VICTORIA – A ruling by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on the state of public schools in the province proves Premier Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals chose politics over students for over a decade, say the New Democrats.

“Premier Clark and the Liberal government have been playing politics with the quality of education for our children,” said New Democrat education critic Rob Fleming. “It proves they would rather provoke strikes than improve classroom education.”

Original legislation that paved the way for larger classes and reduced special needs supports was struck down in 2011 by the courts at which time the premier said, “Clearly it wasn’t the right bill. The Supreme Court told us that and we are going to have to address that. And we’re going to have to make sure that we get on a different footing with the teachers’ union.”

Today’s decision shows the premier was disingenuous. Justice Griffin said in Monday’s ruling that the Liberal government “did not negotiate in good faith” and instead were preoccupied with a strategy to “provoke a strike.”

The judge ordered the government to return class size, class composition and specialist staffing levels to the collective bargaining process.

“The premier was centre stage in 2002 when this mess began,” said Fleming. “Christy Clark was the education minister when Bill 28 was imposed showing that her pattern of playing political games instead of doing what is best for our kids and families goes right back to her first time in government.”

“This supposed family-first premier has shown her true colours – that children and parents weren’t her priority ten years ago and still aren’t her priority today,” said Fleming. “Today is a victory for B.C. families. Once again this government has been reprimanded by the courts for not taking public education seriously.”