Ontario’s teachers have won support from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association as they fight Premier Dalton McGuinty’s legislation to impose a wage-freeze contract on them and ban strikes for two years.

It’s unconstitutional to take away the right to strike before there’s a threat of one, the association said Thursday in announcing it will seek intervener status if the law passes as expected — likely Sept. 10 — and education unions challenge it.

“Peoples’ rights are not something to be trifled with,” said Sukanya Pillay, director of the association. “We are concerned that this legislation goes too far and violates the civil liberties of all Ontarians.”

The minority Liberal government filed a motion to end debate on the bill, send it to a legislative committee for five hours of public hearings next Wednesday and Thursday then hold a final vote Monday Sept. 10.

Education Minister Laurel Broten repeated assertions that the minority Liberal government is ready to fight any court challenge like one the British Columbia government faced — and lost — with health sector workers on a wage freeze.

“The case is a very different situation than in B.C. where 20 minutes notice was given,” she told reporters. “We negotiated for more than 300 hours over six months, we have 55,000 teachers that have signed on.”

Broten was referring mainly to members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, which agreed to a deal that the government is now trying to push on public school teacher unions through its legislation.

It would freeze wages, ban strikes and lockouts for at least two years and require teachers to take three unpaid days off in exchange for allowing younger teachers to move up through the salary grid, halving annual sick days to 10 and no longer allowing teachers to cash out unused sick days upon retirement.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents school support workers and has joined forces with the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation to fight the bill, charged the education workers are “pawns” in next Thursday’s crucial by-elections in Vaughan and Kitchener-Waterloo.

“A person’s freedom should not be used as an election ploy,” CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said.

None of the unions have threatened an immediate strike, but say labour disruptions cannot be guaranteed for the entire school year given the current tensions.

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said his party will support the bill, even though it is “half a loaf” when compared with legislation he proposes for an across-the-board wage freeze for public sector workers as the government fights a $14.8 billion deficit.

Hudak said the court threat from teachers and the civil liberties association does not worry him.

“We have an open court system and they’re free to take whatever side they want…but here’s the bottom line. You can’t get blood from a stone. We’re simply out of money.”

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath has warned losing a court case could cost taxpayers more than the $190 million McGuinty spent during last October’s election to cancel a power plant under construction near Sherway Gardens to keeping four surrounding ridings in Liberal hands.

“People are very tired. They are weary of paying the price for this government’s desperate drive for majority power,” Horwath said in question period, hinting at next week’s by-elections.

If the Liberals hold Vaughan and gain Kitchener-Waterloo from the Tories, they will have a de facto majority in the 107-seat legislature.

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Horwath unveiled a private members’ bill Thursday intended to ban managers in the public service from getting bonuses after 8,700 or them – about 98 per cent – shared almost $36 million in performance pay last year.

The government has announced a review of that payout scheme, saying it is inappropriate in tight financial times.

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