Alberta Teachers Association says a strike is about “standing up for students.” Yet the first people hurt are students and families. After years of COVID turmoil, another mass disruption is the last thing kids need. The latest PISA 2022 results show learning declined across Canada between 2003 and 2022, with the 2022 test being the first after COVID closures. The report warns the COVID context matters when interpreting the drop. Keeping schools open matters..LYTLE: Straight talk on Equalization isn’t enough, Premier Smith .Parents know it. When schools close, work hours fall — especially for single moms. Canadian research on reopenings found school access boosts employment and weekly hours for parents, with the largest gains among single mothers. In plain language, open schools means parents work, whereas closed schools means families scramble. Teachers had months to plan a strike for the summer, when classrooms sit empty and families aren’t forced to scramble. Instead, they chose to walk out during the school year, turning kids into collateral and leaving parents without childcare. Whatever the grievance, tactics matter as lost learning time can’t be refunded, seniors miss critical milestones, and vulnerable students lose access to critical supports. The point could have been made without punishing children. It’s selfish and unforgivable.Strikes also wipe out the “other half” of school — sports, clubs, and other out of classroom activities. We’ve seen it before. During job action, boards have explicitly cancelled extracurriculars and events. Toronto’s board did so in 2020, and other boards followed suit. That isn’t “teacher-bashing” — it’s what their own notices said. .There’s a better way. Police and firefighters don’t strike. They use binding arbitration to resolve impasses while services continue. Canadian labour law notes that most statutory schemes for those essential services prohibit strikes and substitute interest arbitration. If protecting public safety justifies that model, what about protecting children’s learning? It just makes sense.And we don’t have to guess whether teacher arbitration can work in Canada. It already does. In Manitoba, teachers surrendered the right to strike in the 1950s in exchange for binding arbitration, due process, and certification reforms. The trade-off has been in place for decades. .EDITORIAL: When Carney says 'Buy Canadian', he isn't talking about the West.What about the money? Alberta’s finances are under real pressure this year. The latest fiscal update points to a projected $6.5 billion deficit — a swing from recent surpluses as resource revenues cooled. That affects what any government can responsibly offer without cutting somewhere else or raising taxes.Despite that, the current offer isn’t peanuts. The government says it put 12% over four years on the table and promised 3,000 new teacher hires over three years. You can disagree with the structure, but it’s not nothing and it goes straight at class-size pressure points. .The union’s reply? Escalation, not compromise. That’s a problem, because public goodwill is real, but also fragile. As disruptions drag on, support slips. And if you think “we’ll hold the line and win the comms war,” look at how quickly sympathy shifts when families are juggling lost paycheques, cancelled activities, and kids falling behind. Here’s the inconvenient truth for the “more money or we walk” narrative. Alberta students already perform at or above Canadian levels while sitting well above the OECD average overall. In 2022, Alberta scored above the Canadian average in reading and science, and at the Canadian average in math — while a large share of Alberta students hit the top performance levels. That suggests quality isn’t a simple spending contest. Check the Council of Ministers of Education summary. For good measure, Alberta students also led Canada in the OECD’s financial literacy assessment. .EDITORIAL: The Left’s school pornography obsession: Protecting children is not ‘censorship’.Strikes don’t just halt classes. They poison relationships. Every picket sign hardens positions between teachers, boards, parents, and the government. The next round starts with more mistrust, not less. Binding arbitration isn’t perfect, but it keeps kids learning while both sides make their case to a neutral third party. That’s how grown-up systems handle essential services.So, a challenge to union leadership. If this is truly about students, prove it. Drop the strike threat. Take the 12% plus new hires framework as a starting point, and push for targeted fixes — early-years staffing, special-needs supports, classroom complexity relief — at the table, not on the street. Families have carried enough chaos since 2020. Keep kids in class. Put students first.
