GVTA history project

Our History

The Victoria Teachers' Association dates back to 1885, when teachers met at Central school to form an association. In 1916, we participated in a meeting at Dawson school in Vancouver to discuss a provincial teacher association - what would become the BC Teachers' Federation. That federation was founded, with Victoria teachers participating, in 1917, at King Edward High in Vancouver. In 1919 the first Annual General Meeting of the BCTF was held, and in 1920 the BCTF opened their first offices in the Campbell building in Victoria at the corner of Douglas and Fort streets.

Did you know? The first teachers strike in Canada took place in Victoria, in 1919. It was the first major industrial action by teachers and it led to a framework for negotiating with school boards for salary increases.  You can see the plaque commemorating the strike, pictured on the left, outside the grounds of South Park school or read it online.

The Greater Victoria Teachers' Association was established in 1938, when the Victoria and District Teachers' Association amalgamated with the Victoria High School Teachers' Association. 

Historical Records

• Executive Committee members 1993 - 2024 

• History bin! See a collection of GVTA memorabilia with historical notes. You can visit or borrow the history bin from the GVTA office.

Oral Histories

• Visit our YouTube channel to see a collection of oral histories from past and present GVTA members. New! GVTA past president Bill Broadley describes teaching in the post war years, his time as GVTA president, and his role in the BCTF during the fight for improved teacher pensions is the early 70s.

Major Events in GVTA History

• 1885 Victoria Teachers form a professional organization.

• 1919 Strike. Read about our historic strike in detail here, and see a copy of the poster we made for the 100th anniversary celebration here.

• 1938 Amalgamation creates the GVTA. In 1938, several local teacher associations amalgamated to form the Greater Victoria Teachers' Association. The first President was Hugh Creelman.

• Professional development is a cornerstone of the practice of BC teachers. But it wasn't always easy for teachers to find the time to work with their colleagues to learn, explore and develop to meet the needs of students. Read here for a short history of PD, our PD days, and the struggle for teachers to exercise autonomy over their own professional development. 

• 1971 Pension Improvements. Victoria teachers participate in the first provincial job action to improve teacher pensions across BC.

• Unionization. In 1987, the BC government unilaterally removed administrators from the local bargaining associations, created the right to negotiate for teachers, and decertified all members. The BCTF conducted an organizing drive to sign up all previous teacher members.

• 1988 - 1992 Local Bargaining. For a short period, teachers had the lawful right to strike and negotiate directly with their school boards. This led to three "rounds" of local bargaining in the province: 1988, 1990, and 1992. The GVTA participated in all three rounds and achieved major improvements to our Collective Agreement.

• 2002 Contract stripping. In 2002, the BC government unilaterally removed all class size and class composition language from teachers' collective agreements. It took teachers 16 years to win those contract provisions back, both through political and strike action, as well as the courts. Read here about this historic battle and the role of Victoria teachers.

• 2005 strike. After failing to reach a collective agreement in 2004, teachers walked the line for ten days in 2005 - in a strike that was deemed illegal by the Labour Relations Board, but in which teachers held firm. 

• Middle school campaign. In the early 2000s, the Greater Victoria School District reconfigured the local schools from a K-7 and 8-12 model (elementary and high school) to a K-5, 6-8 and 9-12 model, which included middle schools. Since the Collective Agreement did not include specific terms for middle schools, the absence of middle school language led to a local dispute over preparation time for teachers in these schools. The middle school prep time campaign was finally resolved with an agreement for 168 minutes of prep time for middle school teachers.

• Victoria Public Education Coaltion. After the 2005 Board of Education continued the closure of 7 Victoria schools and decided to permanently sell school land, the GVTA, along with other community members, decided to become actively involved in School Board politics. In the 2008 and 2011 elections, VPEC ran candidates including Sooke teacher Catherine Alpha and retired GVTA member Diane McNally, who were both elected and served as Trustees. The VPEC website is still availabe on the wayback machine.

• 2012 strike. The decade following Bill 28, which stripped BC teachers' collective agreement, was a tumultuous one. The BC Liberal government kept attacking public education and the teaching profession, year after year. By 2012, teachers had had enough, and walked the line to win improvements, not accept rollbacks.

• 2014 strike. Despite several big court wins about the contract stripping from 2002, the government kept appealing and kept trying to bully teachers into accepting the loss of class size language. In the 2014 bargaining round, the employer tabled language that said we would lose those rights, even if we won them in court. This concession drove teachers back out onto the picket line, two short years since the previous strike. 

• Covid pandemic. In March of 2020, schools shut down along with the rest of public life as the world faced a global pandemic for the first time in a century. This had a major impact on schools and teachers, who were considered "front line workers" and expected to take health risks and manage safety precautions in a whole new way. 

In Memoriam

• Paul Hutchison

Keep your eyes on this page as we add new items!

If you have any GVTA artifacts that you would like to share, please get in touch or drop items off at the GVTA office. We'd also love to hear your stories! You can reach the history project coordinator through our office.

This project is financially supported by the GVTA as well as the Lower Vancouver Island Retired Teachers and the BC Retired Teachers Association.