Alberta verwendet eine Abweichungsklausel im Gesetzentwurf, die Lehrern die Rückkehr an die Arbeit vorschreibt

It’s interesting seeing, time and again, how knowing that labour’s hand will be forced in Canada has encouraged the employer side of negotiations to fail to negotiate earnestly and in good faith.

There really needs to be a tangible _cost_ to invoking Section 33. Previously it was supposed to be public opinion: taking away rights should cause widespread discontent! But given hyperpolarization of the public and concurrent ability to immediately and directly message a party’s supporters, that cost has practically vanished. To the government, it’s just the same people complaining. Invoking S.33 should at the least trigger an immediate election.

Barring any real cost, I’d say that the social contract in Canada has been broken, and with it _any_ upward benefits that would normally be expected on the part of leaders as part of a good faith system ought no longer be counted upon.

One more comment to address this supposed action by the Smith UCP government:

> Though the government hasn’t committed funding yet, Ms. Smith said the government intends to replacing Alberta’s 21-year-old standards for special education and working with school boards to collect information and data on class size and composition.

Note that in 2019, the Alberta UCP **chose** to stop tracking class size:

> Alberta used to publish class size data annually, detailing the number of students in every class at more than 1,500 schools across the province.
>
> In 2019, the newly elected UCP government put an end to that practice.
>
> …
>
> While Alberta cancelled its detailed class-size reporting in 2019, Edmonton Public Schools still tracks this data, which suggests class sizes in many schools remain much larger than the recommendations in that 22-year-old report.
>
> Anecdotes from teachers, students and parents in other school divisions also suggest class sizes exceed those recommendations, but precise figures are harder to come by.

Source: [Alberta stopped tracking class sizes. Then it changed its funding formula. Now, it’s a teachers‘ strike issue](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-teacher-strike-funding-formula-class-size-data-9.6932618)

How difficult would it be, really, to simply ask every school district to publicly report class size data? I realize that there may be privacy issues regarding „complexity“, but there should be publicly available data on class sizes to inform public debate.

I think everyone knew that the notwithstanding clause would be abused eventually. Sad to see it’s against teachers and unions.