The Current - Alberta teachers ordered back to work

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

The Alberta government passed a new law forcing striking teachers back to work.It’s been three weeks since the strike began and more than 750-thousand students have been out of class. Danielle Smith has now invoked the notwithstanding clause and teachers are expected back in the classroom this week. We speak with a teacher and a parent about what’s at stake for teachers and students across the province.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Mr. Speaker, I move first reading of Bill 2, the back to school out. Some raucous moments yesterday in the Alberta legislature as that province's government passed a new law forcing striking teachers back to work, pushing the legislation through at lightning speed. It's been three weeks since the strike began.

More than 750,000 students have been out of class during that time. Here's Premier Daniel Smith. We know and feel like this is the right bargaining decision. So I would just hope that people would look at their own personal circumstances and just give an honest assessment of whether they think it's fair. Most of the parents I talk to, they think it's fair. Many of the teachers who've contacted us, they think it's fair. And I think most of all, it's fair to the students who are the ones who are most impacted.

The legislation means 51,000 teachers are being ordered back to their jobs and that a new collective agreement is being imposed on them. It also invokes the notwithstanding clause, the legal tool written into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows governments to override court challenges to their laws. At the Alberta legislature yesterday, students held a rally supporting their teachers. Naila Amadzai is in grade 11. Teachers aren't asking for much, and if they're being sent back to work,

I mean, nothing's going to get better. All that's going to happen is that kids are going to go to school each day, not getting a good education. You know, I have classes that range from 37 to 42 kids. My last period of class sometimes doesn't have enough chairs for everybody, and I think it's just not acceptable. Like, it's not fair that I have to go to class early just so I can get a seat. Stephen West teaches high school drama and leadership,

as well as special education in the Calgary Public School system. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thank you for making the time, Stephen. You just heard the premier say she's spoken to a lot of teachers who think this is fair. What do you think? I have to make it very clear that that is a lie. There may be a handful of teachers that agree that this is fair,

but I know for certain being on the ground running with my peers that it's not. This is so unprecedented to wake up this morning with less rights than my neighbor. Explain that, less rights than your neighbor. To have my legal right to strike taken away from me and being forced back to work in conditions that the UCP have created, this has been, teachers are 34% behind their buying power from 2011. I want anyone out there who disagrees with what we're doing and what we need to do for this strike to leading up to them putting the notwithstanding clause. Imagine taking your day-to-day paycheck, 34% less, because that's what teachers have been

doing over the last 13 years. So even us asking for more financially, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. But our biggest concern is the fact that my largest class has like 42 kids in it. There isn't enough kids. Forty-two kids is my largest class. In high school, I know that there's classes that are still about the same. We have all grades rammed into one room because we don't have enough space to have three individual classes for each grade. It's, it, these, we're what the government doesn't understand is that we are suffering. Our students are suffering. If we can't give the best education we can because we don't have time to get to that fourth or fifth or six kid that needs higher needs in our room, we're letting those kids down. And then it becomes which kids are more important than other kids.

And then we're tired because we're feeling like we're not doing good enough job because we don't have the resources available for us. But students in a different way were also suffering being out of the class for three weeks. So what do you say to parents who see that as the primary concern at this moment? Three weeks now? Three weeks, is it really that big of a deal over the summer? Right? It was the same thing as a Christmas vacation, as winter break. All of these times, three weeks is not a lot of time for anyone other than high school students in all honesty.

And the parents that are on the side of the government are those that don't, understand that there are students out there that have higher needs than their kids. I don't think the parents that are siding with the government are the ones that have the kids with complex needs or the ones that have students that need special attention or need require EA assistance. The province is promising to hire 3,000 more teachers over three years and the conditions that they're imposing in terms of the collective agreement. This is something that the teachers union members voted on and rejected a 12% wage hike over 12, over four years. rather. How far does that go towards meeting the needs right now? Not even 50%. 3,000 teachers over the next three years is the bare minimum of what we would need to hire. The government wants to always, like Daniel Smith loves to say there's this many students versus this many teachers, that means that we should have classes of 21. Okay, so if we take her exact same math and go, you want to hire 3,000 teachers over X amount of schools, that's not, that's 1.1 teachers. That's 1.1 teachers.

for every single school out there. And with the 1,500 EAs, that's 0.0 something teachers for every single. Like, I don't have the math in front of me, but it's less than 1% per school for those EA assistants. They come back and say that that math isn't correct because not every school needs that many teachers, but my school specifically needs 34 more teachers in order for it to have the Canadian average of funding with a teacher-to-student ratio. So I don't think that other people's job.

should be in my bargaining, including like the educational assistance, that should be with the educational assistance, not with us. That is a promise. It's not something written into our contract. That is verbally stated, not written down. So the Alberta Teachers Association says it's discussing next moves this morning, your union. And there's talk the Alberta Labor Federation of perhaps a bigger move province-wide. What do you want to see now? I would really like to see us as teachers, our hands are now tied. We have had our rights taken away. We are being forced back into conditions

that we were originally standing up for. The government doesn't care. The labor force, if they are planning something bigger, we can't be a part of it now because it would be completely illegal costing each teacher $500 a day to defy the back-to-work order

and our union $500,000 a day to defy the back-to-work order. This is, and let me be very clear, this is a power move, This is strictly about having power over people, and this is Daniel Smith, dipping her toes into the notwithstanding clause because she plans on using it in the future towards trans individuals in this province, a group of people that are less than 1% that make up our province. Okay, we're going to leave the conversation there. Thank you for your time this morning, Stephen. Thank you so much. Stephen West teaches high school drama, leadership, and special education in Calgary. We did request interviews with Alberta's Minister of Education and Finance. They declined. We also contacted.

the Alberta's Teachers Association. We're told their governing body is busy meeting this morning to decide what to do next. The Alberta Federation of Labor says union leaders have discussed the possibility of a general strike. Tamara Hepner is a parent in Calgary. Good morning. Good morning. What do you think about what you heard there about this not being fair and this not being something that a lot of folks are on side with? Well, I mean, I guess first of all, I have great empathy for teachers. My husband's a teacher of over 20 years. And, you know, so by default, I have lots of friends who are also teachers. I do recognize his points. I understand there are definitely like classroom size issues with that and complex needs. I guess where we would disagree.

I guess, A, is who caused it and, you know, what is the solution? I do tend to agree that, you know, big picture students need to be back to school. What has it been like? Oh, sorry, to me. I just, what has it been like for your family over the last three weeks? Well, actually, we've fared a lot better than others. My husband, you know, he's a teacher, but he also supplements his income with a private business on the side. So we've fared a lot better. My son who's in grade 11,

you know, he really, he just missed out on his football season. So I understand that people have it much worse than we did, right? He's not in grade two and I'm having to stay home from work because he's at home, right? Or having to scramble to find childcare. Yeah. So, you know, for us personally, I can't complain. I feel bad about the situation. I do empathize for for all parties. Stephen did suggest that, you know, the students who are most likely to be affected by missing three weeks are in high school. In terms of your son's education. Oh, sure.

Do you have any concerns about the impact there? Yeah. So I kind of laughed because, you know, he was living the life of Riley. He's like, yes, I don't have to go to school. So he started working part-time and making some money on the side. But really the impact of, you know, nine months of curriculum being crammed now into eight months. is, you know, especially for him, he's not, he's not a lover of being, you know, stuck in a classroom. So we're going to see what the effects of that will be.

I kind of disagree that three weeks isn't a lot of time. I think in terms of, you know, nine months of curriculum, I don't know, in terms of math, the maths and sciences, and even for my son's sake, English, that's significant, right? He's not a drama. That would be no problem if he just missed drama school. You mentioned your husband is a teacher, and I wonder how you feel about the way this is being done. I hear you saying, you know, you want the kids back in class, but not only the use of the notwithstanding clause, there was also very little debate about this piece of legislation. It basically went through in a few hours' time.

How do you feel about that? I can see that point. However, I do remember a few years ago, we legitimately had rights taken away in the of, you know, not being able to protest having mandates on us as just regular citizens. You know, and if I wanted to... You're talking about, like, the pandemic vaccine mandates? Yeah. Yeah, and teachers were largely in support of these mandates, which is ironic to me.

But at the end of the day, I see the government as a tool for protection of its citizens. And I'm not sure what else could have been done, because clearly there were just, you know, there were some bad faith negotiations happening, in my opinion, from the ETA, who I would love to know, you know, where all the money has gone since we've hired no new teachers, but we have all these new students. And public funding comes from having new students, right? So where, where's all that money going? We've just got a moment left. That's my question. Yeah, we've just got a moment left Tamara. And I just want to ask you in closing about the, what Stephen was saying is the central issue there. Which is this question of class size, and I apologize, just a moment left, but are you, do you have any confidence that that's going to get resolved, the actual conditions in the classroom? Not tomorrow and not today. It is, these are growing pains. And that's why I do empathize with all parties, students, teachers. It's just not going to be fixed in a day. And it wasn't caused by the UCP government. It was, it's because Alberta is a great place to live and a lot of people are moving here. Okay. Listen, Tamara, I appreciate.

you taking the time to give us your perspective today. Thank you. Thank you. Tamara Hepner is a parent in Calgary. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarborough.cairot.com. Norval Moro is one of the most famous indigenous artists ever.

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assaults, abuse, and even an unsolved murder. I want my pain back. I know you kill that boy. Forged. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Jason Foster is a professor of human resources and labor relations at Athabasca University in Alberta. Jason, good morning. Good morning, Catherine. How significant is it that Alberta is using the notwithstanding clause to get teachers back to work? Oh, this is very significant.

This is only the second or third time in history that notwithstanding clause has been used in a labor relations situation. This is a significant overreach in terms of what they needed to do. If they actually wanted to end the strike, they could have done so using much more modest measures. And so this is clearly a signal that they are trying to embark on some kind of new dynamic in terms of labor relations. Let's talk for a minute about that. I mean, there were efforts, right? The Alberta Teachers Federation voted on a couple of different contract offers. There was a suggestion by the government of, I believe, non-binding arbitration at one point. What do you make of the fact that they have now taken this step?

Was it the next obvious step, I guess? No, it wasn't. I mean, the mediation that they offered last week, not to get into too many details, was basically they put a poison pill in it to make it kind of impossible for the teachers to be able to accept it. and even if they felt the need to bring an end to the strike-through back-to-work legislation, they could have done what most governments do in these kinds of situations, including the federal government in recent times of disputes federally, is to impose binding arbitration, which is not ideal. It's not a good labor relations dynamic,

but it at least kind of tries to respect the collective bargaining process. Instead, they've imposed their last offer, which teachers turn down by 98%. and they invoked the notwithstanding clause to protect and to shield this law from any kind of charter challenge, which is, you know, Doug Ford did it, tried to do it back in 2022, but other than that, it's fairly unprecedented. I will get to the Ontario example in a minute, but it's clear that the Premier part of this, she is hinging this on public opinion, right? We heard that clip off the top where she says people she's talked to are in favor of this. We just heard from a parent who wants her kid back in class.

other hand, you have the opposition in NDP, the head Nenshi, the new leader first day in question period talking about the use of the notwithstanding clauses, disgusting, shameful. What is your sense of how Albertans are going to view this move and whether or not they're going to be willing to get behind what the Premier has done here? Well, I think up until this point in the dispute, all evidence points to the fact that the public actually was siding with the teachers. And I think it's because they connected with the sense that they're, you know, it's about class sizes, it's about classroom complexity. And I think Albertans sort of instinctively understood that those are real and important issues about kind of making sure that our education system is as strong as it could be. And so

they've been sided with the teachers so far. And the government's been struggling to get the public on side with its messaging. And so I can't predict how the public's going to react to this particular legislation. But I think the Albertans are attuned. to the fact that, you know, while it has been challenging for families and for kids and not being in class, the counterpoint is that the government has just stomped on fundamental charter rights of the teachers. And I think that's the comparison that I think most Albertans will pay attention to. The question is, of course, what is going to happen now? Because the Premier has said she expects students and teachers back in the classroom.

And by Wednesday, union leaders, though, and the teachers union have been talking about an unprecedented. response. The Alberta Federation of Labor says, quote, the UCP just launched a war against workers and that they, quote, won't abandon teachers to deal with these bullies alone. What are you going to be watching for in the next few days? Oh, it's going to be, it's going to be quite an interesting couple of days. I mean, I'm not, you know, I guess the first question is, you know, what do the teachers do they abide by the legislation or they defy it? I mean, I imagine that this bill is very punitive. And so I imagine the financial penalties are strong. Oh, yeah, $500,000 a day to the union, $500 a day for each individual teacher. That makes it very difficult, I think, for the teachers to defy the legislation. So I think then it becomes a question. And what I'll be watching for is what does the rest of the labor movement do? You know, we mentioned, you know, Ontario in 2022, the reason that that bill very quickly got repealed is because Ontarioans and the labor movement responded in very strong force.

against that legislation, which forced Doug Ford to back down. And so I guess that's the dilemma that Albertans have before them this week. Well, I suppose the question of perhaps, say, a general strike and whether there is enough public support for something like that, not involving the teachers because of the penalties? Well, I mean, that's certainly, obviously, that's what the Alberta Federation of Labor is musing about. What I will say as a labor relations scholar is is Alberta doesn't tend to have a history of that kind of mobilization. It's not something that's been happening in our past, but, you know, we're dealing with an unprecedented piece of legislation.

And so that might lead to unprecedented response. I can't predict. I don't know what's going to happen over the next couple of days, but I will be watching very closely. We've been talking about the example of Ontario in 2002 when the Premier invoked the notwithstanding clause to deal with. In this case, it was education workers who were striking. In the end, he did, as you said, ended up backing off because of public opinion.

I wonder how important you think what happens in the next few days and Premier Smith's willingness to hold her ground on this are, as an example, for the rest of the country in terms of whether or not using the notwithstanding clause to deal with a labor relations situation is a way to go. I think this is a crucial moment. Yeah, not just for teachers, not just for Alberta, but for Canada. because I think what Daniel Smith has done has created a new bar in terms of what governments might be prepared to do to deal with public sector labor disputes. And so if this is allowed to stand, if she, you know, basically gets away with this, that may create a, that may offer a cue to other premiers to do similar action in other provinces.

And so I think that, you know, all Canadians should be paying attention to what happens here in the coming days, because I think it could, radically transform public sector labor relations in this country. Okay, we will be watching. Thank you very much for giving us your perspective today. My pleasure. Jason Foster is a professor of human resources and labor relations at Athabasca University in Alberta.

You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.