{"id":793,"date":"2015-02-23T00:07:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T05:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=793"},"modified":"2015-02-23T00:07:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T05:07:00","slug":"brad-badiuk-another-teacher-victim-of-political-correctness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=793","title":{"rendered":"Brad Badiuk — Another Teacher Victim of Political Correctness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brad Badiuk — Another Teacher Victim of Political Correctness<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

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In the 1990s, Malcolm Ross and I were both persecuted and lost our jobs after heavy Jewish lobbying pressure for what we had written on our own time off school property.<\/p>\n

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Our treatment made a mockery of the Charter guarantee of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, etc. Then, Alan Borovoy, the then go-to spokesman for civil liberties in his role as head of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, in a book\u00a0When Rights Collide<\/strong>, proclaimed that a teacher should have a right to express his views, BUT, having expressed views critical of privileged minorities, no longer has the right to keep his job. Some freedom!<\/p>\n

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Whereas Malcolm Ross and I expounded our views in writing (he in booklets and books, me in newsletters) and public appearances, the latest victim potential victim of censorship, Winnipeg high school electronics teacher Brad Bradiuk is in trouble for expressing his views about Indians on his social media Facebook page.<\/p>\n

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The\u00a0CBC<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(December 11, 2014) reported: \u00a0“A Winnipeg high school teacher who posted controversial remarks on Facebook about First Nations people is now on paid administrative leave.\u00a0Some of the comments made by\u00a0Brad\u00a0Badiuk, an electronics teacher at Kelvin High School,\u00a0concern aboriginal people generally.\u00a0Others targeted Derek\u00a0Nepinak, the grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC).<\/p>\n

Kelvin High School electronics teacher Brad Badiuk has been put on paid administrative leave after he made controversial postings about aboriginal people on Facebook<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The\u00a0controversy\u00a0started when another teacher posted an article on her Facebook page about John\u00a0Ralston\u00a0Saul’s book,\u00a0The\u00a0Comeback<\/strong>, which contends that repairing the relationship between First Nations peoples and the rest of Canada is a pressing issue.<\/p>\n

In response, Badiuk\u00a0put these posts (taken\u00a0verbatim)\u00a0on Facebook, “OhGoddd\u00a0how long are aboriginal people going to use what happened as a crutch to suck more money out of Canadians?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“The benefits the aboriginals enjoy from the white man\/europeans\u00a0far outweigh any wrong doings that were done to a concured\u00a0people.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Another line read,\u00a0“Get to work, tear the treaties and shut the\u00a0FKup\u00a0already. My ancestor migrated here early 1900’s they didn’t do anything. Why am I on the hook for their cultural support?”<\/em><\/p>\n

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In some of his posts,\u00a0Badiuk\u00a0took aim at\u00a0Nepinak.<\/p>\n

“He wears feathers on his head and calls himself the Grand Chief. You see he had an idea. Indians have no money. You have money. So he could get his hands on your money, that would solve the problem of\u00a0indians\u00a0without money<\/em>,” the comments read.<\/p>\n

Kevin Hart, who works with the AMC, complained to the school board about the comments, calling them racist and hurtful, and demanding action be taken.<\/p>\n

“It just shows that we have so much more to go, that even a teacher that works in a school division, we [even] have to educate those people,” he said.\u00a0“I think it’s worse, especially when we have educators … leading and teaching the young minds of this country.”<\/p>\n

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Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Derek Nepinak, who is the subject of some of the controversial postings by Kelvin High School teacher Brad Badiuk, called the comments racist and said they were of particular concern since they were coming from a teacher.\u00a0(CBC)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u200bNepinak was blunt in his response.<\/p>\n

“If racists are going to come forward like that and make comments like that, but yet are still tasked with teaching our young people, then we got a responsibility to stand in the way of that.”<\/p>\n

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Mr. Bradiuk was suspended with pay while the Board investigates. “School officials could not say how long the investigation would take or whether Badiuk might face discipline.<\/p>\n

“It’s obviously really disheartening,” said Mark Wasyliw, chair of the board of the Winnipeg School Division.<\/p>\n

“We are a very diverse school division. We have a huge population of aboriginal students and these types of allegations are always concerning and demoralizing for staff.”<\/p>\n

And\u00a0Paul Olson president of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society wasn’t much help in defending a teacher’s right to hold an opinion and express it on his own time. He said “and although there are no formal rules about what teachers can and cannot say on social media sites such as Facebook, they are nevertheless held to higher standards.<\/p>\n

“There’s no such thing as a teacher off duty,” he said. “There’s legal precedent in Canada on that. Teaching is not so much something you do as a teacher, it’s something you are. You’re a teacher 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, anywhere on earth. That can be taken to extremes but if something in your personal or your private conduct causes any concern about your professional practice, that is fair game, at least for a conversation with your employer or your professional organization, depending. So you’re never really off duty.”<\/p>\n

Then,\u00a0 according to a\u00a0CBC\u00a0<\/strong>follow-up story,\u00a0<\/strong>Todd Andres, a Winnipeg privacy lawyer, called for Bradiuk to be punished. \u201cHe said there\u00a0are several cases in Canada where Facebook and Twitter posts made outside the workplace have been grounds for discipline.<\/p>\n

Andres said Badiuk’s comments could have a profound impact on the Winnipeg School Division’s reputation, since its mandate is to educate all students equally.<\/p>\n

\u2018If he’s made comments that jeopardize his ability to do things that are in accordance with the mandate, then it’s difficult to see how he can continue to carry on in that role,\u2019 Andres said.<\/p>\n

He said the school division must take action against Badiuk to protect its reputation.<\/p>\n

\u2018If they take steps, I think they can mitigate their reputational harm that could come out of this,\u2019 he said. \u2018If they don’t, then I think they may be hard-pressed to justify any lack of action.\u2019”<\/p>\n

So, dissent from political correctness and the heretic must be punished!<\/p>\n

Actually, Mr. Bradiuk’s views strongly echo widely held opinions cited in a recent\u00a0Maclean’s\u00a0<\/strong>(January 22, 2015) labelling Winnipeg Canada’s most ‘racist’ city.<\/p>\n

“One in three Prairie residents believe that \u2018many racial stereotypes are accurate,\u2019 for example, higher than anywhere else in Canada. In Alberta, just 23 per cent do, according to polling by\u00a0the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration<\/a>\u00a0(CIIM). And 52 per cent of Prairie residents agree that Aboriginals\u2019 economic problems are \u2018mainly their fault.\u2019 Nationally, the figure drops to 36 per cent. \u2026<\/p>\n

Generally, when groups interact, there is a correlating drop in prejudice as understanding grows, says Jack Jedwab, executive vice-president of the Association for Canadian Studies. But in Manitoba, where\u00a017 per cent of the population is Aboriginal<\/a>\u2014the highest proportion among provinces, and four times the national average\u2014and where 62 per cent reported \u201csome contact\u201d with indigenous people in the last year, the opposite appears to be true. Just six per cent of people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan consider Aboriginal people \u201cvery trustworthy.\u201d In Atlantic Canada, 28 per cent do.<\/p>\n

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Just 61 per cent of Prairie residents said they would be comfortable having an Aboriginal neighbour, compared with 80 per cent in Ontario, according to a recent CBC\/Environics poll; and just 50 per cent would be comfortable being in a romantic relationship with an indigenous person, compared to 66 per cent in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada.”<\/p>\n

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Brad Badiuk — Another Teacher Victim of Political Correctness   In the 1990s, Malcolm Ross and I were both persecuted and lost our jobs after heavy Jewish lobbying pressure for what we had written on our own time off school … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[323,326,322,325,87,324],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}