All parties that prolonged teachers’ strike should be ashamed of their actions

It’s about time.

Those are the only three words that should be used when trying to encapsulate the whirlwind of emotions being felt after news spread like wildfire Tuesday morning that the British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) had finally negotiated a new deal with the provincial government.

After a marathon bargaining session that started Monday and went into the early morning hours Tuesday, the two sides announced a tentative agreement had been reached. It appears the deal will bring labour peace to one of the nastiest and mean-spirited labour disputes in recent Canadian history.

More than 40,000 members of the BCTF are expected to vote on the deal Thursday and it’s expected more than 500,000 students will return to the classroom starting early next week.

That loud collective sigh of relief you might have heard early Tuesday came from the hundreds of thousands of parents and students who have had their lives turned upside down for several months because of this dispute.

While BCTF president Jim Iker and Peter Cameron, the chief negotiator for the British Columbia Public Sector Employees’ Association (BCSPEA) will be all smiles now that a new deal is reached, the only “hero” in this entire mess will be acclaimed mediator Vince Ready. Ready got the two sides back to the bargaining table for the first time in months this past weekend and they were quickly able to hammer out a deal both sides can live with.

There is absolutely no reason this dispute should have dragged on this long and held so many people hostage.

These two sides should have been locked in a room long ago and told to negotiate until a satisfactory deal was reached.

Tens of thousands of Grade 12 students had the joy of graduating high school greatly diminished as a result of this strike.

Hundreds of thousands more will suffer the consequences of a very late start to the new school year.

But Iker, Premier Christy Clark and Education Minister Peter Fassbender should all be ashamed it took this long and put so many through so much over the past several months and take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.