Taxpayers win as Alberta ends costly teachers’ strike

Premier Danielle Smith held the line, rejected union pressure, and saved taxpayers from another costly payout

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Alberta students are back in class after missing nearly a month of school because of a teachers’ strike.

Parents and their children are relieved to see students back in class. Taxpayers are also breathing easier, knowing the government refused to throw more money at a teachers’ union already backed by substantial public funding.

Here’s what happened.

The Alberta government earmarked $2.6 billion for education increases, offering teachers pay raises while hiring more education assistants and new teachers. The Alberta Teachers’ Association, the province’s main teachers’ union, initially supported the deal, but members rejected it.

Teachers went on strike on Oct. 6, shutting down classrooms and putting teachers off the job with no strike pay. After weeks of striking, the union demanded an additional $2 billion from taxpayers. The government refused that demand and invited teachers to return to work while the bargaining sides went to mediation.

The union leadership rejected the offer for teachers to return to work, a move that upset some teachers. An Edmonton teacher contacted the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, saying the government’s offered pay raise was acceptable and she disagreed with the union’s demand for more money.

“It is absolutely fiscally irresponsible and any government who would do it would be held under a microscope for doing it,” the teacher said during the interview.

Many Albertans would likely agree with that teacher’s assessment.

Alberta is on track to have a debt of $84.3 billion, with debt interest costing taxpayers $3 billion this year. Once known for its debt-free status, Alberta’s growing deficit has become a political flashpoint. Albertans could not afford the union’s demands to spend a combined $4.6 billion. That amount of money would cover the provincial income tax bills of 1.2 million Albertans—the population of Edmonton.

It was a standoff.

Students were blocked from their schools, parents were stressed, and teachers didn’t have paycheques. Premier Danielle Smith did the right thing by refusing to hand over one more dollar of taxpayers’ money. Whether invoking the notwithstanding clause was justified is a question for legal experts to debate. But taxpayers are relieved the government stood firm.

Alberta teachers now have the same contract their leadership tentatively agreed to back in September. Most teachers will get up to a 17 per cent pay raise over four years. According to the salary grid posted on the government’s website, new Alberta teachers will start at about $71,000 per year, while teachers with seven years of experience will be paid more than $100,000 per year.

In Manitoba, equivalent new teachers start at about $70,300 per year, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $95,700. In Saskatchewan, equivalent new teachers start at $68,000 per year, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $88,000. In Surrey, British Columbia, equivalent new teachers start at about $64,500, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $85,000.

To meet the needs of a growing population, Smith is hiring 4,500 new teachers and assistants. Taxpayers are also funding $8 billion in new school construction and upgrades to reduce class sizes and improve special education support.

“We have got to target our support to individual classrooms. I would encourage the member opposite to watch the video that Kris Sims did with a teacher—she’s got four classes with 31 kids in them. One of them has 16 who are coded or English language learners. That’s the classroom we need to fix,” Smith said in the legislature.

With government labour groups threatening taxpayers with a general strike, readers might think Smith had taken a page from the late premier Ralph Klein’s playbook: cutting teachers’ pay by five per cent and rolling back government wages to slay the debt.

Smith has not done that. The government has increased funding for education by 33 per cent since 2021–22. Alberta teachers will be the highest-paid teachers in Western Canada, while working about 190 days a year, in a province with no sales tax.

That’s enough. Taxpayers are tapped out, and they aren’t being squeezed for $2 billion more.

Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.