Alberta students back in class after teachers strike, threatened mass walkout fizzles

EDMONTON — Alberta’s provincewide teachers strike formally ended Wednesday as 740,000 students went back to classes and a threat from union leaders to launch a general strike fizzled.

From one end of the province to the other, there were red shirts, red-rimmed eyes – and a lot of questions.

In Calgary, two dozen parents and children cheered as teachers arrived at Colonel Walker elementary school following 16 days of missed instruction.

“We love teachers!” supporters yelled as staff arrived. Many were wearing red shirts, the colour of support for teachers at recent rallies.

“Thank you, teachers” was written in chalk on a sidewalk.

Some teachers were visibly moved, snapping photos and wiping away tears.

“It feels good. I’m glad that they’re back in the classroom,” said Colin Mitchell, who dropped off his nine-year-old son, Bennett, at the school.

“It’s just too bad that it had to come to this.

“But hopefully that gets resolved soon, so all parties are happy.”

In Edmonton, Grade 11 student Nyla Ahmadzai said she had mixed feelings about walking back into class at McNally School.

“I’m happy to be back, so I can show my teachers my support. But I’m not happy, because we’re coming back to the same thing (overcrowded classes),” said the 16-year-old.

She said her first class Wednesday — social studies — started off a little chaotic. With 37 students, she said she had to scramble to get a desk.

Students bombarded the teacher with questions about what was happening in the labour dispute and what’s next, often talking over one another, she said.

“It was hard to hear her respond,” Ahmadzai said.

“I felt this heavy burden, like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m back and I don’t like learning, because it’s so hard to learn in school.’”

Ahmadzai added some Edmonton students were planning a walkout Thursday in support of teachers.

Schools reopened after Premier Danielle Smith’s government invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to pass legislation earlier this week ordering the 51,000 teachers back to work.

The bill, passed within hours by Smith’s United Conservative caucus, also imposed a collective bargaining agreement previously rejected by rank-and-file members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association.

The province has promised hard data and a panel to address teachers’ core concerns about overcrowded classrooms and a lack of supports for students with complex needs.

Smith has said the three-week strike — the largest in Alberta history — was causing irreparable harm and that the government had no other choice but to invoke the notwithstanding clause.

The clause overrides some constitutional rights, in this case the teachers’ right to assemble, for up to five years.

The teachers union has said members won’t work to rule but called use of the notwithstanding clause a gross violation of rights.

Other groups, including Amnesty International, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Alberta’s Opposition NDP and several Alberta unions, condemned the move as flagrant overreach.

They warned it normalizes use of the clause to shut down labour disputes and shield governments from legal challenges.

In 2022, public and union backlash forced Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government to roll back legislation using the clause to end a labour dispute.

Gil McGowan, head of the Alberta Federation of Labour, promised in recent days “an unprecedented response” from a coalition of Alberta unions, including a general strike, if the province ordered teachers back using the clause. He said other unions were pitching in to build a war chest to pay fines.

On Wednesday, McGowan, flanked by other union leaders, announced there wouldn’t soon be a general strike. He said unions would canvass members and the public to see if there’s appetite for one. No timeline was set.

McGowan said they would also try to recall legislature members and take other steps to “throw sand in the gears” of Smith’s government.

He rejected suggestions from reporters that he mismanaged public expectations with his earlier promise of a mass walkout. He said organizing extreme measures like a general strike takes time.

“We have to build to the point where it’s so big that we protect ourselves by standing with each other,” he said.

“We are putting ourselves on the path, not just to a general strike, but to an unstoppable general strike.”

McGowan said in the meantime, the act of organizing a general strike may have the most impact.

Finance Minister Nate Horner said McGowan’s announcement “sounds like a plan to make a plan.”

“It sounds like they’re going to do some data mining, and that this is somehow politically driven,” he said.

Jason Foster, a labour relations professor at Athabasca University, said unions face more challenges in garnering support in Alberta’s conservative-leaning political environment.

“That sort of extra level of difficulty, I think, has gotten in the way of the level of cohesiveness that we see in other provinces such as Ontario, such as Quebec,” Foster said.

“That makes it harder to go from zero to 60 for the Alberta labour movement.”

Foster said he thinks McGowan’s announcement, paired with teachers broadly not defying the back-to-work order, doesn’t bode well if the goal is to have Smith pressured into rescinding the bill.

“The prospects of overturning this legislation in the short term are greatly diminished.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2025.

— With files from Lisa Johnson and Jack Farrell in Edmonton

Bill Graveland and Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press