Alberta NDP urges public to step up as striking teachers may face back-to-work bill

Alberta’s Opposition NDP says it will fight the government’s looming plan to introduce a bill to force striking teachers back to work.

NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi says they can try procedural tactics to try to delay the bill’s passage, but says there is little they can do to stop it, given Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservatives hold the house majority.

Nenshi is urging the public to keep pressuring the government to get a deal in place.

The spotlight on the teachers strike shifts to the legislature as the fall sitting begins Thursday with the speech from the throne.

Teachers have been off the job for more than two weeks, and Smith says it is becoming an intolerable hardship for students and families and, absent a deal, may require her government to pass back-to-work legislation as early as next week.

The strike, centred around a dispute over wages and working conditions, has affected 750,000 students across 2,500 public, separate and francophone schools.