Danielle will be having a couple major items on her plate this week and the upcoming weeks.
First of all, the teacher strike is beginning its fourth week today. 51,000 teachers have been on strike and 750,000 students have had an extended Thanksgiving break.
The UCP will be tabling Bill 2, the Back to School Act, which would force teachers back to work by the end of the week. The teachers union can challenge this back to work legislation. They did so, successfully, against the Ralph Klein government in 2002.
Smith, acknowledging this, might invoke the Notwithstanding Clause, which would prevent teachers from challenging the legislation. The Alberta Federation of Labour, with 350,000 thousand union workers in Alberta has stated that if Smith does try to invoke this clause, all 350,000 union workers could mobilize a provincial wide strike.
That is one headache that Smith will need Tylenol for.
Today is the day that canvassers/volunteers have to submit their signed forever Canada petitions, given that tomorrow is deadline day. The petition question is as follows,
“Do you agree that Alberta remain in Canada?”
Elections Alberta, is required to decide within 30 days whether the petition reached the required 294,000 signed petitions. If Elections Alberta determines that the required number of petitions was achieved then it would be forward to the Alberta legislature, which would then refer it to a committee.
Thomas Lukaszuk, former conservative MLA, and organizer of the petition, indicates that the committee would have two choices as to what to do with the petition. The community could either recommend that a referendum be held or that the legislature vote yay or nay, on the question. Lucaszuk believes that if it goes to the legislature, for a vote, it would be a yes vote.
This is an immense headache for Danielle Smith, given that she is supporting a sovereign Alberta within Canada approach. Whatever that means. It will be also a headache for Pierre Poilievre. Where will he stand on this given that he represents the riding of Battle River – Crowfoot, in Alberta. this is a riding where voters would most likely support the Danielle Smith approach?
Danielle, you will be needing a lot of Tylenol the next few weeks. Then again, maybe you should avoid given that Donald Trump says that if you take Tylenol, you might get autism.
That’s all I have for today.