Margaret Wilson has had a rich career in the politics of education. She started teaching in 1958. Immediately upon being hired as a secondary teacher in Windsor, she was elected to the school representative position. On moving to Toronto, she again became the Parkdale SS school representative.
She was the Chair of the “At What Cost” research committee and continued in a research capacity for other OSSTF projects. During that time, she became district president.
Wilson was appointed OSSTF past president to fill a vacancy. From there she went on to become OSSTF vice-president and then the OTF president.
Her first brush with the College of Teachers came during Bette Stephenson’s term as minister of education. Bill Davis’s instituting full funding for the separate schools created difficulties for secondary teachers.
She discusses some struggles within OSSTF and with the Metro Toronto amalgamation of school boards as well as her time as secretary-treasurer of OTF. She was present for the AGM debate on OSSTF organizing non-teachers. She views the teachers pension plan as critical to the OTF.
She discusses some of the quirks of the Sudbury strike, her relationship with Bette Stephenson and the Toronto strike. The Metro Toronto board presented some unique negotiation challenges.
Wilson became secretary-treasurer of the College of Teachers under the NDP government. Her vision was of a fair and timely process for discipline and reinstatement of teachers, timely evaluation for international and inter-provincial teachers coming into Ontario, and oversight of faculties of education.
She was in the USSR representing Canadian teachers when Mikhail Gorbachev announced, “Things are going to change in Russia” (1:30:45).
~ Interviewed by Andy Hanson and Harry Smaller