A judge denied an injunction application from Alberta teachers against legislation that forced them back to work, ending a provincewide strike last fall.
Justice Douglas Mah says the Alberta Teachers’ Association failed to prove the issues in the case are so serious and so pressing that the bill should be put on hold while those issues are hashed out in court.
Mah also says putting the bill on hold could cause chaos and uncertainty in the education system, as the teachers have said doing so would put them back in a legal strike position.
“The disruption of the educational system … in the opinion of this court, (is a) matter to be avoided at all costs,” Mah told the court Friday.
Mah noted that while the decision is not what teachers wanted, they will still have their day in court.
“This is not the end of the road with the ATA and the teachers,” he said, pointing to the full hearing scheduled for the challenge in the fall.
The issue dates back to last fall, when Premier Danielle Smith’s government used the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to backstop a bill that ended the teachers’ strike and imposed a contract deal on them that its members had previously rejected.
Lawyers for the union argued that the injunction was needed because the government misused the notwithstanding clause by using it to override rights beyond what’s allowed under the Constitution.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 13, 2026.