Teachers’ Organizations Responses to COVID-19 in Canada - Balancing Resistance, Rapprochement, and Renewal

Oct 15, 2026

Teacher federations in Canada have long been criticized as obstacles to education reform, yet their advocacy proved central to securing safer conditions for school return across jurisdictions. Drawing on Carter et al. (2010) and using publicly available documents and social media posts from March to October 2020, the study examines how Canadian teacher unions responded to reopening plans during the COVID-19 pandemic. It evaluates union renewal as internal capacity building and external networking to strengthen public advocacy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Teachers’ Organizations Responses to COVID-19 in Canada

COVID-19 and Canadian Schooling

Research Purpose and Question

Canadian Education Governance and Jurisdictional Variation

Teachers’ Organizations Responses to COVID-19 in Canada: Balancing Resistance, Rapprochement, and Renewal Pamela Osmond-Johnson & Lucrécia Fuhrmann University of Regina Abstract Teacher federations are often criticized as “roadblocks” to educational change. It is arguable, however, that their advocacy work has been paramount in securing safer return to school conditions across Canadian Educational jurisdictions. Utilizing Carter et al. (2010) framework of union responses to changing policy environments, this paper draws on publicly available documents and social media posts from March through to October of 2020 to examine the ways in which teacher unions in various Canadian contexts have responded to the issue of school reopening plans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the paper analyzes the extent to which Canadian teacher unions have been able to move into the realm of union renewal as a means of building internal capacity and developing external networks to strengthen their public advocacy work. Keywords: teachers’ organizations, union renewal, COVID-19, teacher advocacy COVID-19 and Canadian Schooling Like other educational jurisdictions around the world, Canadian school systems first began closing schools in March of 2020 in an effort to slow the spread ofCOVID-19. At the time, much was unknown about the virology and epidemiology of the Novel Coronavirus and there was widespread concern about schools as a vector for the pathogen. In a matter of days, hundreds of thousands of schools across the country were shuttered and millions of students and their teachers began to adjust to new forms of remote and online teaching and learning. Amid issues of inequitable access (Kapoor, 2020) and concerns around student wellbeing (UNESCO et al., 2020), however, it became apparent that the remote learning options used during ‘emergency teaching’ in the spring would not suffice going into the 2020/2021 school year. Educational scholars, child psychologists, and other medical professionals began sounding alarm bells and calls for full-scale school reopening plans began to emerge (Osmond-Johnson et al., 2020; Sick Kids, 2020). At the sametime, teachers and their professional organizations were raising their own concerns, not only about the impact of school closures but also with respect to their trepidation around reopening plans. For instance, in June, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) (the national association for teacher organizations in Canada) released results from a national survey of teachers in which 74% of respondents cited being concerned about the mental health and wellbeing of their students and 83% reported being concerned about returning to schools after the first phase of the pandemic (CTF, 2020). Within this context, the purpose of this paper is to examine the responses of Canadian teachers’organizations to the challenging policy environment surrounding the issue of school reopening plans. Also known as unions, in Canada, many teacher organizations have adopted the moniker of federation, society, and association. Hence, we use organization as a collective term, inclusive of union, federation, association and society. In particular, the paper seeks to address the following research question: to what extent have teacher organizations in Canada adopted an agenda of union renewal within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its resultant impact on the teaching profession? A framework of teacher organization responses developed by Carter et al. (2010), further explicated by Bascia and Stevenson (2017), is utilized to highlight the delicate balancing act that teacher organizations in Canada must maintain in order to manage what were, in some cases, already fragile relationships with governments while, at the same time, advocating for safe teaching and learning conditions for teachers and students. It is important to note that education in Canada is governed provincially, with each of

FAQs

How does the paper frame the role of teacher federations in education change?

It notes that teacher federations are often criticized as “roadblocks,” but argues their advocacy was pivotal in obtaining safer school return conditions across Canadian educational jurisdictions.

What sources and time period does the study use to analyze union responses?

The analysis relies on publicly available documents and social media posts collected from March through October 2020, aligned with the Carter et al. (2010) framework.

What does the paper identify as the central research focus regarding union renewal?

It assesses the extent to which Canadian teacher organizations adopted an agenda of union renewal amid COVID-19, including impacts on the teaching profession and the balancing of relationships with governments.

Oct 15, 2026

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