Tag: Alberta Teachers’ Strike

Danielle Smith leaves Canada, flies to Saudi Arabia after invoking Notwithstanding Clause

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 2, 2025

Albertans’ negative reaction to the government’s handling of the teachers strike was probably a big reason why Premier Danielle Smith was scheduled to leave the country before her UCP MLAs passed Bill 2.

We don’t know exactly what Smith was looking at on her phone when she was photographed sitting at the Calgary International Airport while her UCP MLAs were still in the Legislature on Monday night, but her conveniently scheduled week-long trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates means that she will not face questions from reporters about suspending constitutional rights of citizens.

Danielle Smith’s job approval drops, Naheed Nenshi gets a bump

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 2, 2025

United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith’s own approval rating took a beating as well. The Premier saw her job approval drop from 44 per cent in May to 38 per cent this month. And, for the first time, that puts Smith below NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, who saw his approval jump up to 43 per cent in the same period.

Taking his seat in the Legislature this week, it definitely felt like Bill 2 gave Nenshi an opportunity to step into the spotlight and he didn’t disappoint.

UCP fumbling primed Albertans to support the teachers’ strike

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 1, 2025

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (right) was photographed sitting at the Calgary International Airport while UCP MLAs were still in the Legislature pushing through Bill 2 on Monday night. Smith is spending the week in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. (photo: publicinterestalberta / Instagram)

Danielle Smith left for Saudi Arabia before invoking Notwithstanding Clause

The fall session of the Legislature started on Monday and Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government wasted no time pushing through its legislation to force striking Alberta teachers back to work.

In a severely time-limited debate that took less than 12 hours in total, UCP MLAs voted on third reading to pass Bill 2: Back to Work Act at around 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

The bill imposed a new contract on 51,000 striking teachers until 2028, threatened hefty fines for any teachers who dared defy the UCP’s rushed law, and used the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to suspend teachers’ and the Alberta Teachers’ Associations’ rights to collective bargaining under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Evasive maneuvers! Alberta politics on a collision course!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 24, 2025

A large rally of around 30,000 striking teachers gathered outside the Legislature to welcome MLAs back for the fall session on October 23 (source: @atalocal8 / Instagram)

A loud crowd of 30,000 teachers and their supporters welcomed MLAs back to the Legislature

When MLAs returned to the Legislature yesterday for the Speech from the Throne and the start of the fall session they were welcomed back by a very large and very loud crowd of around 30,000 Alberta teachers.

More than 51,000 teachers from public, Catholic, and Francophone schools across the province have been on strike since October 6 with workload challenges being their biggest issue, namely class sizes and per-student funding.

Instead of getting back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal that could satisfy both the government and teachers, Premier Danielle Smith has signalled her government’s plans to fasttrack back to work legislation — and there is wide speculation that it could use the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to block any court challenges of the law.

The Order Papers for next week shows that Minister of Finance Nate Horner will soon introduce Bill 2: Back to School Act along with motions to severely limit debate at all stages of reading. With a 6 vote majority in the Legislature, UCP MLAs should have no problem pushing it through swiftly, though the opposition NDP can be expected to try its best to delay the passage of the bill.

Teachers used to be part of the PC Party big blue tent

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 12, 2025

Teachers used to be an important part of the big blue voter coalition that made the old Progressive Conservative Party an electoral juggernaut from 1971 to 2015.

There was even a former ATA President, Halvar Johnson, who served as a PC MLA under premiers Peter Lougheed and Don Getty and later as a cabinet minister in Premier Ralph Klein’s government. The relationship between teachers and the PC government had its rocky moments, but it was still common for teachers and even ATA officials to attend and participate in debates and votes at PC Party conventions.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta PC Party, Alberta Politics Substack, Alberta Teachers, Alberta Teachers' Association, Alberta Teachers' Strike, Alison Redford, Canada Election Substack, Danielle Smith, Daveberta Substack, Don Getty, Halvar Johnson, Ian Brodie, Peter Lougheed, Rachel Notley, Ralph Klein, Stephen Harper, United Conservative Party, University of Calgary, Wildrose Party

Alberta Politics

Breaking the ATA is in the official UCP policy book

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 12, 2025

Breaking up the ATA and making membership in the union optional for teachers are actual official UCP policies that were enthusiastically passed by delegates at the party’s convention last year in Red Deer.

In defending the policy to make membership optional, the UCP constituency association from Innisfail-Sylvan Lake wrote that the ATA is “supporting many controversial progressive ideologies that do not represent the values of many teachers who are forced to pay dues in order to maintain employment in this province.”

The policy was passed weeks after anti-sexual health education protests organized by UCP-connected activists were held outside the ATA’s offices in Edmonton. The political mood of those protests align with Nicolaides moral panic book ban fiasco and the government’s targeting of transgender and female students who want to play school sports.

But partisan conservatives didn’t always feel this way about teachers.

UCP cries poverty on funding but promises to build more schools

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 11, 2025

While the government cries poverty when it comes to the per-student funding, classroom sizes, and salary increases teachers are asking for, Premier Danielle Smith frequently points to her big promises of capital investments in the education system.

Smith promised in a televised address last year that the UCP government would build 130 new schools by 2031, which is a lot, but with the student population of the province growing by more than 33,000 per year (Smith’s number), that’s just playing catch up.

UCP Government ads are slicker than it’s spokespeople

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

The UCP government launched a series of advertisements shortly after the ATA announced its plans to strike. The ads promote what the government describes as “a good plan” and are short, easy to understand, and are framed as a policy proposal rather than a bargaining position.

Where the paid advertising ends and the spokespeople start talking is when the government’s messaging starts going off the rails.

The government’s messaging was derailed last week when senior UCP staffer Bruce McAllister publicly berated a high school student for asking a question about the teachers’ strike and private school funding during the Alberta Next panel town hall in Calgary. McAllister, a former news anchor-turned-Wildrose Party MLA who now runs the Premier’s Office in Calgary, told the young man that his parents should spank him before he cut off his microphone.

Danielle Smith’s UCP digging in for a long teachers’ strike

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith, Minister of Finance Nate Horner, and Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides say they are disappointed with the strike but have given no indication they were eager to return to the bargaining table to, well, actually bargain.

Smith, Horner and Nicolaides have signalled that they are prepared for a long teachers strike, and, despite claiming the cupboards are bare, the government will pay parents $30 a day to do teachers’ jobs from home, sort of, during a strike.

Teachers on strike in Alberta!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 9, 2025

Teachers and supporters after their daily morning picket near the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton (photo credit: Brad Lafortune)

More than 51,000 teachers launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta

Schools are empty this week as more than 51,000 Alberta teachers in public, Catholic and Francophone schools launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta.

The strike comes shortly after members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association overwhelmingly rejected a new contract for a second time in less than six months, with more than 90% voting against the proposal in the final days of September.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith vs. Alberta’s teachers

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 1, 2025

Danielle Smith speaks at an all-candidates forum in Edmonton during the 2009 Wildrose Alliance leadership race. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

With more than 43,000 members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association overwhelming rejecting the latest contract offer from the provincial government and an October 6 teachers strike fast approaching, a lot of people have been sharing links to a series of articles I wrote 16 years ago about Premier Danielle Smith’s disastrous time on the Calgary Board of Education in the late 1990s.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta Teachers, Alberta Teachers' Association, Alberta Teachers' Strike, Calgary Board of Education, Danielle Smith, Lyle Oberg, Teresa Woo-Paw, United Conservative Party, Wildrose Party

Alberta Politics

Moral panic! UCP book ban explodes as government on brink of major labour dispute with Alberta’s teachers

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date September 2, 2025

Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides (foreground) and Minister of Finance Nate Horner (background) (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)

Summer is coming to an end. Labour Day is just behind us and students are heading back to school. But it looks like Alberta teachers and the United Conservative Party government are on the brink of a major labour dispute.

It’s been 23 years since the last province-wide teachers strike in Alberta and the impasse at the bargaining table has increased the possibility of another major job action.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack