In 1983, the BC provincial government announced plans to close Tranquille, a large residential institution for persons with intellectual disabilities located outside Kamloops. The announcement was made with no community placement plans for residents. The nearly six hundred employees of Tranquille, members of the BC Government Employees Union and the Union of Psychiatric Nurses, were alarmed by the lack of any Ministry of Human Resources planning for the future of the residents and the ministry’s stated intention to use newly tabled legislation to terminate Tranquille employees without cause and avoid any other collective agreement obligations to employees. Consequently, BCGEU members decided to sit-in and occupy the institution by expelling management, running the institution themselves and publicly advocating for quality community care for people with intellectual disabilities. They did so for nearly a month. Tranquility Lost chronicles the political and public policy conditions leading up to the occupation, the day-to-day activities of the occupation itself, the challenges faced by the workers and negotiations leading to an agreement. Steeves’s account profiles the courage of Tranquille employees and their unprecedented use of collective bargaining as a tool to address conditions faced by government clients as well as government employees themselves.
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Gary Steeves. Tranquility Lost
Contents
Foreword by Stephanie Smith
Foreword by Cliff Andstein
Chapter OneBack in Business
Chapter Two The Legislative Assault
Chapter Three A Union Response
Chapter Four From Dominance to Demise
Chapter Five Running the Institution
Chapter Six Legal Threats
Chapter Seven The Fear of Failure
Chapter Eight New Management Operations
Chapter Nine Songs, Poetry and Protest
Chapter Ten Negotiations and De-occupation
Chapter Eleven It’s About the Residents
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Index
About the Author
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The Occupation of Tranquille and Battle for Community Care in BC
When I joined the BCGEU in 1996, I became a member of the community social services component. This component came into existence ten years after Tranquille closed and includes the amazing people who support adults with developmental disabilities. It was those members who first told me what had occurred at Tranquille. The story of the occupation is a story of what happens when people who have long advocated and fought for others advocate and fight for themselves, and how those two things are inextricably intertwined. It’s about collective action, a common purpose and ultimately about triumph.
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In total, the Barrett government had enacted a total 367 pieces of legislation, about two per week while in office. The 1975 provincial election campaign, however, took BC back in a more familiar direction. In 1972, the NDP had 39.6 percent of the provincial popular vote compared to Social Credit’s 31.2 percent. In 1975, the NDP retained its share of the popular vote, receiving 39.1 percent and received a few more actual votes than they had received in 1972. But Social Credit got 49.3 percent of the popular vote as the Liberal and Conservative vote collapsed.
The NDP election slogan in ’75 was “People Matter More.” New premier-elect Bill Bennett mocked the slogan on election night, saying that “people, not glib slogans, won the election,” but his government was not as interested in people as it was in supporting corporate profitability. Dave Barrett’s “free drugs for seniors” philosophy was quickly vanquished. Bennett immediately assisted the mining and forest industries by dismantling the Mineral Royalties Act and addressing industry concerns about timber royalties. Liberal Leader Gordon Gibson described the demise of his Liberal Party and the arrival of the new Socred government as “a kind of tidal wave of support for the political right.” Social Credit was back in business. By the 1980s, Bill Bennett had “greased every skid” to get industry into the improved profit column. Like his father, Bill Bennett had a love affair with megaprojects. The Coquihalla Highway, BC Place Stadium, the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre and the Lower Mainland’s Skytrain are all examples of the government’s belief that bigger was better. Just don’t be poor, old or sick. Bennett balanced the government’s generosity to corporations with cuts to government spending on social programs and restraint on public service and teacher salaries.
