Alberta set to order teachers back to work next week if strike unresolved

As more than 50,000 teachers in Alberta enter their third week out of classes, the provincial government is set to table back-to-work legislation when the fall session begins next Monday.

Premier Danielle Smith has said such legislation should be expected on Oct. 27 if the strike is unresolved by then. The province and Alberta Teachers’ Association remain at loggerheads, with the union rejecting Alberta’s proposal to enter mediation and end the strike because the province’s conditions mean class-size caps and student-teacher ratios would not be negotiable.

Even if legislation is tabled next week, questions remain about when classes would restart and whether the issues at the heart of negotiations would be resolved through binding arbitration.

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Next steps will be discussed on Tuesday at a scheduled cabinet meeting, Alberta Jobs and Economy Minister Joseph Schow said at a Monday afternoon news conference in Edmonton.

“The Opposition would oppose such legislation vehemently, so we would have to use other tools at our disposal to get it through in a timely manner,” said Mr. Schow, also the Government House Leader.

Mr. Schow wouldn’t comment on whether Alberta plans to use the notwithstanding clause, a provision that allows governments to shield legislation from Charter challenges.

In a statement to The Globe and Mail, ATA spokesperson Heather Grant said the union’s elected officials are meeting to discuss the government’s comments.

Should Alberta go ahead with back-to-work legislation, Ms. Grant wrote, the ATA would seek advice from legal counsel.

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More than 750,000 French, Catholic and public school students have been out of class since Oct. 6 − the day teachers walked off the job after voting overwhelmingly to strike. The negotiations have pivoted around salaries, class sizes and resources for students with complex needs.

It’s the largest strike in Alberta history and the first job action by teachers in the province since 2002, when about 21,000 public school teachers walked off the job. In that instance, classes in many parts of the province had been cancelled for more than two weeks when the Alberta government issued an emergency order forcing teachers back to work.

But the province chose to issue a ministerial order instead of passing back-to-work legislation − a more efficient but less surefire way of forcing teachers back to work.

The union challenged the order and won, with Justice Allan Wachowich finding the strike hadn’t caused hardship sufficient to suspend a group’s right to strike. “If a strike did not cause some degree of hardship it would be pointless,” Justice Wachowich wrote in his decision.

In the Alberta Legislature, it could take 24 hours to a week for back-to-work legislation to become law, said Jason Foster, professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University.

“This depends on how that back-and-forth battle with the Opposition will play out and how much time they’re prepared to give for debate,” he said.

The union’s ability to challenge back-to-work legislation would be more difficult than in 2002, Prof. Foster said. It could take the province to court by launching a time-consuming legal challenge for which a decision likely wouldn’t be issued for six months to a year − and a decision in the teachers’ favour would likely result in a years-long appeal process, he said.

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But Alberta also has the option of shielding the legislation with the notwithstanding clause, overriding the union’s ability to issue a legal challenge, Prof. Foster said. In 2022, Ontario Premier Doug Ford responded to a potential strike of 55,000 education workers by tabling back-to-work legislation that included the notwithstanding clause.

Mr. Ford eventually repealed that legislation after pushback from numerous organized labour groups.

Back-to-work legislation would nevertheless make strike action illegal, and penalties such as daily fines for the union or individual members could be included, Prof. Foster said.

Edmonton parent Jodi McDonald says the prospect of the government ordering teachers back to work makes her blood pressure rise.

“It just makes me so angry. They got us here, and now they don’t want to do the work to get us back to the right place,” she said.

Ms. McDonald’s son, in Grade 11, doesn’t require much parenting, she said.

But parents with younger children may welcome the return to school brought on by back-to-work legislation, said Ms. McDonald, who co-founded the Edmonton Public Schools Advocacy Network in 2023.

“I think those parents will be relieved to have their kids back in school, and I think that’s what the provincial government’s relying on,” she said.