CUPE workers rally at Sask. Legislature to call for better education funding
CBC
Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) education workers held a rally at the Saskatchewan Legislature Tuesday to call for more education funding, with more than 50 education workers, community members and parents taking part.
"Earlier this year, the government rolled out its back on track budget. It's a disastrous budget and a blatant attack on education," Rob Westfield, an education suport worker and chair of CUPE Saskatchewan's education workers' steering committee, said at the rally.
CUPE represents more than 7,000 workers from both Catholic and public school divisions.
Westfield said the budget does not come close to covering even basic operating costs for the divisions. He said it fails to cover a 4.7 per cent increase in costs that "school boards are being forced to deal with."
"This is resulting in larger class sizes, less individual attention for students and an overall lower quality experience for families," he said.
He said that while the government has provided a 16.7 per cent increase in funding to the private schools, the budget "continuously starves the public education system."
"There's truly nothing left to cut. School boards are already running skeleton crews."
Westfield said many boards are considering program cuts and layoffs and called on the government to protect public education.
"Our kids deserve better and it is time to do the right thing and fully fund public education systems," he said.
Tena Schneider, an educational assistant at Fox Valley in the Chinook School Division, has been working in the field for 19 years. She said she has survived two school closures, and is now faced with having her hours cut.
"My workday will be decreased by 30 minutes everyday. Two and a half hours every week for a total of 10 hours every month," Schneider said.
"That equates to not a lot for some people, but to a single mom, it's her car payments or her grocery bill. But to me, it's an 8.3 per cent reduction in my wage."
Schneider her the students will feel these cuts even more than her.
"Our other staff members that I work with are going to have to pick up the slack because I'm not there. They're already stretched thin," she said. "This is going to be an administrative nightmare."
More details are now available about how a farmer's field in south London will be transformed to shelter up to 60 homeless people starting in January.
Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating after an officer involved shooting at Danforth Go station early Saturday morning, said Toronto police.
Thousands are without power across Newfoundland this morning due to severe weather conditions, including high winds and cold temperatures.
The federal government says roughly half of the workers expected to be laid off at Algoma Steel will be eligible to be rehired by the end of next year.
Almost a year and a half after pieces of the Mont-Blanc were discovered during dredging in Halifax harbour, plans are taking shape for what to do with some of the wreckage from the famed ship involved in the Halifax Explosion.
Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating after an officer involved shooting at Danforth Go station early Saturday morning, said Toronto police.
Montreal officials will hold a ceremony to mark the 36th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre today.
The City of Regina's proposal to build a roadway through the McKell Wascana Conservation Park should be discarded, local conservationists say.
A holiday event that began in 2020 during the pandemic with three floats on pickup trucks has now become one of Kelowna’s big winter events, drawing thousands to the city’s downtown core.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse.
It’s been hard to keep track of how many legal challenges and active court proceedings the United Conservative government has tried to quash or pre-emptively block in the last six weeks, but let’s try to tally:
Margaret Walker, the emcee of a Waterloo vigil commemorating the victims of the Montreal massacre, doesn't feel enough is being done to reflect on the killings and address gender-based violence.
The P.E.I. Humane Society says it is doing far more fundraising than it used to, and rising expenses — including the cost of animal medications — are a big reason why.