It’s okay to apologize. But if, in the next sentence, you explain why you were right, it’s as if you were apologizing for apologizing.
Yes, I’m talking about Bernard Drainville, and I apologize.
Let’s start by saying a good thing about our Minister of Education: his plan for a National Institute of Excellence in Education is very welcome. The Ministry is not currently able to assess the performance of programs or schools. What is happening in schools is only known through the inconsistent collection of anecdotes and macro data. Such an assessment body exists in health. There should also be some in justice, in transport and in several other sectors of the State so that we can find our way through the jumble of the contemporary bureaucratic monster. The best way to get the wrong solution is to misunderstand the problem.
So Minister Drainville once again apologized, this time to the teachers. In interview at Duty, he was asked to justify the fact that the members of Quebec will be the best paid of all the provincial legislatures, if the increase of $30,000 in their base salary is voted. This while the teachers under his ministry are not the best paid in Canada. Bernard Drainville then apostrophized the columnist Michel David in a combative tone: “You really compare the job of teacher at job deputy? »
The unions jumped on this statement to say that the minister “despises” the teachers. It’s a little unfair, but we’re in the middle of negotiations, they weren’t going to let that go.
A little forced to apologize to calm the game, he added. Without even realizing it.
In 2015, when he was in opposition, Mr. Drainville strongly opposed the same increase in MPs’ salaries, recommended by an independent committee.
He invoked very specifically the underpayment of teachers to say that this increase in the salaries of deputies was indecent.
However, this increase was accompanied by a revision of the pension plan of the deputies, the chubbiest in Canada, by far. This “Ferrari” plan, as ex-judge Claire L’Heureux-Dubé says, is in deficit by 200 million – consider that it targets the members of an assembly of only 125 people!
The 2023 increase is therefore much “worse” than that proposed in 2015, because it is not accompanied by a revision of the pension scheme, for which MPs only contribute 21% – while other employees of the State contribute 50%. Not to mention that you accumulate 4% pension per year of service, instead of the usual 2%.
I specify here that I am in favor of increasing their salary, frozen for a long time… provided that we clean up the pension plan.
But opposition MP Drainville was fiercely against the increase based on the L’Heureux-Dubé report. Eight years later, he is in favor of the increase that perpetuates the gluttonous diet.
What was most striking in Mr. Drainville’s speech is that he justified his about-face on Thursday by the fact that the role of MPs has changed a lot over the years.
It’s true. The tasks are heavy, the schedule packed, the congratulations rare, the attacks on social networks numerous. Several are threatened. Yes the job as a legislator is increasingly painful, thankless and complicated.
But this change is also true in wealthier provinces such as Alberta and Ontario, where wages and especially pensions are less generous. Public remuneration in a state should reflect collective wealth.
And above all, if a profession is “more difficult than before”, it is that of teacher.
Everything that is sick in society ends up in our schools. All the family problems create waves that break at the feet of the teachers.
We may have added staff to help the teachers, but everywhere there is a lack of remedial teachers, social workers and psychologists. The classes include children with often very serious difficulties, which was not so much the case “before”. This is without mentioning the cases of violence in certain schools and the dissolution of authority.
I pass over the fact that every social problem must inevitably find its solution at school. Physical inactivity ? Get them moving at school! The screens ? Detox them at school – but teach them how to use the tablet. Develop openness to others and inclusion… but be careful not to make a mistake, you will be furiously accused of “wokism”!
Etc.
None of this is Bernard Drainville’s fault, of course.
Let’s just say that it is particularly unskillful and misguided to insist on the new difficulty of the profession of lawmaker… when one wants to put it in relation to the salary of educators of little human beings in 2023.
Note to myself: after “I’m sorry”, don’t immediately start a sentence with “but it’s because…”.
It’s often better not to talk anymore, when the explanations are worse than the blunder.