Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Alberta Teachers' Association (ATA) sought an interlocutory injunction to suspend the Back to School Act (BSA), which ended a province-wide teachers' strike and imposed collective agreement terms without completing bargaining.

• Constitutionality of the Alberta Government's pre-emptive invocation of the Charter s 33 "notwithstanding clause" to shield the BSA from judicial review under Charter ss 2 and 7-15 was challenged.

• Whether Charter s 28 (gender equality guarantee) operates as a standalone right immune from Charter s 33 override was raised, given that 75% of affected teachers are women.

• Expert and affidavit evidence established harm to labour relations, teacher morale, and trust in collective bargaining, though the Court found such harm flowed from the BSA's enactment rather than the absence of an injunction.

• The BSA's privative clause (s 14) was argued to strip superior court jurisdiction under Constitution Act, 1867 s 96, but the Court found it did not preclude constitutional review.

• Balance of convenience favoured denying the injunction due to the public interest in keeping over 700,000 students in school across Alberta's 2,000 schools.

Background to the labour dispute

The Alberta Teachers' Association is the exclusive bargaining agent for all teachers in Alberta, representing members employed across 61 school boards. Collective bargaining in the province operates in two stages under the Public Education Collective Bargaining Act: central bargaining between the ATA and the Teachers Employers Bargaining Association (TEBA), followed by local bargaining between individual school boards and local ATA representatives. The parties were subject to a four-year collective agreement that expired on August 31, 2024, and began negotiations on central terms for the next agreement in May 2024. Key priorities for teachers, identified through extensive member consultation, included wages and benefits, and teaching and learning conditions, including classroom complexity.

Negotiations and breakdown of bargaining

Initial rounds of central bargaining took place from June to October 2024, during which the parties reached agreement on several terms but remained in dispute over class size and composition, certain working conditions, and compensation and benefits. The ATA also sought requirements for school boards to collect data on classroom size and composition, aggression in schools, and assignable and instruction time for each teacher. Mediation was jointly requested and took place in January and March 2025. A mediator issued recommendations for terms of settlement that addressed wages, salary grids, northern compensation incentives, and other items related to benefits and classroom safety. While the ATA's provincial executive counsel voted in favour of accepting the mediator's recommendations, 62% of teachers rejected the recommendations in May 2025. Subsequently, 94.5% of teachers voted in favour of strike action in June 2025.

Further proposals and the strike

The parties reconvened with the mediator and exchanged further proposals. The ATA proposed compensation increases and a commitment to hire an additional 1,000 teachers per year over the next three years in addition to the hiring to which the Alberta Government committed in the 2025/2026 Budget of $1.1 billion. In August 2025, the TEBA committed to hire 1,000 new teachers in each of the last three years of the proposed agreement, but this was inclusive of the hiring contemplated in the 2025/2026 Budget. On September 23, 2025, the ATA proposed a tentative agreement that was accepted by the TEBA, but 89.5% of teachers voted to reject the tentative agreement on September 29, 2025. The province-wide strike began on October 6, 2025, lasting 16 instructional days or 21 calendar days. The TEBA began a lock-out on October 9, 2025. The ATA prepared a further proposal that included a letter of understanding on classroom complexity and student-teacher ratios, which was presented to the TEBA on October 14, 2025. It was rejected without a substantive counter proposal.

Enactment of the Back to School Act

On October 27, 2025, the Alberta Government introduced the Back to School Act, which was introduced, debated, enacted, and came into force in less than 12 hours, with debate at every stage limited to one hour. The BSA required the ATA and TEBA to discontinue their job action, and imposed terms of a collective bargaining agreement inclusive of central and local terms for the period between September 1, 2024 and August 31, 2028. It foreclosed any further bargaining or job action for the term of the collective agreement. The collective agreement contains terms recommended by the ATA to its members on September 23, 2025 — terms that the membership had rejected. The BSA received Royal Assent on October 28, 2025 and teachers returned to work on October 29, 2025. No further bargaining at either central or local levels occurred. Since the passage of the BSA, teachers have received a 3% wage increase retroactive to September 1, 2024, and a further 3% wage increase as of September 1, 2025. Notably, the BSA invoked the Charter s 33 notwithstanding clause, operating notwithstanding ss 2 and 7-15 of the Charter, and included a privative clause barring any court proceeding from being brought against the Crown or the Labour Relations Board arising from the enactment of the BSA.

The ATA's injunction application and constitutional arguments

The ATA brought an application for an interlocutory injunction to suspend the BSA until a full constitutional challenge could be heard, scheduled for September 2026. The ATA argued the BSA raised several serious constitutional issues: that the privative clause in BSA s 14 infringed on the core jurisdiction of the superior courts guaranteed by s 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867; that the BSA violated teachers' rights to freedom of association guaranteed by Charter s 2(d) and expressive rights guaranteed by Charter s 2(b); that the Alberta Government's invocation of Charter s 33 in BSA s 3 was invalid as a broad and pre-emptive invocation; and that the BSA infringed on the equality provision in Charter s 28, which is not subject to BSA s 3, given that the BSA disproportionately impacts women as 75% of teachers are women. The ATA relied on the affidavit of Professor Robert Hebdon, a Professor Emeritus of Industrial Relations at McGill University and a nationally recognized expert in the field of public sector labour relations, collective bargaining, strikes and dispute resolution, who opined that BSA-type legislation strips a union of its core function, makes the collective bargaining process seem futile, engenders conflict, lower morale and decreased productivity in the workplace, and undermines trust at all levels. The ATA's chief negotiator, Sean Brown, attested to concrete harms including loss of trust in the collective bargaining regime, increased frustration and morale damage, concerns that meaningful collective bargaining is no longer possible, and negative effects on teacher mental health and workplace productivity.

The Court's analysis under the three-part injunction test

Justice Douglas R. Mah applied the three-part RJR-MacDonald test for an interlocutory injunction. On the first branch — serious issue to be tried — the Court found that the ATA met the threshold. The Court noted that the very questions about the nature and scope of Charter s 33 were squarely before the Supreme Court of Canada in English Montreal School Board et al v Attorney General of Quebec et al, with arguments being heard starting on March 23, 2026. The Court found it difficult to say the ATA does not show a serious issue to be tried when Canada's highest Court has decided it will consider the issue. However, the ATA did not provide a strong prima facie case with respect to the effects of the privative/immunity clause in BSA s 14, as the Court found it did not preclude constitutional review by the Court and did not accept that the Labour Relations Board, in exercising its authority under the BSA, was immune from the usual judicial review of its decisions.

Irreparable harm and balance of convenience

On irreparable harm, the Court accepted that negative impacts have actually occurred on labour relations, the educational workplace in Alberta, and the mental and emotional well-being of teachers. However, the Court concluded the harm was brought on by the enactment of the BSA itself, not by the lack of an injunction, and that the harm was already manifest. The granting of an injunction would not restore trust in the system or repair relations between the ATA and the Alberta Government. The Court further found that granting an injunction would create uncertainty for students and teachers, as there was no guarantee that continued bargaining or an interim arrangement would materialize. On the balance of convenience, the Court gave significant weight to the public interest, noting that 51,000 teachers and over 700,000 students across 2,000 schools and 61 school districts province-wide were affected by the strike/lock-out. Applying reason and logic, the Court concluded it was better for students and their families, if not all of society, for students to be in school versus not being in school.

The ruling and outcome

Ultimately, Justice Mah denied the ATA's interlocutory injunction application. The Court found the ATA had not discharged the onus under the RJR-MacDonald test: while the ATA established serious issues to be tried, the harm did not reach the threshold of irreparable harm because it flows from the enactment of the BSA itself rather than from the absence of an injunction, and the balance of convenience favoured the Crown because of the public interest. The Crown — the Province of Alberta — was the successful party in this application. No monetary award was ordered, as this was a decision on an injunction application rather than a damages claim; no exact amount can be determined. The ATA will have the opportunity to bring its case in full at the merits hearing in September 2026, at which point the SCC may provide clarity about when and how Charter s 33 is validly invoked.