Comments on: When is retirement not retirement? http://gregmercer.ca/2010/04/21/when-is-retirement-not-retirement/ Newspapering and other adventures Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:06:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ian Gibson http://gregmercer.ca/2010/04/21/when-is-retirement-not-retirement/comment-page-1/#comment-1880 Ian Gibson Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:41:07 +0000 http://gregmercer.ca/?p=370#comment-1880 Thank you to Greg Mercer for bringing the attention of the greedy double dipping baby-boomer teachers to the Guelph and area readership. As a teacher who received certification five years ago, I went overseas to earn money to pay off OSAP. I continue to struggle at 35 years of age, waiting to get onto the supply pool for the Upper Grand District School Board. I collect unemployment insurance, live at home with Mom and Dad. I volunteer at schools, and I stare at my two university degrees on the wall and think, what a waste of time and money. Of course, our local MPs and MPPs haven’t wanted to help me or any of the other thousands of teachers in this county. It’s understandable, when it’s the greedy double-dipping baby boomer teachers who elected them in the first place. It’s a mutual reciprocity. Time will come when it’s our time to vote, and it will be Green party all the way. I say shame on Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, and all the dubious school board officials in Ontario (top to bottom, Catholic board as well), who continue to feed into the nepotism. I find it remarkable that the taxpayers in Ontario would want to pay me welfare each month, to volunteer, and then pay a retired teacher an additional $45,000 per year on top of their pension. Five years of head-scratching has finally come to fruition. I suggest rather than preventing new teachers from entering the bottom rung of the teaching world (supplying), they should pink slip every single teacher who is 50 and up, who is greedily costing the local and provincial tax payers millions of dollars. There are close to 100,000 new teachers in Ontario who have been certified since I graduated, and only a small percentage have gotten in to teach. How is this productive? And how exactly is the Ontario College of Teachers really looking out for mine and your best interest? Put simply: It isn’t! In the meantime, I’m going to use more taxpayers’ money to go back to school, to get my PhD, so that in five years time I won’t have to worry about being 40, still living at home, waiting to get on the supply list; I’ll be working as a professor at some college outside of Canada, where I’ll be appreciated and valued. Ian Gibson, Guelph Thank you to Greg Mercer for bringing the attention of the greedy double dipping baby-boomer teachers to the Guelph and area readership.

As a teacher who received certification five years ago, I went overseas to earn money to pay off OSAP. I continue to struggle at 35 years of age, waiting to get onto the supply pool for the Upper Grand District School Board. I collect unemployment insurance, live at home with Mom and Dad. I volunteer at schools, and I stare at my two university degrees on the wall and think, what a waste of time and money.

Of course, our local MPs and MPPs haven’t wanted to help me or any of the other thousands of teachers in this county. It’s understandable, when it’s the greedy double-dipping baby boomer teachers who elected them in the first place. It’s a mutual reciprocity. Time will come when it’s our time to vote, and it will be Green party all the way.

I say shame on Frank Valeriote, Liz Sandals, and all the dubious school board officials in Ontario (top to bottom, Catholic board as well), who continue to feed into the nepotism. I find it remarkable that the taxpayers in Ontario would want to pay me welfare each month, to volunteer, and then pay a retired teacher an additional $45,000 per year on top of their pension. Five years of head-scratching has finally come to fruition.

I suggest rather than preventing new teachers from entering the bottom rung of the teaching world (supplying), they should pink slip every single teacher who is 50 and up, who is greedily costing the local and provincial tax payers millions of dollars. There are close to 100,000 new teachers in Ontario who have been certified since I graduated, and only a small percentage have gotten in to teach.

How is this productive? And how exactly is the Ontario College of Teachers really looking out for mine and your best interest? Put simply: It isn’t!

In the meantime, I’m going to use more taxpayers’ money to go back to school, to get my PhD, so that in five years time I won’t have to worry about being 40, still living at home, waiting to get on the supply list; I’ll be working as a professor at some college outside of Canada, where I’ll be appreciated and valued.

Ian Gibson, Guelph

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