Murray Mandryk: Moe’s budget preview a ploy to skirt bargaining table

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The Saskatchewan Party government says it believes the best place to get a contract deal done with teachers is at the bargaining table …

Or perhaps the best place to get a deal done is through the $250,000 it spent on billboards slamming teachers this summer …

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Or perhaps it’s through the new billboard campaign, continuing to imply teachers are responsible for this contract impasse …

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Or perhaps it’s through current radio ads saying the same thing …

Or perhaps it’s on the floor of the legislature where government continued to take potshots at teachers for supposedly spending a mere 30 minutes at the bargaining table …

Or on social media where Premier Scott Moe seems to make all government announcements these days …

Or perhaps in the 2024-25 provincial budget — the education portion of which Moe leaked on his aforementioned social media feeds Wednesday.

Does government truly believe the best deals are made at the bargaining table? If so, why wouldn’t it take its newfound education spending commitments to that bargaining table?

Why not sit down with teachers’ negotiators, explain that spending commitment and propose creative ways to ensure there will be money to address those issues in years to come?

Isn’t it a little hypocritical to say the best deals are made at the bargaining table when you are talking about bargaining to everyone except the bargaining table?

Well, perhaps no more hypocritical than government saying it’s only thinking about children in the classrooms while it simultaneously avoids talking directly to the very people running those classrooms who have been telling government teachers can’t properly teach kids in those classrooms because of overcrowding and complex needs.

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Ironically, what Moe proposed for education spending this week may be a pretty good step toward getting a deal done.

In what Moe described as taking an “usual step” (it is unusual for a premier to leak his own budget), he pre-announced the plan to increase the 2024-25 education budget by nine per cent or $180 million more to $2.2 billion.

Moe added his government’s budget will dedicate $350 million to address classroom size and complexity — a substantial commitment that “clearly demonstrates” the Sask. Party government’s determination to address those critical issues.

Is it, though?

Is there really anything there that obligates school boards to spend every one of those news dollars on classroom needs rather than other pressing issues facing school boards

Will we even see this same amount of money in the budget next year? Or might the government — post-election — slash spending to make up for campaign over-promising as it did in 2017 when we saw the Saskatchewan education budget reduced by $53 million?

Might we see the same situation we saw in 2018 when the government said it could not commit to covering the teachers’ new contract?

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Opposition Leader Carla Beck said, on a scale of one to 10, she has “zero” trust in Moe’s statement Wednesday night or the notion that dollars would be there.

Sure, it’s a political thing for the NDP leader to say, but it probably expresses the apprehension from teachers who recall being down this road before.

In fact, close to “zero trust” is why the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation keeps insisting that spending be included in the language of their new contract.

“That’s exactly what needs to be done,” STF president Samantha Becotte told reporters at the legislature Thursday. “Making a long-term commitment where there is accountability and where there isn’t an exit strategy would build a huge amount of trust …

“We have gone through a couple of occurrences — whether its removal of funding in 2017 or a contract not fully funded — where we have been burned. Teachers still remember those things. This government needs to start working on building trust again.”

So everyone seems to think the bargaining table is the best place to get a deal done. Wow. It also seems as if government and teachers are finally in agreement on something.

So why isn’t the Sask. Party government taking its spending commitment to the bargaining table?

Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

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