‘This is an agenda Albertans didn’t vote for’: AFL plans provincewide protest against government

President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, Gil McGowan, discusses a provincewide day of protest against Danielle Smith's UCP government planned in May.

Alberta’s largest labour organization is rallying health-care, education, construction, energy and public service workers to protest the actions of the United Conservative government on May 29. President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, Gil McGowan, discusses the planned protest with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Michael Higgins: What’s driving you to organize this day of protest?

Gil McGowan: To put it succinctly, we’re trying to create a platform for what we think is the silent majority of Albertans who are frustrated, concerned and even angry with the direction that our province is taking.

It’s not just for unionized workers. This is for all Albertans. We’re opening the door.

For us, our frustration started when the government stripped the teachers of their right to strike, but in the conversations that we had after that attack on our democratic rights, it became really clear to us that we’re not alone in terms of the frustration and anger that we’re feeling with this government. What we’re trying to do is provide a platform for everyone who’s concerned about what’s happening with the move towards two-tier health care, a government that continues to talk about pulling Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan and the RCMP against the explicit wishes of Albertans, the people who are mobilizing against coal development in the Rockies, and perhaps especially people who are frustrated and angry with the fact that our government is paving the way for a referendum on separation and more talk about turning Alberta into the 51st state.

What we’re saying through the Fight Back Now campaign, which we launched last week, is that this is an agenda that Albertans didn’t vote for, even the people who voted UCP didn’t vote for, and it’s an agenda that we don’t support. Not only do we have a government that is doing a whole bunch of things that they don’t have a mandate for, they’re also ignoring the things that they should be paying attention to. Like stagnating wages, like the affordability crisis, like our crumbling public services and the loss of our public health system that’s putting our health in jeopardy. There’s a confluence of frustrations and we want the majority of Albertans who are not currently being heard to be given an opportunity to stand up, fight back, push back, and demand better from their government.

MH: Paint a picture of what you’re looking to happen on the 29th of May. What should Albertans expect to see?

GM: We’re very clear that what we don’t want is to have yet another demonstration in front of an empty legislature building on a Saturday when no one is paying attention. What we have in mind is a day of provincewide protests. This is an invitation. We’re providing a platform, but it’s not just about us, it’s about all of us.

Right now, the separatists and the northern MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, they’re sucking up all the oxygen on our political stage, but we know that they don’t actually speak for all Albertans. We want to create a platform in every community across the province for people who have a different view of our province, our place in Canada, the direction that we think we should be going, let’s give them a platform to speak out and push back. That’s what this is about.

I will point out that it’s not on the weekend, it’s not in front of the Legislature, it’s Friday on a work day. We’ll probably be organizing mostly around the lunch hour, but we’ll see where that goes.

MH: You bring up the separatists. The petition pushing for a referendum on separation. The deadline for that is May 2. So the outcome of that petition, how does it play into what you’re doing?

GM: We at the Alberta Federation of Labour have been talking to our members in both the public and private sector. In fact, we brought the separatist question to our most recent convention and representatives from all of our unions voted unanimously that as a labour movement, we have to mobilize against separation. We think that we’re better off if Alberta stays in Canada and it would be a disaster for the economy and for working people.

Just look south of the border because let’s be clear, when these folks talk about separatism, it’s a waystation to us becoming the 51st state. You look across the border, and it’s a dumpster fire. Intolerance, attacks on democracy, attacks on worker rights, most Albertans want none of that. That’s what we’re saying, is that part of what we’re doing with the day of protest is to allow Albertans to join the push against separation.

MH: The premier’s office has responded and issued a statement that says, “First, Gil attempted to launch a general strike, and it was a failure. Then he moved on to Plan B, launching recalls against our UCP MLAs, he again failed miserably. Now, Gil is on Plan C, a province-wide protest, and just like his previous ploys and his NDP leadership campaign, I expect it to be a colossal failure.”

How does that response from the government sit with you?

GM: I find that formal statement from the premier’s office both amusing and telling for a couple of reasons. First, if they’re so convinced that this is going to be a failure and that we’re not going to find any success, why are they even bothering to put out a statement?

MH: To have a balanced conversation?

GM: Well, yeah, but also this notion that the conversations we had about a general strike and the work that we supported, it wasn’t us leading the charge on the recalls but we did support the recalls, to characterize those as failures, misses the point. I look at this from the perspective of someone in the labour movement who’s done a lot of organizing, especially in workplaces, and as an old organizer one of the most important things I learned is persistence.

You rarely win on the first time out, but you start building a base and we’ve done that with the conversations about a general strike and we actually came very close to having a general strike in this province. I will point out that general strikes are illegal, so that’s the big reason it didn’t happen, but it was historic in terms of the fact that we’ve been talking about it. Similar with the recalls. The government set their thresholds for signatures very high. The recall campaigns didn’t reach those thresholds, but they mobilized thousands of volunteers and tens of thousands of signatures. This is a base both in the labour movement and all those people are involved in the recall campaigns.

When I see a statement like that from the premier’s office, what I’m thinking is “pride comes before the fall.” They can swagger. They can pretend that they continue to have support for things like separation and two-tier health care and pulling Alberta out of CPP, but we know that’s not the case. We’re going to provide a platform for Albertans to push back against this agenda that no one voted for and for people who don’t support. They can puff their chests out.

I’ll just end with the final quote that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. He said, “First they mock us, then they fight us, and then we win,” and that’s exactly what we intend to do.