Lethbridge firefighters’ union calls for AFL president to resign

The union representing fire fighters in Lethbridge say they’re leaving the Alberta Federation of Labour. Pointing to what they see as a failure of leadership during the teachers strike late last year.

By News Staff

Posted January 22, 2026 5:39 pm.

Last Updated January 22, 2026 7:11 pm.

The union representing firefighters in Lethbridge say they’re leaving the Alberta federation of Labour pointing to what they see as a failure of leadership during the teachers strike last year.

In a private letter made public, the International Association of Firefighters Local 237 (IAFF Local 237), announced the union is leaving AFL and called on its president Gil McGowan to resign.

“The direction and leadership of the AFL does not align with what our members expect and deserve,” Brent Nunweiler, president of IAFF Local 237, told CityNews in a statement.

The letter claimed that there was ‘inaction’ and ‘disorganization’ at the AFL after the province using the controversial notwithstanding clause to force teachers back-to-work and remove their rights to negotiations.

At the time, McGowan, promising swift labour action, said, “We have made a commitment as a labour movement to start conversations with our members, with the public, with potential allies, with non-union workers — about the possibility for a general strike in this province — which would be unprecedented.”

But that general strike never happened.

In response to calls for his resignation, McGowan defended himself on social media, stating, “(The) consensus dissipated when the teachers decided to not defy the back-to-work order,” adding that he won his position as AFL president by a wide margin this past April.

Athabasca University researcher, Susan Cake, who studies the labour movement in Alberta said there was not much public support for a general strike and the momentum for mass-job action has waned since the teachers strike.

“I don’t think necessarily that it was something that the Alberta labour movement was prepared for in the same way that we saw in other provinces,” said Cake, who has worked for the AFL in the past and ran against McGowan in the 2021 leadership race.

“So we did see Ontario- Doug Ford government threaten to use the notwithstanding clause and an immediate response from the workers and the unions in that province that forced the government to step that back. We didn’t see that in Alberta.”

McGowan did not respond to CityNews’ request for comments.