Evasive maneuvers! Alberta politics on a collision course!
A loud crowd of 30,000 teachers welcomed MLAs back to the Legislature
When MLAs returned to the Legislature yesterday for the Speech from the Throne and the start of the fall session they were welcomed back by a very large and very loud crowd of around 30,000 Alberta teachers.
More than 51,000 teachers from public, Catholic, and Francophone schools across the province have been on strike since October 6 with workload challenges being their biggest issue, namely class sizes and per-student funding.
Instead of getting back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal that could satisfy both the government and teachers, Premier Danielle Smith has signalled her government’s plans to fasttrack back to work legislation — and there is wide speculation that it could use the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to block any court challenges of the law.
The Order Papers for next week shows that Minister of Finance Nate Horner will soon introduce Bill 2: Back to School Act along with motions to severely limit debate at all stages of reading. With a 6 vote majority in the Legislature, UCP MLAs should have no problem pushing it through swiftly, though the opposition NDP can be expected to try its best to delay the passage of the bill.
“We are aware that the government is planning to legislate an end to the strike, but doing so will not bring an end to the deteriorating conditions that caused it,” said Alberta Teachers’ Association President Jason Schilling. “These conditions are the direct consequence of a decade of underfunding, leaving Alberta as the province spending the least on public education.”
“We remain prepared to negotiate solutions that include a student-teacher ratio,” Schilling said. “Now it’s the government’s turn to take up the challenge of solving these serious issues in cooperation with teachers who want to support their students as best as they can.”
The bill will be the biggest flashpoint so far in the UCP government’s labour dispute with the ATA and the years long confrontation between Smith and public education advocates going back decades to her time as leader of the Wildrose Party and a school board trustee in Calgary.
Campaign to recall UCP MLA Demetrios Nicolaides begins in Calgary-Bow
As teachers rallied outside the Legislature, Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides learned he will face the first MLA recall campaign since the UCP passed the law in 2021.
Nicolaides’ opponents will need to collect 16,006 signatures from residents in the Calgary-Bow riding he has represented since 2019. The number of required signatures represents 60 per cent of the total number of voters in the last provincial election in the riding.
Nicolaides was re-elected in 2023 with 13,175 votes (49.7 per cent) against NDP star candidate Druh Farrell, who finished second with 12,552 votes (47.3 per cent).
The petition signatures will need to be collected and submitted to Elections Alberta for validation on January 21, 2026. If the petition campaign is successful then a vote will be held in the riding to as residents if they want to recall their MLA. If that vote is successful then Nicolaides will cease to be the MLA for Calgary-Bow and a by-election would be held.
The only other MLA recall campaign held in Alberta’s history was against Premier William Aberhart in 1937. Aberhart’s Social Credit government had passed an MLA recall law in 1936 requiring 66.6 percent of voters to sign a petition to trigger a recall by-election. The law was repealed by Aberhart’s government in 1937 when the recall campaign in his Okotoks-High River riding was gaining momentum and expected to collect enough signatures to trigger a by-election.
Forever Canadian petition rumoured to have collected more than 300,000 pro-Canada signatures
Former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Thomas Lukaszuk is on the final stretch of his “Unity Bus” tour to collect signatures for the Forever Canadian petition that asks the simple question “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?”
Lukaszuk’s question requires 293,976 in-person signatures in order to be approved and sent to an MLA committee to be considered for a province-wide referendum, but there are rumours that the pro-Canada campaign’s more than 4,000 volunteers have already collected more than 300,000 signatures.
The Forever Canadian campaign has earned endorsements from former premier Ed Stelmach, former Edmonton mayor Don Iveson, and former Lethbridge mayor Chris Spearman, as well as the support of numerous former PC cabinet ministers including Shirley McClellan, Jim Horsman, Verlyn Olson and thousands of volunteers.
While the question may never actually make it to a ballot, it is a strong show of force from Albertans opposed to separation and will certainly create an awkward situation for UCP MLAs who have been desperately trying to not offend their party’s burgeoning separatist wing.
Separatists to march on the Legislature and UCP AGM
The steps of the Legislature are a busy place this week as supporters of Alberta separatism are promising a large pro-independence rally on October 25. The rally will feature speakers from the Alberta Prosperity Project including Jeffrey Rath, Dennis Modry and Mitch Sylvestre, restaurant owner, podcaster and COVID-19 restrictions opponent Chris Scott, and former UCP nomination candidate Tanya Clemens.
Describing the rally as the first battle in the fight for an independent Alberta, Sylvestre told separatist supporters in a rambling video posted by the APP yesterday that “before we have to pay in blood we have to pay in time because Communism always comes in on a promise and leaves with a bullet.”
Sylvestre is the president of the UCP constituency association in the Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul riding and is the proponent of the court-delayed citizen initiative to hold a province-wide referendum asking the question “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta shall become a sovereign country and cease to be a province in Canada?”
The APP has been travelling the province promoting the separatist cause at town hall meetings and the three men are part of a group calling themselves the “Commonwealth of Alberta Delegation to Washington DC.” The group claims to have met with officials in President Donald Trump’s White House to discuss securing funding from the United States government for an Alberta Republic (which I am sure is the first step toward becoming the 51st State).
Much like the well-known Take Back Alberta group, the APP is active both inside and outside of the UCP and will have a strong and vocal presence at the party’s annual general meeting in November. It’s unclear whether there will actually be a vote by party delegates to adopt Alberta’s separation from Canada as an official UCP policy at this AGM but separatism will almost certainly be a big topic of discussion among delegates at the meeting.
Where is Nenshi? He’s in the Legislature.
One of the biggest questions I get asked about Alberta politics these days is “where is Nenshi?”
Well, former mayor of Calgary and current Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi now has a seat in the Assembly and will be spending some time getting acquainted with what levers of the legislative process are available to opposition leaders.
While there will be a temptation to put extra effort into sparring with Smith and scoring points in Question Period, the NDP need to reintroduce a curiously absent Nenshi to Albertans and figure out what their pitch is to the province’s voters — and then get out there and sell it.
Nenshi’s decision to shuffle Sherwood Park MLA Kyle Kasawski into the role of Shadow Minister for Affordability and Utilities this week is a good start.
Kasawski was one of the bright additions to the NDP Caucus in the last election and, as a former president of a solar power company and instructor at NAIT, he has a good grasp of the complicated electricity systems that are frequently at the centre of affordability debates in this province. He also represents the kind of suburban commuter riding that the NDP need to connect with on the big issue of affordability and cost of living if they hope to win the next election.
Other changes to the NDP critic roster announced this week include adding Lethbridge-West MLA Rob Miyashiro as Shadow Minister of Municipal Affairs, and splitting the health critic role into two. Former health minister and Edmonton-Glenora MLA Sarah Hoffman is the critic for hospitals and surgical facilities and Edmonton-Decore MLA Sharif Haji is critic for primary and preventative health services.
Newly elected Edmonton-Ellerslie MLA Gurtej Singh Brar will serve as Nenshi’s senior small business advisor.
Conservatives not so united inside the Legislature
One conservative MLA who is not afraid of offending separatists or the UCP is Aidirie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Daveberta - Alberta politics and elections to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.