Alberta Premier ‘Disappointed’ Teachers Rejected Mediation Request, Is Ready to Order Them Back

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told an Oct. 17 news conference she’s willing to legislate teachers back to work, saying she’s “disappointed” that the provincial teachers union turned down a mediation offer to settle the ongoing strike and return students to the classroom.

At the news conference with Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, Smith said she is ready to table back-to-work legislation when the legislature reconvenes Oct. 23.

“We think that three weeks is about the limit of what students can handle before we start seeing irreparable harm,” she said.

If there isn’t a return to the bargaining table with students back in classrooms by next week, “you should fully expect that there’ll be legislation in the week of Oct. 27,” Smith said.

Finance Minister Nate Horner also indicated during an Oct. 15 radio interview that the province was likely to introduce such legislation.

Alberta teachers went on strike on Oct. 6 after a months-long contract dispute between the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) and the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association, which bargains on behalf of school boards. The ATA has called for the province to address classroom complexity and higher salaries.

On Oct. 16, the province sent a letter to the ATA, asking it to participate in an “enhanced mediation process” that would produce a mediator’s report by Nov. 13 for the parties to ratify by Nov. 20.

The ATA declined the offer in an Oct. 17 letter signed by Dennis Theobald, CEO of ATA, saying the proposed mediation would “severely restrict the scope of the solutions that the mediator could even consider.”

Theobald said the government had stipulated that the mediator could not recommend hard caps on class sizes or student teacher ratios, making the proposal “engineered to produce a biased and predetermined outcome” favouring the province.

As a result, the proposal was “bound to fail” and “entirely unacceptable,” he said.

Theobald said teachers are aware the province might pass back-to-work legislation or impose “punitive measures,” but they won’t “step back” from their principles.

Healso said the union offered a proposal on Oct. 14 and hasn’t heard back from the government. The province referenced the offer in its Oct. 16 letter to the union, saying it “reintroduces similar elements found in the Association’s ingoing positions on classroom complexity (while also proposing additional compensation increases), nearly doubling the cost of the recent Memorandum of Agreement in the process.”

Smith said the union’s offer would cost billions of dollars more than the government has allocated for a contract.

“The ATA’s latest offer would have cost taxpayers an additional $2 billion on top of the 2.6 billion that we have already committed—a total of $4.6 billion,” Smith said at the news conference. “Our province is facing a $6.5 billion budget deficit this year, and we must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

She said the ATA needs to come back to the table “with a deal that is grounded in reality.”

The strike affects more than 700,000 students across the province.