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The B.C. government will likely have to hire hundreds of teachers and spend between $250 million and $300 million more each year on education, after the dramatic win by B.C. teachers in the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday.

The estimate comes from B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Glen Hansman at the end of a union legal battle that began in 2002.

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“We’re elated, this has been a long journey,” Hansman said.

Canada’s highest court, which often takes several months to deliver a decision, took only a 20-minute recess after hearing legal arguments before delivering a 7-2 decision in favour of the union.

The decision immediately restored clauses deleted from the teachers contract by the Liberal government of Gordon Campbell in 2002 dealing with class size, the number of special needs students who can be in a class and the number of specialist teachers required in schools.

The government touched off the legal battle in 2002 by passing legislation that stripped those provisions from the teachers’ contract and passed a law denying teachers the right to bargain those issues.