers, you wouldn't have any teachers. I wonder how many of you, when going through school, were only taught by people who grew up in your community? - (Interjection) - No, it very much is a point in the reference towards this. MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Scott, would you ask your question? MR. D. SCOTT: I did. MR. G. MAR SHALL: Well, the stranger who taught you probably had a two-year tenure period. MR. D. SCOTT: In those days, sir, they didn't have any tenure period.

You talked about a mutual responsibility between your teacher, I believe the students, and the school board, and were making some form of reference that that mutual responsibility doesn't really start swinging or start moving until the second year of the contract. I know from my teachers, and I spent a couple of months as a fill-in teacher comp letely by accident - (Interjection) - That it was, completely by accident. 1 studied Business Admin. nothing to do with pedagogy, but that mutual responsibility started for me on the very first day. lt didn't take a year.

My final questi on , I guess is in relation to the evaluation system that Mr. Harapiak raised, and that is: If there's a weakness in the system right now, it isn't a good evaluation system, and that evaluation system does not simply apply to a brand-new student or a brand-new teacher, it applies to people no matter where they are.

Do you not feel that with an approved - and this process actually forces you or encourages you, I should say, to set up and implement stronger evaluation systems, and with that evauiation system, will you not get a better education system where you have a better and continuous evaluation system for your teachers from Day One of teaching until retirement? MR. G.

MARSHALL: In describing mutual responsibility, I was simply describing that in working together, in creating a fit between the community and the person retained to perform in that community, that there is a mutual responsibility with the community that can't exist in signing a contract. That is what I was describing. Insofar as evaluations are concerned, they are not perfect I'm sure. Any process can be improved. We're saying reducing the time does not improve the process. MR. CHAIRMAN: Madam Minister. HON. M. HEMPHILL: it's hard to know where to start. Mr. Marshal!, you've made a number of points.

I wonder if I could ask you - I want to talk a little bit about the arbitration process and get perspective on the amount of activity that we're looking at. I think there might be a feeling that there are hordes and, in fact, tons of incompetent teachers out there. I would like to talk about numbers for a few minutes.

We've got about 12, 400 teachers in the Province of Manitoba, give or take a few, and I assume that those 115 teachers are being evaluated every year, because they should be evaluated every year throughout their lifetime and not just in the first year that they are employed, which seems to be the period that you are largely concerned about, but they should be evaluated continually. So assuming they're all up for evaluation, how many cases have gone to arbitration in the last two or three years perhaps - do you have those figures? - and how many are in dispute?

I want to make it clear what my question is there. lt' s my understanding that there are a much larger number of cases that are in dispute per year, than ever go to arbitration. By being in dispute, I mean teachers and trustees have to get together and talk about the question of whether or not a teacher will be fired. So can you give me some idea of numbers? Let's say, this last year, how many do you think were in dispute where the question was raised between the trustees and the Teacher's Society on whether people would be fired, and how many went to arbitration? MR. G.

MARSHALL: The matter of evaluations stopping in the second year is a conclusion of the Minister and not a position of mine. Our concern is not only the question of retention of teachers and doing it in a shor ter period, but the deployment of resources. How much of your educational resources are used up contesting - I'm not talking about the evaluation process itself, I'm talking about contesting. This is a contest with a stranger.

This is a contest which is taking these resources that are normally focused as part of the educational team down into the division - and I'm sure other people will speak on this - in a positive way to deliver educational services to children. I hope there wouldn't be any. What will probably happen is that there will be a number of decisions which will be made based on the priority of resources. Those may not be in the best interests of the division in terms of the people they retain when they have that choice. HON. M. HEMPHILL: I am having a little bit of trouble understanding your answer.

I heard it, but I didn't get a direct answer to my question about how many arbitration . . . MR. G. MARSHALL: I don't have the numbers here. I have a folder that's . . . HON. M. HEMPHILL: Okay, then I would like to throw out ... MR. G. MARSHALL: . . . 50 pages long, and I don't have those kinds of numbers. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Can I ask you if you think the numbers that I'll give are unreasonable to assume that they are in the ballpark? My understanding is that we've got about 12,000 teachers, that this last year, there were about 25 cases in dispute, and three of those are going to arbitration.

In fact, there have been some years when there has only been one case going to arbitration, or maybe one or two arbitration cases. Are those figures some that you think would be in the ballpark? I

Monday, 15 August, 1983 MR. G. MARSHALL: I am saying, if half the divisions in the province are involved in one form or other in this process - because an arbitration proceeding is a wren ching experience for a school division, one arbitration. lt's divisive. lt is time consuming; it's resource consuming. lt is something you don't want to do. lt's an exception. But the fact the decision has to be made sooner doesn't solve anything, it only makes the decision all the more difficult within the division. HON. M. HEMPHILL: I want to ask you - and I'm getting at the point of what the

interpretation is of due process. I want to confirm that due process is simply the right - no, first of all, I'll go back. Is it true that presently, and even with the bill, Bill 77, that teachers can be fired, with the way it is presently, within 20 months for no cause and, with the new bill, within a school term for no cause? They can be fired if you have declining enrolment; they can be fired if their job becomes redundant, giving no reason. The only time due process comes into place is when you're questioning competency.

So what I am asking you is: do school divisions have considerable authority to fire, in this bill, the first year without giving cause at all? Within the first year, they can fire any time for any reason and they don't have to give cause. They can also let teachers go if they do not need them anymore, or if their job has become redundant, or if declining enrolment ind icates that they cannot continue to maintain them. MR. G. MARSHALL: Are you talking about layoff? HON. M. HEMPHILL: I'm saying, are you able to fire, to let people go under those conditions, presently and under the Bill 77? MR. G.

MARSHALL: I'm bewildered why we would use layoff, reduce numbers and other natural processes within the division with which we co-operate to the extent that's possible. If you have a mismatch, you have a mismatch. If you have no place to put somebody with a particular skill, you have no place to put somebody with a particular skill. But I'm bewildered how this legislation really changes those processes. lt simply shortens the time in which the communities, looking for the best teachers they can get, are able to make that decision.

You are allowed no settings for an experienced teacher, and one setting for a new teacher. That's really the question. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Is it true that what it does is shorten the time under which they are entitled to be told what the reason is if they're going to be fired, and they are entitled to a hearing if they want it? That is all that it does. MR. G. MARSHALL: Tenure, Mr. Webster says, is "a status granted after a trial period to a teacher, protecting him from

summary dismissal." If you're talking about the trial period, then you are talking about the period when they can be advised as to why, but the decision lays with the school board. What you have done in your legislation is, you've taken the decision out of the community. 116 HON. M. HEMPHILL: That's a question I would like to raise, too. Presently, school boards decide when and which teachers to hire. They decide when and whether or not teachers will be fired, and they are totally responsible for the evaluation procedure. They decide how long it will take and what kind of a process they will have.

Is there any change with Bill 77 that interferes with any of those rights? In other words, do school boards still hire and decide who to hire? Do school boards still fire and decide who to fire? Are they totally responsible for the evaluation in their school division? MR. G.

MARSHALL: 92(4) of The Public School Act, where a complaint is made to a school board respecting the competency or character of a teacher, the school board shall not terminate its agreement with the teacher unless it has communicated the complaint to the teacher or his representative, and given him an opportunity to appear personally, or by representation, before the school board to answer the complaint. What you're talking about, and I think we are agreeing here, with respect to what tenure is, what you are doing is reducing and eliminating the trial period of tenure. HON. M.

HEMPHILL: Is there anything in Bill 77 that limits the period in which school boards can evaluate. In other words, if you feel that you need a two-year evaluation procedure to properly evaluate a teacher, is there anything that says you can't take that amount of time? The only thing it says is if you do it earlier, you have to give cause and the teacher has the right to a hearing. MR. G. MARSHALL: What has changed is just who makes the decision. That's what's changed. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Are you telling me that you believe that school trustees no longer make the decision on who to fire? MR. G.

MARSHALL: I say the reality is that the school board essentially recommends whenever it goes to a third party. They decide, but the reality is that that is a recommendation to a third party. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Okay.

If they have the authority to decide to fire, and they do, and they are the only ones in a school division, I think you will agree, that can hire and make a decision on hiring and firing, if they make that decision and they go to an arbitration hearing, then isn't the only question whether the evaluation was good and the process was fair, but the decision is the school board's, and they have to support it with information? MR. G. MARSHALL: The decision would be made by people that Mr. Filmon identified, probably non­ educators.

We are not quarreling with the arbitration process and tenure when that trial period is in place, and we are saying that the reasonable trial period is two years. You are saying for a teacher with experience, the trial period - and I'm not sure it still qualifies for the definition - the trial period is zero, it's nothing. HON. M. HEMPHILL: I think you were getting into the portability question there, weren't you, and we weren't

Monday, 15 August, 1983 talking about portability in that question. it's ten months, one full school term. MR. G. MARSHALL: We have to talk about portability, because that's what you've done. HON. M. HEMPHILL: All right, let's talk about the question of portability for a minute. The question of the stranger - it sounds like there is nothing to go on, and I'm wondering if there isn't some recognition or acceptance of the evaluation procedures from division to division. In other words, each division has evaluation procedures.

We would hope that they're solid and good evaluation procedures, and I would imagine that the very best place of information for another school division to get information on a teacher is from a school division. In other words, they would be looking at it from the same perspecti.ve as does the hiring board. So, are you saying that there is no confidence in the evaluation procedures from one division to another? MR. G.

MARSHALL: The communities themselves are saying that there is quite a difference between the various communites, and we are trying to develop a match between the aspirations of the community and the competence of the teacher. I think that it is a factor, but it may not be the only factor. Apparently this is your position, because this is what you've done, you've taken the position that that should be carte blanche.

You haven't even taken the position that it should be permissive; you haven't even taken the position that it should be bargainable as part of the new offer and acceptance, because there may be within the give and take and the needs, and the qualifications, as you suggest, for some people that might apply, but you haven't even done that. You said that that evaluation out there is perfect. Not only is it perfect in that community, but it's perfect in every other community. That's not rational. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Mr.

Marshal!, if, as you say, that you need more time to evaluate - and I don't disagree with that, because this doesn't say anything about evaluation. lt doesn't tell you how long to take, it doesn't tell you to put any limits, or tell you how to do it; it simply says if you fire after one year, then the teacher has a right to know why, and they have a right to a hearing. If you need more time and you have not been able to properly evaluate within one school term, on what basis are you firing? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, first of all, I don't need more time, I need the same time.

Secondly, your conclusion that evaluation stops is your conclusion, it's not our position. The question is, and we think it's reasonable, that the period of tenure, the period defined by Webster, is the trial period before

summary dismissal. We're saying it should be two years; you're saying for an experienced teacher it should be nothing. You don't even qualify for the definition. HON. M. HEMPHILL: You keep referring to

summary dismissal, I am wondering if you are also . . . MR. G. MARSHALL: That's Webster's words. 11 7 HON. M. HEMPHILL: Yes, I know it's Webster's words. Do you realize that

summary refers to action which omits certain formalities generally required by law? MR. G. MARSHALL: Su mmary to me is some accounting on behalf of those who are serving notice as opposed to simply serving notice and reasons. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Mr. Marshal!, how much - we are all concerned about the quality of teachers, I don't think there is any disagreement by anybody that probably quality of education and quality of teaching, that one of the keys is good teachers. I think you mentioned that in your statement, and we agree with that.

How much responsibility, and in fact, do not school boards have total responsibility for the question of whether or not they have proper evaluation procedures so they are identifying the good teachers, because they should be identifying the good teachers, and only school boards can do that, identifying those that need help and identifying those that are incompetent, that that is dependent upon an adequate evaluation procedure, and is the total responsibility of school boards? Do you have any disagreoment with that? MR. G. MARSHALL: There is no disagreement.

I think I said many many times in my presentation there is no disagreement about who has total accountability. Our problem and our complaint is the erosion of author ity. We think they go together. We think if we're going to have the total accountability of the community, that we should also have the authori ty, and that's not open­ ended authority because we develop responsibilities to the new teacher as well. We're simply saying that having no opportunity whatsoever for the community itself to make the decision is irrational. HON. M.

HEMPHILL: But are school boards totally responsible for evaluation and for the question of whether or not the teachers in their school division are com petent or incompetent by having adequate evaluation procedures? MR. G. MARSHALL: I think I've agreed with you. Our problem is addressing that responsibility with your legislation. That's our problem. HON. M. HEMPHILL: There is in this legislation no limit on the amount of time you can evaluate, is that so? MR. G. MARSHALL: Madam Minister, I will say for the third time, your conclusion that evaluation stops at Year Two is your conclusion and not our position.

Evaluation is an ongoing process. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Right. My question was: Is there anything in Bill 77 that limits the amount of time a school board can take to evaluate a teacher? lt does spell out the requirement that if you're going to fire after they've taught for one year , you have to tell them why and they're entitled to a hearing, but it says nothing about the amount of time that you can or should take to do an adequate evaluation, is that right? MR. G. MARSHALL: We take the position that you have to tell them now. What's changed is, who makes I

Monday, 15 August, 1983 the decision. That's what has changed. We have no quarrel with third-party arbitration. lt makes sense. But the people who have full accountability to the community, it seems to me and it seems to us, are entitled to have some measure of time in which to try to match the skills of the teacher with the needs and the aspirations of the community. That's what is being offended with this legislation. lt has nothing to do with the length of evaluation. lt simply changes the point at which who makes the decision. That's what has changed. HON. M.

HEMPHILL: If your evaluation procedures are really good, Mr. Marsh all, and they are fair and reasonable and people know what they are and they're being carried on throughout all your schools and you are doing the documentation that is required, what's the big worry about having a hearing? I mean, are you not confident that your evaluations will stand the light of day of a fair and objective hearing? MR. G. MARSHALL: Fair and reasonable may very well include the opportunity for that teacher to have a second setting in which to perform, to have a different circumstance into which to perform.

That's what's missing in this legislation. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Okay, can you explain to me - I'm having trouble with this one point - why you seem to believe that teachers having a right to be told why they were fired and having a right to a hearing at which point I would assume that you've got a good evaluation procedure that can stand the light of day of a hearing, why that gives you a teacher who has lifetime employment? Why do you not seem to believe that you can get rid of an incompetent teacher? MR. G. MARSHALL: We take the position that the teacher has a right to know now. We take that position now.

There's a need for the opportun ity, for the commun ity, for its educators who have been retained for that purpose to assess the ability of a teacher to function, to blend and to be suitable in that particular setting. These people do not work in isolation, they work together. We've said a number of times that shortening it may force the decision that the community doesn't want to make because it simply moves up, as you suggest, it's a different point in the evaluation process, it's an earlier point of the ongoing evaluation process, but it's the last point in which the community can decide. HON. M.

HEMPHILL: I'm wondering if you have any statistics that indicate that there is a lot of incompetence or a lot of school boards who cannot get rid of an incompetent teacher, and why? MR. G. MARSHALL: One of my colleagues described it as: The requirement is a disaster. That's probably an exaggeration, but third-party arbitration is a conflict. lt's a conflict that divides a division wherever the question goes. lt's irrational to us that there should be no time at all. lt's limiting to us that it should be 10 months. We believe in community decision-making in education.

This legislation with respect to teachers from another division essentially takes the decision out of the community. HON. M.

HEMPHILL: I found a study that MAST did - I think it was in about 1980, I might be wrong about the year - but a study that you did on tenure very interesting because it confirms a lot of the things that we have been saying and I wonder if you disagree with some of the information and the points in the study where it says, "The committee noted the importance of having effective evaluation procedures and proper documentation of those procedures when implementing the act with regard to contract termination," so that they're basically on this issue saying that same thing as we were?

They were saying in the study that effective evaluation and proper documentation is critically important. MR. G. MARSHALL: I think we're all saying the same thing vis-a-vis evaluation. The only thing that's changed is the point in time. That's what has changed. HON. M. HEMPHILL: I was surprised at some of the statistics. lt shows that in the last three years, the three years previously, 67 percent of school divisions surveyed said that they had successfully dismissed a !enured teacher. So that where their evaluation procedures are effective, they seem to be successfu l.

I think your point and I guess the question is, your point that arbitration boards tend to award on the rights of the individual that this information would belie that because 67 percent of your boards have successfully dismissed tenure teachers. They may not have had to go to arbitration to do it. Most of them didn't have to go to arbitration to do it. MR. G. FILMON: Does the Minister mean due process? MR. G. MARSHALL: Was that a question? 118 HON. M. HEMPHILL: Yes. MR. G. MARSHALL: What was the question? HON. M.

HEMPHILL: I'm saying that if 67 percent of your teachers - you seem to be suggesting that arbitration awards went on the side of the teacher, because they went for the individual. I am saying that in your own survey, 67 percent of your school boards have said that they have successfu lly fired a !enured teacher. So your point that you can't get rid of tenured teachers is hard to understand. MR. G. MARSHALL: I don't think I used the term, can't get rid of. I think I used the term, very difficult.

But if two-thirds of the divisions have dismissed one teacher, I'm not sure that's a relevant statistic under what we're discussing, because arbitration is something, if at all possible, that should be avoided. The longer process may, in fact, have that very effect of having the teacher have a second setting. I'm not a big fan of arbitrations. As I said earlier, they are wrenching experiences for a school division. They should be avoided. But now the time is shorter, the decision is earlier. lt's simply not complementary

Monday, 15 August, 1983 to the system, not complementary to what you're trying to promote. HON. M. HEMPHILL: Your point about arbitration hearings and wanting to avoid them, I quite agree. I think that the closer that the decisions are made and the less often we have to go to arbitration or to court, which are both costly, the better off we're going to be. That to me suggests that we need a number of things. We need really good evaluation procedures, so that you don't have to go to arbitration.

I wonder if you don't think that, with the numbers I gave earlier that said there were about 25 cases in dispute and only two or three of them, three of them this year, going to arbitration, doesn't suggest that maybe where there is good solid documentation and a good evaluation process , they don't go on to arbitration. They are settled prior to arbitration. MR. G. MARSHALL: An arbitration in a school division can be a process which has the highest profile in that school division.

The fact that there are only 25 divisions - if you've got 25 divisions going through this damn thing, that's not something that is healthy. We are saying that shortening the period doesn't achieve what you want to achieve, because the decision that's made in the second year now becomes a wrenching experience for the school division.

If they do give that teacher a second opportunity and they do give the teacher a second chance, they are then faced with a wrenching experience. it's not a statistic. lt is something that is very high profile, which tends to gather the energy of the division and to divide the division and to be non-productive to the division. A single statistic in one school division, one is too many. We're not convinced that shorten ing the time promotes what you are trying to promote. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Marshal!, do you suppose that when the Minister asked you the question about 67 percent of the school divisions sucessfully having dismissed a tenured teacher, do you suppose that she really meant that 67 percent of the school divisions successfully had dismissed a teacher with the right to due process? MR. G. MARSHALL: The Minister described it as tenure. MR. G. FILMON: Yes. HON. M. HEMPHILL: I was quoting a document. MR. G. FILMON: I thought it was the Minister's survey MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please, order please. MR. G. MARSHALL: This is a teacher then that has proceeded to arbitration. MR. G. FILMON: Mr.

Chairman, I wonder if I could ask Mr. Marshal!, the Minister referred to a good evaluation procedure that could stand the light of day of a hearing. Ms. Phillips also referred to the evaluation process, 119 and I think there is an implication that it's a very clear black and white process; that it's very easy to make that decision. When these judgments are being made by anybody, is there not a line that eventually is struck, above which performance is adequate or acceptable, below which performance is not adequa te or unacceptable?

Is it not true as well that line may vary from division to division, given the availability of teachers? Let's say, for instance, that line of acceptability may be a little higher in an urban division where there are far more applicants for the positions available than in a remote division in which they find it difficult to get enough applicants for the division. How would a board of arbitration take an evaluation from a division that turned out to be average, and then compare it to an evaluation from another division that turned out to be just below average and not adequate?

How would they take into account all those factors, this board of arbitration? MR. G. MARSHALL: The people in the North have particularly expressed concern about this legislation. This process of arbitration, I think, serves divisions if there has been time for an evaluation. The evaluation process continues. it's something that should be a·toided. There should be an attempt to avoid. There should be an attempt to work with the teacher. There should be an attempt to develop in the teacher the skills that are needed to perform in that setting.

One of the things that comes out of this legislation is sort of a lack of trust that somehow the community is against the teacher, which is nonsense. Even if he's not against the teacher, the community does not seek arbitration as a goal. Arbitrations are negative. They're a process that are necessary, they're a process that we've agreed to, but there's a need from both sides - from the teachers point of view in the division, and from the division's point of view - there is a need for what Webster describes as a trial period prior to there being any kind of

summary dismissal. I think that's something that we've worked towards as divisions, and will continue to work towards. But this process, however well intended, will be counter­ productive if its purpose is to improve the quality of teaching in the classroom. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Chairman, is it conceivable that in an arbitration hearing, a previous evaluation from another school division would be called into evidence, or is the evidence provided to the hearing just that of the evaluation and documentation of the experience of the teacher in the division in which they are presently employed? MR. G.

MARSHALL: Well, it's not a factor in the Minister's thinking in the sense that there's no permissiveness. There's no opportunity for that to be part of the bargain of the new offer and acceptance in the school division. it's simply a provincial mandate that that teacher has this right. MR. G. FILMON: Maybe I should embellish that a little, or amplify in what I'm after. If a teacher taught for one year in a school division, and at the end of that year,

Monday, 15 August, 1983 because of whatever reason, the teacher was found wanting, or there just wasn't a job available the next year, or the principal was also a teacher and therefore the evaluation procedure was not a thoroughly done as it was, and they weren't planning to keep the teacher on in any case, so they gave that teacher sort of an average rating, and didn't renew the contract. Now that's their first year. The second year they went to another division and in the cou rse of their second year of teaching they were found by that second division to be found wanting.

Is it possible that if that then went to arbitration - and it would under this act presumably, because the teacher now has the right to due process - that the evidence could be presented from the previous division, which had not intended to rehire the teacher in any case, or keep the teacher on staff, so therefore wanting to be reasonable, and wanting to part on good terms, had given an average assessment, that that now could become the standard against which that teacher was being evaluated in the arbitration process? MR. G.

MARSHALL: Well, I assume that the first evaluation would be the property of the original principals. They may, or may not, make that available to the second school board. The arbitration people may be able to subpoena that evaluation, I don't know. MR. G. FILMON: Wouldn't the teacher carry that with him or her, and then present it to the arbitration proceeding? MR. G. MARSHALL: That is the property of the teacher and she may very well present it as evidence. MR. G.

FILMON: You use the term "stranger" coming into town a number of times, and I think that it has struck perhaps an offensive cord with some around the table. I think perhaps you were using that just to dramatize your position. Are you not saying, in effect, that unde r the proposed system the decision on granting, or entitlement to due process, or in effect tenure, is made, with this act, on a person who is unknown to the division;

whereas at least under the present system, that decision, as to whether or not the person is entitled to due process, is made with someone who has been there for two years, and is not a stranger to the division? MR. G. MARSHALL: Well the stranger is unknown. The stranger has credentials. We have no opportun ity, in reality, to make the decision without going to the wrenching experience of arbitration. MR. G. FILMON: Mr. Chairman, I forgot to ask earlier. Mr.

Marshal!, you referred to some earlier speeches of the Minister of Education saying that she confirmed her support for local authority in school boards, and that she said, I think the quote was "If we are to bend, we must bend in favour of the parent or the child." Was that speech given when she was Minister of Education, or President of MAST? MR. G. MARSHALL: Minister of Education. MR. G. FILMON: No further questions, Mr. Chairman. 120 MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Phillips. MS. M. PHILLIPS: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Mr.

Marshal!, when I first asked questions I was trying to determine from your presentation whether it was the reduction of the time frame that you were mostly concerned about, or whether it was the principle of due process. Frankly, through this long and arduous question and answer period, you have convinced me that you are not in favour of the arbitration process, you would like to avoid it wherever possible or that you don't feel that is a necessary protection for a teacher's right to that job or career. Am I wrong? MR. G. MARSHALL: I think arbitration is an important compromise.

Arbitration, without having to go to court, is a sensible process after a period of tenure. I don't have any problem with due process at all. I think due process is there. The problem I have is reduction in the trial period of the period of tenure. it's been halved and it's been eliminated. MS. M. PHILLIPS: You have said, Mr.

Marshal!, many times that third party arbitration is a conflict, it takes the decision out of the hands of the community and gives it to people who are from the community in several instances and not necessarily educators, and even though the school board appoints and participates in the choosing of the Chairperson that it ends up with the community against the teacher, were phrases that you used. I guess I really am having the most trouble with understanding why you can accept that due process procedure.

In other words, telling a person why they have been denied that job, or why they are being fired, and having the onus of proving that to the person. In other words, you kno w, the individual teacher is innocent until proven guilty, I hope, by all standards of law, why that is such a concern that that is being reduced from two years to one year.

As the Minister, I think, so aptly pointed out, if in your heart of hearts, or out of the goodness of your heart or the school board's heart, you decide that teacher should be given a second chance, you might unde r present circumstances do that even after the second year; in that, within any school division if they don't match that one particular community, you move them to another community, or within an urban school division, you move them to another school or another grade.

You can choose to do that after the two-year period now, you could choose to do that after the one-year period now, and still end up in both circumstances with extending the probation period. If that is not satisfactory to the school board's part, then go to arbitration, either after a two-year period or a one-year period. hr eally am having trouble understanding why you are so vociferously opposing the reduction in the time frame, if, in fact, it's not the principle of having to go through a due process situation and prove that you have an incompetent teacher on your hands. MR. G.

MARSHALL: Do you think it's reasonable to prove to a board of arbitration that somebody cannot teach, who has never taught for you before? Do you think that's a reasonable position for the community to be in?

Monday, 15 August, 1983 MS. M. PHILLIPS: Well, the Chairp erson didn't correct you, you are not allowed to ask us questions. MR. G. MARSHALL: Well, it was a rhetorical question arising out of . . . MS. M. PHILLIPS: That was a rhetorical statement, I take it. MR. CHAIRMAN: I assume Ms. Phillips will refrain from answering the question, and will keep herself to questions. MS. M. PHILLIPS: I didn't answer. MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Phillips, do you have any further questions? MS. M. PHILLIPS: In that case, Mr.

Marshal!, you would still, I presume, as a responsible employer, after the board has chosen to hire that person, who might have ten years teaching experience elsewhere, I presume as a responsible employer that you would evaluate that individual through their first term, and then if you had cause you would take the necessary steps, that you would not do that after a month unless there was, as you indicated earlier, a disaster; that you would let your supervisory staff evaluate that individual like you would evaluate a new teacher straight out of university, would you not? MR. G.

MARSHALL: We don't even have essentially that opportunity, because the person coming with experience, as you suggest with ten years, from our point of view that's not even permissive in terms of us entering into offer and acceptance. That's not even bargainable, that's not part of the bargain, that's mandated, that's laid on us, this experience. lt might well be, given your rationale and given some other Minister of Education, that they may hold a view that that should be part of the bargain, but it isn't, it's mandated, you've got to live with it. MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there any further questions? MS. M.

PHILLIPS: Just one final comment. There has been a lot of discussion tonight, Mr. Marshal!, including in your pres entation, assu mptions tha t tha t this legislation would bear harder on northern communities. Frankly, having had children in several northern public school systems, or in several different schools divisions, and having lived in the North for several years, and recognizing the competence of both the trustees, the administrators, and the school divisions, I find that a little hard to accept.

I think that's rather derogatory on the school system in the North, and I find, unless you have some further justification, especially with some of the northern teaching programs where universities are trying to train teachers to go back to their own community, who will not be "strangers", I find that very difficult to accept that this legislation would bear harder on northern school divisions. I don't think that the rationale you presented justifies that. MR. CHAIRMAN: Have you got a question, Ms. Phillips? 121 MS. M. PHILLIPS: My question is, do you have any relevant justification? MR. G. MARSHALL