Keep Ottawa Out Of Education

We don’t think this is a coincidence...

A few weeks ago, we told you about Justin Trudeau’s threat to exceed his government's rightful jurisdiction and reach into the provincial jurisdiction of education.

Now, just a short while later, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation is calling for “federal leadership in education” in a letter addressed to... who else but Justin Trudeau.

Of course, the letter had to go to the Prime Minister, and not the federal education minister.

Why?

Well, there is no federal education minister, of course.

Because, again, education is a provincial jurisdiction.

The obvious next question, then, would be why the Canadian Teachers’ Federation even exists in the first place when there is nothing to negotiate over and no one to negotiate with at the federal level.

Well, apparently, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation doesn't agree with the constitution and would like the federal government to ignore it and intervene in provincial education policy anyway.

The Alberta Teachers’ Association is a supporting member of the CTF.

They take compulsory union dues from Alberta teachers and transfer $29.30 per member per year to the national body.

They call for Ottawa to “bridge significant disparities in K-12 education throughout the country.”

This presumably does not mean financial disparities, since school taxes have been an explicit factor in the calculation of equalization payments since 1974.

So, the “disparities” they refer to must be the freedoms of different provinces to run their own K-12 education and set their own priorities.

The national union wants the “health and safety of students and teachers in schools” to be made a federal concern, for example.

They also want the federal government to be in charge of "Truth and Reconciliation in education” - i.e. they want to control the curriculum.

You can bet they'd like the federal government to abolish Alberta's world-class system of school choice too, if they could.

And that would be a disaster for Alberta's kids.

One of the reasons Canada - and especially Alberta - has always outperformed our neighbours to the south in K-12 education is that we have kept education free from a stifling national bureaucracy.

It would also have made Alberta's comparatively good performance during the pandemic impossible.

Federal mandates would have led to dramatically more learning loss in Alberta, like what we saw in other provinces.

You see, just like a top-down provincial-government-controlled school system doesn't work for students, a top-down, federal-government-controlled education system doesn't work for the provinces.

But teacher unions in Canada want to rob us of that advantage, just like they want to rob us of our advantage in school choice.

Kids are not one-size-fits-all, so their education can’t be either.

We need to keep Ottawa out of education, and we need your help to do it!

Please consider signing up as a $10 a month supporter of the Alberta Parents' Union, or making a one-off donation here.

We created the APU because it's time parents raise our voices together, the way teacher unions claim to raise the voices of teachers.

But, the impact we are able to make depends on the strength of our membership.

And if you know of any parents who aren't already receiving our emails, please forward this email to them and encourage them to sign up for our newsletter here.

Regards,

Jeff Park
Executive Director
Alberta Parents’ Union