Western Standard - Teachers vote down proposed deal, strike action imminent in Alberta

00:00:00.000 all right well so locally we've got the teachers are are uh revolting uh you know berta it looks

00:00:07.040 like they may be going on strike as soon as this monday and uh parents are on the hook i think we

00:00:12.160 might be in for the long haul for a bit let me just give you some numbers uh to chew over uh

00:00:18.160 they were offered a 12 raise over four years uh teachers with uh five years education and five

00:00:24.880 years in classroom experience would be making well over a hundred thousand dollars for 10 months uh

00:00:31.280 work uh the deal included uh 1500 new educational assistants 3000 new teachers uh to go along with

00:00:41.520 8.6 billion dollars in new school construction and alberta teachers rejected that by uh 89.5

00:00:49.840 percent uh they're angry and they've had enough and they're gonna likely go on strike on monday

00:00:56.080 to help parents they're gonna get 30 a day to pay for daycare or whatever else they have to do with

00:01:03.440 their kids 150 bucks a week and that money is going to come from the teachers what would have been their

00:01:10.560 salaries but they're not getting them anymore uh they're not getting paid while they're on strike

00:01:14.480 so that money is going to uh families and there's going to be uh online courses that parents can get

00:01:20.880 the uh the teachers uh going on but if i was a betting man i'd say uh it's going to last a while this

00:01:27.440 strike yeah i did again i i don't think that i think the premier is laying down a

00:01:36.000 reputation as a hardliner on everything that she touches um what we've just been talking about with 0.95

00:01:41.360 the pipelines is actually a pretty hard line response notwithstanding some of corey's reservations

00:01:47.120 uh she's taken pretty strong positions on some of the fringe areas around the education act with the

00:01:54.160 with the pornographic textbooks and the and in terms of the transgender stuff she's been very firm 0.94

00:02:02.400 wait till you're 18 wait till you're adult so she is not afraid unlike some premiers she does not

00:02:10.240 just sort of see which way the wind is blowing she's got her ideas she puts it out there and my

00:02:16.000 sense is that she's not going to like this and she will fight them you're right this could go on for

00:02:22.240 a while i'm liking where she's going already again preparing parents trying to do what she can she's

00:02:26.880 already basically signaling to the teachers too we're not going to flip and settle overnight guys you

00:02:31.200 rejected a good offer we're going to starve you out a little bit here uh elise i mean you know bc and

00:02:37.280 unions boy that's certainly an area and few things put chills into the spine of a politician more than

00:02:42.720 than dealing with a teacher strike of all things when you have a bunch of upset parents and and uh

00:02:47.840 pressure put on things but uh do you think premier smiths can be able to weather this storm

00:02:53.040 i i think so i if i could give a little advice i was uh i'm a former spinner for the gordon campbell

00:02:58.320 government um and a little bit of the christy cart government um and i'll say i there were years where it

00:03:05.280 was just rolling strikes my child was caught in years of strike action from kindergarten all the

00:03:11.280 way through to grade six um and i regret not pulling my child out and putting her in the public or private

00:03:16.720 system i would say that we've gone through some heavy duty strikes here um and i would say that you

00:03:23.520 must hold the line um what i can't understand i looked at the offer that the alberta teachers uh were

00:03:31.760 was put on the table by the government and i compared it to what bc's last offer was and that

00:03:36.640 in bc the bctf contract um actually expires next spring uh so we don't have that long but i would

00:03:43.440 say that alberta teachers are far far ahead than almost every teaching federation or association in

00:03:49.520 the country i think the sticking point and i think there's more to this as well they didn't like the book

00:03:54.800 ban um they're they've got membership and they're much like the bctf and maybe more so at the bctf

00:04:01.520 that's quite militant in its approach um they didn't like being told what type of books they should read

00:04:08.000 what the what type of literature and conversation they should be having with their students i think

00:04:12.720 there's some of that at play at play as well and they want to push her and this is a bit of a revenge 0.88

00:04:17.360 thing quite a thing as well but i would say that it i understand some of the parts that the alberta

00:04:24.400 teachers are complaining about which is really a federal problem it has a lot to do with class size

00:04:30.160 caps and that was a sticking feature and has been for almost 12 years in british columbia

00:04:35.920 each province is seeing almost about a 10 percent uh growth in their classrooms that's a lot for

00:04:42.080 teachers and every child now seems to have an issue and without the special needs of special

00:04:47.760 education attached to that or aid workers uh the deal really isn't going to get done so my advice

00:04:53.600 to the alberta government is fixate on that demonstrate to the public that you're coming to

00:04:58.320 the table because there is a lot of parental support i was surprised there's a lot of parental

00:05:02.640 support in alberta for the teachers but it's sticking on this issue um and i think that you can bring

00:05:08.640 kids back to the classroom the way that we did once we finally in the third iteration of these strikes

00:05:14.560 we relented and we were able to look at class size caps and also the addition of more aid workers i will

00:05:20.080 say cringer smith has almost come to fully to the table on that it's just there's a few numbers there

00:05:26.720 that need to be worked out i think it's interesting what you're saying there about parental support

00:05:32.400 for the teachers what matters i yes well i i have a few people in the friends in the in the teaching

00:05:42.000 profession who say that there is a hate on in the teaching profession for the smith government they

00:05:51.760 don't they just it doesn't i'm not sure what a good deal could have looked like which would have got

00:05:57.600 past that they just don't like the idea that somebody else not just teachers somebody else

00:06:04.960 has got some firm ideas on how children should be taught and what they should be taught i mean you

00:06:10.640 mentioned the books just now and i mentioned them earlier too when you look at what we've got there

00:06:16.080 like you would have been put in prison 20 years ago if you don't offer that stuff in a school

00:06:20.640 so i have to say that if parents are supporting that well um my sympathies are somewhat diminished

00:06:27.840 you look on monday monday teachers are without paying right there there is no strike fund for

00:06:35.120 for to pay the strikers you know you normally if you show up on picket line duty you get you get a

00:06:40.480 daily stipend there is no money for that for teachers so cory you talked about starving them out

00:06:45.840 as of monday if they go on strike teachers have no income and i mean they gotta you know pay for the

00:06:50.480 summer cottage for their two months off somehow yes and their christmas vacations and the november

00:06:55.120 vacation that was family day long weekend arbor day yes uh you name it on these wretched radio

00:07:03.760 ads that we keep hearing i don't know it it makes me where'd all those union dues go it makes me

00:07:08.720 question how financially secure the the union is if they can't afford strike pay but that said there

00:07:13.760 is 51 000 of them right i would i would remind you guys and i would remind the teachers that it's

00:07:20.000 caught it's public knowledge at the at our fingertips just to google search the bctf and the alberta

00:07:26.240 teachers and the quebec teachers and the ontario teachers and ontario is an even bigger mess they

00:07:31.040 have never met a government that they can do business with and it's been proven with the ndp the

00:07:36.560 successive governments in british columbia the ndp governments from the original you know glenn clark

00:07:41.600 governments all the way to david edie it's not just right of center or um you know conservative

00:07:49.840 governments for example they like to play that narrative as the big meanie you know they're

00:07:54.480 right-wing fascist they want to crush us well i would look at the comments they made about rachel

00:07:59.920 knotley uh when they were in their negotiations they were hard liners then they didn't like her then

00:08:05.600 they didn't they don't like david edie they didn't like john horrigan um so this is more about ideology

00:08:12.080 it's a militant ideology and unfortunately i don't think it represents like the postal workers and i've

00:08:17.840 talked to many bc teachers for example it they're frustrated by these militant union leaders um that

00:08:23.680 get ahead and get elected and what we noticed is that if we gave them enough rope they would not swing

00:08:30.480 but you know they would the house the cards would fall down and they eventually do turn on each

00:08:36.800 other and that's when you have to come back in and say okay we're going to come to the table we

00:08:41.360 understand the capping of class size and i will say the capping of class size is a pretty antiquated

00:08:46.960 um thing to to stand you hold your ground on and it's about it's 10 years old we've all all the

00:08:53.280 governments have thought about this you eventually have to relent because it is an immigration issue and

00:08:58.480 with immigration has come some serious socioeconomic problems that we are just not prepared and 1.00

00:09:03.920 unfortunately the front line is the classroom and our healthcare system you know alice i think we have

00:09:09.360 to remember that there are some really good people in the teaching profession there are there are and

00:09:17.360 however only 11 voted in for the deal and i i wonder if that gives you some idea of the proportion of

00:09:25.760 of the you've got to own it when it's a vote i mean so the rhetoric too as you're talking about

00:09:31.120 with ideology and so on i was mentioned there with with uh our creepy senator wells uh calling

00:09:36.400 premier smith the dictator yes um which is kind of ironic considering at least she was elected he

00:09:42.000 was appointed so if anybody's more of a dictator it would be that strange little man but he's really

00:09:48.240 torquing this sort of thing i mean we've got a senator stepping between and getting in the way between a

00:09:54.640 provincial and uh uh you know a school uh strike going on like this is going to get ugly yeah it's

00:10:02.000 none of his business really um and you're right he is creepy and uh you're right the rhetoric needs

00:10:07.680 to be toned down uh and it's only going to get worse until monday well the other aspect too and

00:10:14.640 we've talked about that a lot we've had you know john hilton o'brien speak of it uh if anything's going

00:10:19.520 to help parents start to reconsider keeping their kids in the regular public system it's when the

00:10:24.080 teachers do things like this the teachers union despises the thought of more charter schools or

00:10:29.360 private schools or homeschooling but it's just this sort of thing that makes parents realize that maybe

00:10:34.080 i like those options better yep you can see charter school enrollment booming next year yeah it happened

00:10:40.000 in bernish columbia the public private schools and uh what you guys call charter schools

00:10:45.120 completely boomed and it's maintained and it's growing in british columbia because like canada

00:10:51.760 post bc's education education system became extremely unreliable i'm not joking when i say it was six

00:10:58.720 school years of rotating strikes black armbands as well uh the teachers were wearing black armbands

00:11:06.720 dressed all in black it horrified the children it was a horrible time in our province but

00:11:12.160 private schools other types of schools have done nothing but extremely well in this province

Western Standard - October 04, 2025

Teachers vote down proposed deal, strike action imminent in Alberta

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