OP-ED: Students are back in class and taxpayers are relieved

"Alberta students are back in class after missing nearly a month of school because of a teachers strike."

Source: Rawpixel

Author: Kris Sims

Alberta students are back in class after missing nearly a month of school because of a teachers strike.

This is great news for parents and their children.

This is a relief for taxpayers because the government refused to throw more money at this big government teachers union.

Here’s what happened.

The Alberta government earmarked $2.6 billion for education increases, offering teachers pay raises while hiring more education assistants and new teachers.

The Alberta Teachers Association tentatively accepted the offer in September, but the membership rejected it.

Teachers went on strike Oct. 6, throwing students out of school and putting teachers off the job with no strike pay.

After weeks of striking, the union demanded an additional $2 billion from taxpayers.

The government refused that demand and invited teachers to return to work while the bargaining sides went to mediation.

The union leadership refused the offer for teachers to return to work, a move that upset some teachers.

An Edmonton teacher contacted the Taxpayers Federation, saying the government’s offered pay raise was acceptable and she disagreed with the union demanding an additional $2 billion.

“It is absolutely fiscally irresponsible and any government who would do it would be held under a microscope for doing it,” the teacher said during the interview.

That teacher was correct.

Alberta is on track to have a debt of $84.3 billion with debt interest costing taxpayers $3 billion this year.

Albertans could not afford the union’s demands to spend a combined $4.6 billion.

That amount of money would cover the provincial income tax bills of 1.2 million Albertans, the population of Edmonton.

It was a standoff.

Students were blocked from their schools, parents were stressed, taxpayers were tapped-out and teachers didn’t have paycheques.

Premier Danielle Smith did the right thing by refusing to hand over one more dollar of taxpayers’ money.

The decision to use the notwithstanding clause will be left with legal experts.

But taxpayers are relieved because the government didn’t do the easy thing and just borrow the extra $2 billion.

Alberta teachers now have the same contract their leadership tentatively agreed to back in September.

Most teachers will get up to a 17 per cent pay raise over four years.

According to the salary grid posted on the government’s website, new Alberta teachers will start at about $71,000 per year while teachers with seven years of experience will be paid more than $100,000 per year.

Compare that to the salary grids for teachers in other Western provinces.

In Manitoba, equivalent new teachers start at about $70,300 per year, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $95,700.

In Saskatchewan, equivalent new teachers start at $68,000 per year, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $88,000.

In Surrey, British Columbia, equivalent new teachers start at about $64,500, while teachers with seven years’ experience are paid about $85,000.

To help with Alberta’s growing population, the government is hiring 3,000 new teachers and 1,500 education assistants.

Taxpayers are paying $8 billion on 100 schools to help with class sizes and special education.

“We have got to target our support to individual classrooms, I would encourage the member opposite to watch the video that Kris Sims did with a teacher, she’s got four classes with 31 kids in them, one of them has 16 who are coded or English language learners, that’s the classroom we need to fix,” Smith said in the legislature.

With government labour groups threatening taxpayers with a general strike, readers might think Smith had taken a page from the late premier Ralph Klein’s playbook, cutting teachers’ pay by five per cent and rolling back government wages to slay the debt.

Smith has not done that.

The government has increased funding for education by 33 per cent since 2021-22.

Most Alberta teachers are getting up to a 17 per cent pay raise while Smith hires 4,500 new teachers and assistants.

Alberta teachers will be the highest-paid teachers in Western Canada, while working about 190 days a year, in a province with no sales tax.

That’s enough.

Taxpayers are tapped out and they aren’t being squeezed for $2 billion more.

Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.