Serious challenges ahead in addressing education issues, says Hunter

By Trevor Busch
Taber Times
editor@tabertimes.com

Reflecting on the recent resolution of the labour dispute between Alberta teachers and the province, Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter is firm in his support of the government’s decision to force them back to work. 

“They had already been out for three and a half weeks, and it was the longest educational strike in Canadian history. And so we just could not – I, in good conscience, could not continue to support a strike that’s going to keep our kids out of the classroom,” said Hunter. “It was causing major concern and problems for our students. They’re already still struggling from the problems that they had from COVID, and for them to have to deal with this now, I just felt it was important to get them back in the classroom. So look, I get that teachers have the right to strike. I don’t disagree with that. That is a right, but children also have a right to education, and when you take away that – that right – then government has to get involved and provide that balance. So that’s what we did, and I think it was the right approach. There’s some people that are unhappy, but I have lots and lots of people also say, ‘you know, really grateful that you guys got our kids back into the classroom’.”

On Oct. 27, the UCP passed Bill 2, or the Back to School Act, imposing a four-year collective agreement and ending the strike that began on Oct. 6. Teachers returned to the classroom on Oct. 29. At the time, the government cited the “undeniable moral imperative” to stop a strike it said was harming students’ social and educational development.

“So parents are happy, I think students are happy. And I think even some teachers are happy, because for the time that they were out, they weren’t getting paid – the unions did not put aside any strike pay,” said Hunter. “So when the teachers were out on strike, they were receiving no pay. I find that very odd that, in the 23 years since the last strike, they weren’t able to put 10 per cent aside for strike pay so that the teachers didn’t have to go without. It’s not an easy situation, and I found that interesting that the unions had not put money aside. From what I’m hearing, they’re now telling their members that they’re going to have to increase their union dues now because of what’s happened. I thought, wow, for goodness sakes, you had 23 years to be able to put money aside, and you didn’t do that? Where’s the money going?”

Hunter, who worked previously as a teacher himself prior to a career in business, feels the current compensation now received by teachers is more than fair by comparison with other jurisdictions.

“I used to be a teacher. I taught for two years, and at that time, they didn’t get paid very much, and so I jumped out of teaching and got into work, my own businesses, but now teachers make much more, which is good – they should be making more. They should be able to provide for their families. Back then, I think I was taking home $1,980 or $1,960 per month, and it was just almost impossible for me to be able to provide for my family. So I’m glad the teachers make more, and they should – it’s a profession – but the other thing I’ll say is that in terms of the pay increases that they will be receiving, that money puts them in a position where they should still be the highest paid in what’s called the Ontario West. That’s the comparison that they do. So still being paid well, very well. In fact, higher than anybody else in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, BC.” 

As a post-mortem for the strike, Hunter admits the real business of addressing the needs identified by teachers will be a serious challenge for his government moving forward.

“That is the quintessential question. We need to move quickly on making sure that we address complexity. So a lot has changed… since I’ve been teaching, and that is that we’ve had lots of people move into this province in the last six years. We’ve had almost 600,000 people move in. And so we do need to build schools fast, and we have 130 new and revitalized schools that are going to be built. And so I’m excited about that and from what I understand, they’re moving, they’re expediting the process of being able to get those schools done. So that’s going to be important to make sure that we can have the the schools built, and the other schools that we have added to wherever we need to, wherever we can. From what I’m hearing, they’re going to move very quickly.”

Classroom aggression, complexity, ESL issues – all will be addressed in the near future, argues Hunter.

“They struck some panels on a task force on being able to address complexity as well in terms of aggression in the classroom. We’re losing a lot of teachers from just just being burnt out, good teachers that are just being burnt out because of what’s happening with not being able to deal with aggression in the classroom. So if students are aggressive and they’re out of control, we need to address that issue. We should not be having our teachers deal with that. And then all the immigrants that have moved in, lots of them don’t know how to speak English, and so being able to address that issue as well, make sure that they have the proper training that they need, the proper English as a second language training, and then anybody else that has complex needs, we need to address those issues as well. So I agree it’s a tough situation in the classroom, and we need to make sure that that complexity is eased and we’re giving them the supports and the help that they need. I think that from speaking with the Premier and speaking with Minister Nicolaides, I think they get that and they’re going to try to move as quickly as possible to be able to fix that.”

Hunter points out that there was a misperception amongst the public, fanned by the union, that classroom complexities should have been addressed as part of compensation negotiations but the MLA argues this would have been an improper venue.

“So the problem was, I think that in public, people were saying, ‘well, you guys need to address that issue’. And we’re like, ‘okay, we are going to address that issue, but that’s not what you address when you’re at the bargaining table for compensation.’ We were there to address the compensation and that was being conflated by the union in saying that we have to address the complexity. And so we were addressing both compensation, which we have, and now the complexity part.”