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When leaders of the B.C. teachers union headed to the Supreme Court of Canada last fall, they had no idea their final victory over Christy Clark’s government would be so shockingly swift and decisive.

The two sides had been locked in a bitter legal battle since 2002, when the Liberal government of the day stripped class-size limits out of the teachers’ contract.

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Both sides thought the highest court in the land would hold a hearing in November and then render a written judgment many months later — possibly well after the B.C. election in May.

Instead, the judges took a 20-minute recess and returned to deliver an immediate judgement directly from the bench: total victory for the B.C. Teachers Federation.

The timing could not have been better for the union. With the election looming, there was no appetite on the government’s part to go back to the barricades.

Though the judgment said the two sides were free to re-negotiate new class-size limits and minimum staffing levels in B.C. schools, the government instead agreed to restore the old contract language they gutted back in 2002.