Recalls are notwithstanding clause for Albertans
By Lethbridge Herald on December 12, 2025.
Editor,
A couple of Provincial Cabinet Ministers, the Minister of Education Demetrios Nicoliades and Infrastructure Minister Martin Long, broke cover this last week or so, and admitted that their government nullified the Charter of Rights because they “could not risk allowing the labour dispute to go to arbitration and put the province at risk of paying out hundreds of millions of dollars.”(Lisa Johnson Canada Press Dec 4).
That is to say: the UCP government was so uncertain of their bargaining position with teachers in this province that they removed a charter right due to all Canadian citizens. Okay, fair enough. Labour management is an adversarial process, under the system we have here in this country, and the temptation to take advantage of whatever bit of an edge comes to hand can be overwhelming at times. I get that. As is the urge to put as bright a face as you can on actions you know deep down are at least a bit shady.
The problem here, though, is we have in this country a system where the inherent power imbalance between employers and unionized employees has been brought to an uneasy equilibrium based on a recurrent pattern of contract negotiations at set and specified intervals, between which times disagreements between the parties are dealt with through a formalized grievance-arbitration process. At the centre of this process is the possibility of the parties turning to a formal, legally impartial, arbitrator to hear the arguments from both sides and render judgment. It’s a system where nobody’s always happy, because they don’t always win, but neither do they always lose.
And it does work. A bit shakily at times but it does work. Both sides have an intrinsic trust in the system. Well, the United Conservative Party has just taken a sledgehammer to that trust.
If an employer, in this case the provincial government, can take advantage of its power and overturn a well established relationship with some of their employees, a relationship based in good part on a faith in the intrinsic impartiality of the system then what is to stop them from doing the same thing with any or all of the rest of the people who work for them? Or in extending the same advantage to particularly favoured employers in the private sector? Or in using similar tactics by intervening in the day to day grievance arbitration process? Not a whole hell of a lot.
And on the other side? Sure, the workers — teachers in the immediate case, but, conceivably, health care workers, public employees of all stripes — could defy the legislation, could walk off the job, and far more likely, bury the immediate employers, the school boards, the various mutations that the government has broken the health sector up into, and all the rest beneath an avalanche of health and safety complaints, grievances, human rights complaints and all the bureaucratic minutia which can so easily clog up a system. And I fully expect that to happen.
However, in this case, the real antagonist, the true and ultimate employer, is the provincial government. And they don’t really care. In fact there are factions within the ruling party in this province who would love to see the government agencies grind to a halt. It would provide an excuse to keep shifting public services onto the for-profit private sector. This is already happening, the aggrieved teachers, the rightfully apprehensive hospital workers and their friends are doing exactly what the provincial government has done: using the tools which come to hand. In this case using the recall legislation that the UCP itself so conveniently threw on the table, albeit with a rather different end in view.
Talk about the yellow dog being bit. We live in interesting times.
Ken Sears
Lethbridge
12-11
It’s freedom of association, not freedom to walk off the job the government hires you to do. The so called “right to strike” written into the constitution in 2015. In other words errant activist judges made up rights without a constitutional amendment. The NWC was demanded by Premier Lougheed to prevent exactly this situation. Activist judges and union bosses finally hit a wall. Funny how some prefer to be ruled by nine and not but government until they dealt the reality of who governs who.
Ah yes, 2015. Famously the first year where there was a legal strike in Canada. Or… maybe you don’t understand what happened in that decision?
2015 certainly did mark a formal change in labor rights, but all it did was codify a view that had been forming since the 80s. And while I realize you’re just repeating what you’ve heard from conservative politicians, as opposed to actually doing your homework, if you had done it, you’d realize that the 2015 decision specifically allows the right to strike in the absence of “access to independent, effective dispute resolution processes”.
The Alberta government did not have to allow the strike to continue. But if they forced teachers back to work, they were required to provide independent arbitration. They didn’t do so, because they knew their actions were unreasonable, and any 3rd party would find it unreasonable.
Ah yes, but there was no constitutional amendment, so you espouse noise. Further you reveal your desire to be ruled by nine and not by duly elected governments. I need to remind you the latest legislation and amendment to the CCC regarding femicide. That is how it is done in that much favoured word, Democracy. Anything other than this, as in read in, is subject to the NWC. Lougheeds intention to reel in errant judges. It has long been noted that the favourite tactic of the NDP is to use the courts ad nauseum to get their way. In this instance that method has been usurped and the crying is incessant. Lougheed saw this coming and so should you. It is completely mindless thinking that the UCP did not surround themselves with constitutional lawyers providing advice on this very useful clause. And another lie, the ATA was asked back to the table and refused, demanding arbitration. Tough luck, ATA and all the rest are learning, not eloquently, just who runs the province. The elected majority. And in typical fashion the NDP and followers cry like kids in the shopping cart who just had to put the candy back.
I’m sure that Smith didn’t get any constitution advice from well versed legal council.
Not sure where you’re getting with this “writing things into the constitution” thing. (BTW constitution should be capitalized as it’s a proper noun)
An interpretation by a court, including the Supreme Court, does affect how the Constitution is applied, but it is not an amendment to the Constitution.
Perhaps you are referring to the Delwin Vriend case where the Court ordered that sexual orientation be read into Alberta’s human rights legislation? That didn’t change the Constitution, it just required that Alberta’s legislation complied with the Constitution. Take home point – Klein flew the Notwithstanding Clause balloon on that ruling and backed down when the poll results came in.
Could it be that you favour discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation? Or, maybe discrimination based on sexual identity?
Is it not funny how righteous the UCP are about its frivolous use of the notwithstanding clause but horrified that anyone would misuse their own legislation on recall?
Even more delicious, that the UCP may be initiating their own recalls (designed to fail) all the while complaining about the costs to the taxpayer?
Really, time to call an election to test the confidence in this government.