Issue 9 (CJEAP) Part Two
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The letter urges that the Minister and her cabinet colleagues to indicate to 
the Federal
government:

that the infringement on provincial rights, including the right to control 
public education;
the serious threat to the Canadian economy; and the loss of sovereignty 
contained in the
agreement means that the NAFTA agreement is unacceptable to the government 
of British
Columbia.

Thus far, the provincial government has not responded to the Federation.

       Pressures for the harmonization of requriements for professional 
certification to
ensure the mobility of labour are not entirely international.  The Deputy 
Minister of
Education recently requested that the British Columbia College of Teachers 
share its
perspective with her concerning the implementation of the Labour Mobility 
Chapter of the
National Agreement on Internal Trade as it applies to teachers.  In its 
response to the
Deputy Minister, the British Columbia College of Teachers enunciated the 
following
position:

The College plays an important role in ongoing efforts to raise standards of 
teacher
education.  Within British Columbia, the College has the power to approve 
teacher
education programs which lead to certification.  The College also has the 
responsibility to
cooperate with teacher education institutions in the design and evaluation 
of these programs.
The standards applied to the preparation of teachers within the province 
have changed over
time.  This means that the preparation of some applicants for certification 
from outside
British Colubmia may be deficient in some respects.  The Council believes 
that it is
important that the College continue to evaluate applications for 
certification from the
perspective of our current standards.

       Larry Kuehn, former president of the BCTF and currently its Director 
of Research,
is among the teacher activists who have written about free-trade and 
globalization.  In
Pandora?s Box:  Corporate Power, Free Trade and Canadian Education, Kuehn 
and his co-
author have written:

       Although misleadingly described as trade deals, neither the Canada-US 
Free Trade
Agreement nor NAFTA are primarily about trade in the conventional sense. 
 Rather, they
are about establishing up (sic) a new legal, regulatory and investment 
framework for
international business -- one which will protect corporate interests and 
guarantee a stable
business climate through imposing new, and permanent, restrictions on future 
government
in Canada and Mexico . . . .

       Both deals are also about advancing the commercialization of our 
society:
transforming culture, intellectual life and a wide variety of public 
programs and institutions
into commodities whose value and, in some cases, very existence is 
determined in the
marketplace.

       However, due to its broadened scope . . . NAFTA is much more of an 
assault on
Canada?s mixed economy and its public traditions, including education, that 
the FTA.

       Kuehn advocates for the development of an institution to counter the 
North
American Free Trade Commission, one which can ?. . . monitor the proposals 
and actions
of the NAFTA commission as they affect education and the social and economic 
context
within which education is based.?  In an injunction to other Canadian 
education
activists, Kuehn writes:

In the face of globalization we must not let ourselves be overwhelmed.  We 
must keep
focused on the politics of possibility, taking the individual and the 
collective actions that
are true to our ideals as educators -- actions that support individual 
development and
social justice for our students . . . and the society we share.

       It is activists like Kuehn who continue to provide leadership to the 
members who
make up the BCTF.  The involvement of Kuehn and like-minded individuals 
among the
leadership in the BCTF and the BCCT make resistance to globalization and 
attempts to
harmonize the requirements for teacher certification in British Columbia 
with the
requirements of other jurisdictions under the National Agreement on Internal 
Trade or the
North American Free Trade Agreement a likely feature of educational politics 
in British
Columbia for the foreseeable future.