Jamie Nye: Teachers, Sask. government need to hit a buzzer-beater

Opinion

A plague on both your houses.

That’s the best I can put it when it comes to the impact now being felt by our kids after the decisions being made by both the Government of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation, with the recent sanctions potentially having an impact on some major provincial sports and music events.

The provincial basketball championship, Hoopla, is to take place this week in Moose Jaw, while the Optimist Band Festival is to begin in Regina.

Neither happens if the STF continues its sanctions of a full strike on Wednesday and pulling extracurricular activities for the two days following.

Yes, you can be on the government’s side and blame the teachers’ federation for its decision to come down with these sanctions this week.

Yes, you can be on the teachers’ side and blame the government for its unwillingness to go to arbitration or start bargaining important issues like classroom size and complexity with the federation.

Or, you can say to heck with both of them.

And in no way will I ever blame teachers for this. They find out about the sanctions shortly before the public does and in no way do I believe any teacher who gives their time for basketball, band or any other extracurricular activity want their students to miss out on these important dates during the school year.

What’s happening here is obvious.

The government is slow-playing this after losing public support early on to force the STF to make these difficult decisions to pull resources at a crucial time of the school year.

And you have the STF, which is pulling these resources, showing it isn’t going to back down.

It’s a game of cat and mouse and our kids are caught in the middle.

The desire for power over where and how the money gets spent is of little consequence to an 18-year-old senior who has the opportunity to play in the biggest basketball tournament and maybe their last before graduation.

But in the fight over the power and money, they suffer the biggest consequence.

Nobody on the bargaining committees of either side misses out, but their strategies are like a telegraphed pass in basketball — easily predictable.

It’s time for both sides to prove what they’ve been saying all along. They both say they care about education. They both say they want the best for the students. They both say they are willing to bargain. So prove it, because parents and students are exhausted about the talking.

It’s time to bargain.

It’s time to put your egos aside and get a deal done because there is a deal to be made.

It’s time for a buzzer-beater as the public bargaining has reached a crescendo and many of us just want to watch our kids play basketball, perform with their ensembles and, in a few weeks, graduate with their peers.