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EDMONTON — Thousands of teachers and supporters jeered, chanted and dumped protest potatoes at the door of the Alberta legislature Thursday as Premier Danielle Smith set a Monday deadline to solve a provincewide strike one way or another.
Smith said with the strike deep into its third week, the hardship facing students and families is intolerable, forcing her government to step in.
She said if the two sides can’t reach a deal at the bargaining table in the next few days, her United Conservative government will introduce back-to-work legislation Monday.
“We were dismayed that it came to this point,” Smith told reporters at a news conference Thursday.
“We think that the offer we put forward is fair,” she added. “We hope that there’ll be an opportunity to have a breakthrough, but barring that, we’ve got to get the kids back to class.”
Smith made the announcement on the same day politicians returned to the legislature for the fall sitting to hear Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani outline government plans and priorities in the speech from the throne.
As Lakhani spoke to politicians and dignitaries in the chamber, outside thousands of teachers and their supporters, dressed in red, came out to protest the back-to-work order, banging drums, shouting and chanting.
Many carried signs, including a child whose sign read: I care about my teacher. Another sign invoked some e-imagery, reading: Alexa, change the Premier.
On the front staircase of the sandstone building, protesters laid a pile of russet potatoes. The spuds were in reference to Smith earlier urging teachers to show more flexibility in bargaining by saying “There’s more than one way to peel a potato.”
Smith’s United Conservative government has already laid the required procedural groundwork to introduce the back-to-work bill.
It has added to the legislature order paper that it has the option, should it wish to do so, to introduce the Back to School Act, with changes to debate rules to allow for quick passage through the house.
Government house leader Joseph Schow declined to say whether the bill would pass all debate stages to be ready to become law by end of day Monday. Schow said they’re going to see how the chamber debate goes and invoke time limits on debate as needed.
The strike is affecting 51,000 teachers and 750,000 students in public, separate and francophone schools across Alberta. Members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association walked off the job Oct. 6 and no formal talks with the province are scheduled.
Finance Minister Nate Horner said if teachers want to resume talks, the government is ready and willing to sit down.
“I think we’ve never left the table in the sense that if an offer came across the table this weekend, or if they contacted (the government bargaining agent) and asked for formal dates, conversations will be had,” Horner told reporters.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides could not give a definitive date on when students would be back in the classroom, saying those timelines will flow from when the bill passes.
Teachers’ association president Jason Schilling said they will need to assess the bill Monday before talking next steps. He said to be legislated against without being listened to feels disrespectful.
“It makes me angry for my members because they have put their heart and soul into public education,” Schilling told reporters.
“How are you supposed to have debate in the house that is supposed to represent those across this province by limiting that debate and ramming through legislation?”
The two sides are deadlocked over wages and classroom conditions. The province has offered a 12-per-cent wage hike over four years and a promise to hire 3,000 more teachers to reduce overcrowded classrooms.
Teachers have rejected that offer, saying more teachers and more concrete steps are needed to address class sizes and other complexities such as students with special needs.
Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi condemned the back-to-work legislation, calling it an abuse of power. “It’s an attack on parents, it’s an attack on teachers, it’s an attack on education, and I hate saying it: it’s an attack on democracy,” he said.
Also Thursday, the speech from the throne touted Alberta’s “diplomatic victory” against the United States in the ongoing trade war.
Lakhani said diplomatic efforts south of the border mean the vast majority of Alberta exports remain tariff-free while turning the tide of public opinion by quieting a national “anti-energy” movement with its advocacy.
The speech also took aim at policies United Conservatives have long railed against, including safe drug supply, federal bail and sentencing rules, and what it deemed “institutionalized censorship.”
After the throne speech, Smith tabled the sitting’s first bill, which restates Alberta’s existing right to ignore international agreements signed by Ottawa if those agreements have goals that touch on provincial jurisdiction, such as health care.
Smith said the bill is a matter of defending Alberta’s interests. But experts have said provinces already have the right not to comply as Canada’s division of powers means Ottawa can’t force provinces to take up the cause on things that fall beyond federal jurisdiction.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2025.
— with files from Aaron Sousa
Lisa Johnson and Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
