Alberta teachers vote 95% in support of strike
Plus, Canada joins its allies in sanctioning the 2 most extreme Israeli cabinet ministers.
This story was originally published at the Progress Report.
The Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA) has received an overwhelming strike mandate of 95 per cent from its membership, but it’s unclear if or when teachers will proceed with job action.
ATA president Jason Schilling announced the results of the vote, which occurred from June 5 to 8 with a turnout of 76 per cent, in an online Tuesday afternoon news conference.
Schilling said that teachers’ strong strike mandate sends “an unmistakable message.”
“We are united, we are determined, and we will no longer hold up a crumbling public education system that this government fails to fund properly,” he said.
The vote’s result was about more than just teachers’ pay, Schilling emphasized.
“It's about respect, resources and the future of public education in Alberta,” he explained. “It's about our students who are slipping through the cracks. It's about our colleagues who are burning out and leaving the profession. It's about our working conditions, which are our students’ learning conditions.”
In 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, Alberta spent a total of $11,180 per student—by far the least of any province.
The next steps are in the hands of the ATA’s provincial executive council, which has 120 days to initiate strike action with 72 hours advance notice.
Meanwhile, the ATA and the Teachers’ Employer Bargaining Association have bargaining scheduled for June 19 and 20, which the ATA intends on proceeding with, in addition to continued negotiations in August if necessary.
“We hope the government will come with real solutions to address teachers' concerns,” said Schilling. “Alberta's public education is in a crisis, and at a tipping point.”
He added that a negotiated solution would be the preferred outcome.
“Nobody necessarily wants to go on strike,” said Schilling, “but we will move forward with that if we find that we're unable to get to a negotiated settlement that meets our needs.”
The last time teachers in Alberta went on strike was in 2002.
Canada joins allies in sanctioning the 2 most extreme Israeli cabinet ministers
On Tuesday, Canada joined the U.K., Norway, Australia and New Zealand in sanctioning Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a convicted terrorism supporter, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-described “fascist homophobe.”
Ben Gvir and Smotrich “have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights," the five countries said in a joint statement. "Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous. These actions are not acceptable."
The statement added that “today's measures focus on the West Bank, but of course this cannot be seen in isolation from the catastrophe in Gaza.”
The sanctions mean that neither Ben Gvir nor Smotrich can enter Canada, the U.K., Norway, Australia or New Zealand, and nobody in those countries can do business with them.
Both Ben Gvir and Smotrich reside in illegal West Bank settlements.
U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio called on the five countries to reverse course and “not forget who the real enemy is.”
Canadian global affairs minister Anita Anand clarified that the sanctions were only targeted at the two ministers who “directly contribute to extremist settler violence," not the entire Israeli government.
NDP foreign affairs critic
noted that Ben Gvir and Smotrich aren’t outliers in Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government.Netanyahu himself is, of course, a wanted man by the International Criminal Court for using starvation as a method of warfare, as well as murder and persecution, in Gaza.
“Canada should respect international law and sanction Netanyahu and his cabinet immediately for their role in the genocide of Gaza. All Israeli officials who incite or are responsible for genocide should be sanctioned," McPherson said in a statement.
She reiterated the NDP’s calls for a two-way arms embargo on Israel, the suspension of the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement and recognition of the State of Palestine.
Last month, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, U.K. premier Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron co-signed an open letter warning of “concrete actions” if Israel didn’t allow sufficient qualities of humanitarian aid into Gaza, end military operations there and refrain from expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Less than two weeks later, the Israeli government announced plans to build 22 new settlements in the West Bank.
Read the full story from David Baxter at the Canadian Press.
In other news …
The G7 summit occurring next week in Kananaskis, Alta., promises to be a real rogues gallery, with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman the latest serial human rights violator to receive an invitation alongside Donald Trump and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Manitoba NDP VP Chris Wiebe has quit his job and the party, citing Premier Wab Kinew’s “top-down leadership style,” and lack of commitment to funding public services and fighting climate change.
The price of purchasing 88 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35A fighter jets from the U.S. government has nearly doubled since 2019, with the cost projected to continue increasing with time, according to Auditor General Karen Hogan. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau explicitly campaigned against purchasing F-35s in 2015 before backtracking in 2022.
Hundreds of U.S. marines that nobody asked for arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday, joining 1,700 National Guard troops to assist immigration enforcement officers in conducting mass deportations and local law enforcement in suppressing protests.
President Trump is preparing to transfer illegal immigrants to the notorious U.S. torture chamber at Guantánamo Bay, including those from allied countries such as the U.K., France, Germany, Italy the Netherlands and Ukraine, to free up space at domestic detention facilities as immigration officials seek to arrest 3,000 people a day.
I think I was at the rally in your photo (or another similar one) as a teenager with my teacher mom. We got up a 4 am to ride a rented school bus with a bunch of Peace country teachers to rally against Klein’s cuts. That would have earlier than 23 years ago - possibly late 90s? Klein seems positively (dare I say severely) normal compared to what followed him.
And when our teachers do go on strike, let's see a majority of parents and grandparents out on the picket lines in support of those who do the real work of making sure a democratic society survives.
If our children don't qualify for good service in this 'economic engine of Canada', then how 'economic' is that penny pinching engine???