Vaughn Palmer
In Victoria
From the heretofore secret files of the B.C. College of Teachers, professional regulatory body for provincial school teachers:
Exhibit A. A former teacher, convicted of a series of sexual assaults on his students, applies to have his teaching certificate returned. A panel of college members, minimizing the severity of his offences, certifies him fit to go back to the classroom.
Exhibit B. A convicted drug trafficker, having served six years on narcotics charges, figures he's ready to teach. All is forgiven as the college awards him a teaching certificate as well.
Exhibit C. An ex-lawyer, who resigned from the profession after forging court documents to mislead his own client, decides to pursue a new career as a school teacher. The college concludes that he, too, meets the necessary professional standard.
In each case, the college overrode the public interest in keeping convicted sex offenders, drug dealers and forgers out of the classroom. All three instances were cited in a highly damning report on the troubled college by government-appointed fact-finder Don Avison.
Avison, a lawyer who served as deputy minister of education under the previous New Democratic Party government, was appointed last spring after more than half of the college's governing council sought intervention in sorting out a paralyzing internal dispute.
His report, aptly titled A College Divided, found the college is thoroughly lacking in credibility and close to dysfunctional. Its independence has been compromised by the persistent and mostly successful efforts of the B.C. Teachers' Federation to maintain control of the college through the elected teacher representatives on the council.
The complaint is an old one in the political realm. Similar concerns have long been aired in stories and blog entries in The Vancouver Sun by my colleague Janet Steffenhagen.
But the Avison report provides detailed evidence, much of it gathered from current and former members of the council and some union officials, showing how the BCTF has managed to work its will over the quarter century since the college was established.
He also exposed specific cases where the public interest was sidelined by union or individual interests. The most outrageous instance involved child pornography.
The case began earlier in the decade when a member of the college council, who was also president of the teachers' association in Abbotsford, was found to have child pornography on his laptop computer.
The colleague who discovered it sought advice from other colleagues as to how to proceed.
"She was told by a representative of the BCTF attending the same meeting that she should return the computer and tell the person to get it cleaned up," says Avison. Not the right course of action, and neither was what happened next.
"The laptop was at some point taken into the possession of the union. Substantial time passed before the computer was passed along to the police."
Union reps may have been trying to determine if any material on the computer was unlawful. Even so, says Avison, "they were not the appropriate party to make that determination.
"By taking the computer - rather than giving it to the police immediately - they took the risk, perhaps without understanding it, of possibly disturbing the chain of evidence and in doing so, could have compromised the possibility of conviction."
Happily that did not happen. Three years ago, the accused official was convicted of possession of child pornography and his teaching certificate revoked. He is since deceased. But that was not the end of the story so far as the college was concerned.
For there was still the matter of the BCTF rep who had urged a coverup - i.e. give him back the computer and tell him to get it "cleaned up."
A special committee of the college reviewed that aspect and determined the union official "had no idea that the material on the computer contained child pornography."
In lieu of more serious disciplinary action, he was simply required to write a letter explaining how he would proceed in a similar situation in the future. Avison reviewed the letter, and was taken aback by what it said.
"His written response indicated that if in that position again, the member would advise his colleague to immediately seek advice from the executive of the B.C. Teachers' Federation and legal counsel of the BCTF."
As opposed to immediately turning the potential evidence over to the police.
"This response acknowledges that the member, who didn't get it right the first time, wouldn't get it right the second time either," wrote Avison. "Why this was considered an acceptable response is, at best, puzzling."
One example, but it says a lot about the way the college has been compromised over the years. Avison offers several options for wresting control away from the union and re-establishing the college as the truly independent overseer of a self-governing profession.
Alternatively, he raises one other possibility. "It is open to government to consider whether teaching as a self-regulating profession has been an interesting (experiment), but a failed one." In short, unless the union is prepared to give way, this profession may simply not be ready for self-regulation.
