Thank you very much, Chair.
First of all, I want to say that I've gone through the certification process myself. As a new teacher to Canada and living in B.C., we went through the process of certification, and at that time, I can tell you, it was informed. Lots of information was given to me. As a classroom teacher I could go to sessions to learn more, there was lots provided to us so that we could read about it all, and we went to many meetings at which there were debates about the pros and cons. Sometimes when I hear of a sort of hammer over the teachers I find it disturbing, because that has not been my experience, either in the teaching profession or in my interaction with many other unions in British Columbia and across Canada.
The other thing I want to stress is that it has been quite telling that witness after witness, as well as our departmental staff, have said that nobody has said there was a problem. If it ain't broke, why are we trying to shatter something that is working? That just doesn't meet the common sense smell test; it makes no sense at all. Internationally we're losing a lot of ground, whether in our foreign policy or on human rights issues or the way we treat our aboriginal people or the way we conduct much of our other business.
My question is, to the CLC and to anybody else who wants to answer, how will ILO convention 87 be relevant to this bill, and what kind of message will we be sending to the international community with a piece of legislation that is being rammed down our throats in four short hours while the Olympics are going on and the budget is about to be dropped? This is a deliberate attempt to do it under the radar.
I turn it over to you.