Michael Smyth's creative writing project gets an 'F'

In yesterday's Province, Michael Smyth patted himself on the back for slandering the BC Teachers Federation, and took credit for the Nicola Valley Local's restoration of good standing within the union for the gutless SCABS who refused to participate in last fall's job action.

This page won't be linking to Mr. Smyth's assaults, as one, they're subscriber-only, and two, I can't be bothered to give this 'journalist' the attention. In his articles on Sunday and Tuesday, Smyth makes references to the SCABS' respect for "the law" without discussing the fact that the "law" in question was the Liberals' vicious back-to-work legislation, which did nothing to address any of the issues on the bargaining table, particularly class sizes. Smyth also fails to point out that at the time, opinion polls consistently showed the public siding with the teachers.

It's one thing for Union members to not go along with their Union: it's another for scabs to step in front of the media and call down the actions of other members, despite the scabs claims to 'respect' those actions. The most disgusting thing of all (notwithstanding Smyth masturbating his ego in his last two paragraphs) is that this attack comes while the BCTF is back in bargaining. This is anything but responsible journalism, this is a CanWest Global foot soldier looking to impress the right-wing brass. What, is there a sweet gig opening at the BC Liberals Communications office?

Here's hoping that the hard-working teachers across BC use Mr. Smyth's recent columns as source material for a Social Studies unit on Propaganda. It doesn't come any more obvious that Mr. Smyth never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.