Bill 17: Fair and Family-friendly Workplaces Act

Last week, Alberta introduced Bill 17 which makes significant changes to employment and labour law in Alberta. I did a short analysis of Bill 17 for the Parkland Institute which is available here. This gist is that Bill 17 has some real gains for non-unionized workers but, overall, represents modest change. There may also be some unanticipated outcomes from these amendments.

An interesting way to look at the Bill is as part of the New Democrats' re-election strategy which seems to be (in part) based upon appealing to women and middle-class families (much like Alison Redford did in 2012).