BCTF History Interviews Collection

Every year during the BC Teachers’ Federation Annual General Meeting, all of the living BCTF past presidents sit down to a dinner together. This is a group of colleagues with a uniquely shared history, though each one’s experience was shaped by the timing of their presidencies. The stories remembered around this table are stories that have touched most of us in BC, through our schools, families, and workplaces.

In 2014, Ken Novakowski and Larry Kuehn, two such past presidents, initiated the BCTF History Project with other staff and volunteers. The project’s working group operated alongside the BCTF’s own online museum (archived at the Wayback Machine) to collect and promote the history of the union. To celebrate the upcoming centenary in 2017, the working group set out to interview each of the surviving past presidents.

This required a team: Larry and Ken recruited Al Cornes, Wayne Axford, Dan Blake, and other staff and activists of the BCTF to work with them. Through Larry’s role as the BCTF’s Director of Research and Technology, the team had use of the BCTF’s studio. Staff member Lesley Harrington provided technical support. With the SFU Labour Studies Program, they organized a training session on oral history interviews.

Over the next few years, the group interviewed the surviving past presidents, including each other, and continued to interview subsequent presidents as they stepped down. They also conducted additional interviews of staff and activists who had been involved in significant developments in BCTF history. These interviews will be added to the online collection later.

The BCTF online museum was eventually discontinued. In the years after, the working group wanted to ensure the interviews would still be available to researchers and the public. In 2024 the interviews were entrusted to us at the BC Labour Heritage Centre for preservation and public access, facilitated by Ken’s long connection to the Centre.

For Ken and Larry, one of the most meaningful parts of this project was seeing their past president colleagues at the annual dinner feel honoured to have their contributions to the history of the BCTF acknowledged in this way.

We are pleased to present this collection, and grateful to Ken, Larry, and all of the participants in the project.

What’s in the collection:

• 20 presidents, 24 recorded sessions
• Spans presidencies from 1963 to 2022, with some gaps
• Each interview has a video, a time-stamped transcript, and a summary
• The non-president interviews will be added later

How to use it:

• Timeline: BCTF Past Presidents Interviews presents the interviews in order of term dates. Each entry in the timeline links to that president’s interview page, which contains an embedded transcript, a downloadable PDF transcript, and a detailed summary.
• An index of past presidents in term order, and of selected topics, follows below.

BCTF Past Presidents Interviews: Index

Interviews by president

The presidents are listed in order of their terms of office. Four interviews were recorded in two parts, on separate occasions. Interviewers are the people who conducted each interview; Lesley Harrington provided technical support throughout. The same interviews are also presented on the BCTF Past Presidents timeline.

Browse by selected topics

• The 1971 pension strike: Jim MacFarlan (Part 1)
• Political action and elections (The 1972 Teachers’ Political Action Committee campaign, and presidents who later ran for office): Jim MacFarlan (Part 1), David Chudnovsky (Part 2), Jinny Sims
• Wage controls and independent schools in the 1970s: Bill Broadley
• Operation Solidarity: Al Blakey, Larry Kuehn (Part 1), Pat Clarke
• Bills 19 and 20, and the 1987 certification campaign: Elsie McMurphy, Ken Novakowski (Part 1), Ray Worley, Kit Krieger
• The Charter challenge for full bargaining rights: Pat Clarke, Elsie McMurphy
• Principals and vice-principals leave the BCTF: Pat Clarke, Ken Novakowski (Part 2), Ray Worley
• Provincial bargaining and the 1990s bargaining rounds: Ray Worley, Kit Krieger, Ken Novakowski (Part 2), Jim Iker
• The 2002 stripping of the collective agreement: David Chudnovsky (Part 1), Neil Worboys, Ken Novakowski (Part 2), Irene Lanzinger, Susan Lambert, Jim Iker, Teri Mooring
• The 2005 strike: Jinny Sims, Irene Lanzinger, Susan Lambert, David Chudnovsky (Part 2), Ken Novakowski (Part 2), Teri Mooring
• The court challenge and the 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision: Susan Lambert, Jim Iker, Glen Hansman
• Affiliation with the BC Federation of Labour and the CLC: Jim MacFarlan (Part 2), David Chudnovsky (Part 2), Neil Worboys, Jinny Sims, Ken Novakowski (Part 2), Irene Lanzinger
• The BC College of Teachers: Bill Broadley, Kit Krieger, Neil Worboys, Irene Lanzinger, Susan Lambert
• International solidarity: Bob Buzza, Pat Brady, Pat Clarke, Larry Kuehn (Part 2), David Chudnovsky (Part 2), Ken Novakowski (Part 2)
• Pensions and income security: Jim Cairnie, Jim MacFarlan (Part 2), Ken Novakowski (Part 1), Teri Mooring
• Women in teaching and the Status of Women Program: Jim MacFarlan (Part 2), Elsie McMurphy, Irene Lanzinger
• Indigenous education and reconciliation: Larry Kuehn (Part 2), Jim Iker, Glen Hansman
• Equity, anti-racism and 2SLGBTQIA+ rights: Kit Krieger, Glen Hansman, Teri Mooring
• Provincial testing (FSA) and school rankings: Irene Lanzinger, Susan Lambert
• The COVID-19 pandemic: Teri Mooring

Other interviews

Non-president interviews to come.

Use and citation

© BC Labour Heritage Centre. All rights reserved. The interviews, transcripts and summaries in this collection may be used for research. For any other use, including publication, broadcast or commercial use, please contact us at [email].

Transcripts were edited by the BCTF History Project working group and are not verbatim. If you are quoting an interview, please check the passage against the recording.

To cite an interview, please use: [Interviewee], interview by [Interviewer(s)], [date], BCTF History Interviews Collection, BC Labour Heritage Centre, [URL of the interview page].

For example: Jinny Sims, interview by Ken Novakowski, July 11, 2016, BCTF History Interviews Collection, BC Labour Heritage Centre, https://www.labourheritagecentre.ca/collection/jinny-sims-interview-bctf-president-2004-2007/.