Trade union advocate begins ‘worker agenda’ campaign targeting Alberta government moves

The Alberta Federation of Labour is apologizing for not calling a general strike after teachers were ordered back to work.

The president of a provincial trade union advocate representing 170,000 workers is apologizing for not calling a general strike last month, when the Alberta government ended a teachers’ strike by invoking the notwithstanding clause.

Now, instead of striking, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) is launching a campaign it calls the Worker Agenda to combat what it deems provincial overreach.

The multi-pronged media campaign will include travelling town halls, a podcast and volunteers gathering signatures for three “citizen initiative” referendum questions.

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The questions target the Premier Danielle Smith government’s use of the notwithstanding clause, the establishment of an Alberta pension plan and the province’s minimum wage.

Gil McGowan, the AFL’s president, said he believes the United Conservative Party government is deliberately underfunding Elections Alberta to interfere with citizen-driven recall petitions that he says his organization is not part of but supports.

“If they change the rules on recall (legislation), if they continue to defund Elections Alberta, then the emperor will have no clothes,” McGowan said Friday at the launch of the campaign.

Smith’s government has faced criticism for not properly funding the bureaucracy needed to run the recall efforts.

Alberta’s chief electoral officer Gordon McClure appeared at a legislative committee earlier this month to request an additional $13.5 million in funding, about $2 million of which was to verify and certify signatures from two active recall campaigns.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, who represents Calgary-Bow as MLA, and Airdrie MLA Angela Pitt are facing recall efforts.

The United Conservative majority on the committee rejected the request, providing $1.5 million instead.

Elections Alberta told CTV News Edmonton in a statement on Friday that “the estimated cost of a recall petition, until the end of the verification process, is approximately $1.1 million.”

The UCP brought in the Recall Act in 2021 as a way to hold elected representatives accountable between general elections.

Petitioners in the two ridings need to gather signatures representing 60 per cent of the total number of people who voted in the ridings in the 2023 election.

If successful and the signatures are validated, a vote would be held within four months in each riding. If more than half the voters cast a ballot to remove either Pitt or Nicolaides, then they would be unseated as a member of the legislature.

Smith said Friday in Calgary at a government announcement about acute care that she thinks McGowan is “playing around with what (she thinks) is a legitimate process.”

Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Calgary’s Mount Royal University, says while citizen initiative fatigue could come at some point, aspects of the AFL’s campaign and corresponding questions could generate more momentum than a general strike.

“If they are able to tap into and give voice to the concerns that those people have ... I think there could be real momentum, and if properly and effectively organized, that momentum could spell a real challenge to the Alberta government,” Williams told CTV News Edmonton on Friday.

McGowan says general strike conversations are ongoing.

The first Worker Agenda town hall is scheduled to be held in Red Deer on Monday.

With files from The Canadian Press