Teachers’ union questions federal AI literacy course

The Canadian Teachers’ Federation said Oct. 14 that the federal AI literacy course for K-12 educators asks teachers to adopt artificial intelligence before anyone has shown the tools are safe for learning, and it called on Ottawa and its delivery partner to open the unfinished chapters to review by teachers.

In a news release, the federation, which represents more than 370,000 teachers and education workers, targeted the educator stream of the National AI Literacy Initiative, delivered with the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii). Neither Amii nor the office of Evan Solomon, the minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, had responded publicly to the criticism in the material reviewed.

The course, AI for All: Essentials for Educators, is online and self-paced. Its first chapter asks teachers to decide whether AI tools belong in their classrooms and where limits are needed. Five more chapters are still being developed and are due through the fall, according to Amii. The federation said they include topics such as practical classroom workflow integration.

Solomon unveiled the initiative in Edmonton on Sept. 9. Lexpert reported that Ottawa has committed $13 million through the partnership with Amii. Federal expectations are that the educator programming will reach more than 50,000 K-12 educators by 2031, alongside up to one million post-secondary students.

The federation said the first module tells educators AI can make some kinds of work easier or faster, but also says the practice and thinking involved in work are themselves important parts of learning. The union said that second point should be stated without qualification.

It also argued that responsibility for building ethical and effective AI products belongs with technology companies, and that teachers should not be asked to judge the safety of complex systems. The release cited emerging research on possible harms from classroom AI use and said a survey in British Columbia found more than 80 per cent of teachers worried students would become overly dependent on AI or lose critical thinking skills. The release did not name the survey’s author.

The federation said Amii has not explained how it will measure the course’s impact, which educators it will reach or how teacher feedback will shape revisions. Amii’s published materials, which describe free training and a 2031 target for 50,000 educators, do not set out an evaluation plan either, and give no figure for the educator stream’s share of the funding.

The union asked for four things: that the five chapters in development be opened to review by educators across the country, that the course take a critical and cautious stance on AI in schools, that public evaluations and impact reports be published, and that AI programs be co-developed with government, Amii and the public on grounds of safety and human rights.

For school boards, the dispute lands as they decide whether to fold the free materials into professional development. Amii has said schools and boards can add the course to existing systems. Education is a provincial responsibility, so any adoption will be decided board by board and province by province, not by the federal program.

The federation’s account of the course and its concerns comes from its own release. The course’s remaining chapters had not been published at the time of writing, so the union’s description of their content could not be checked.

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Sources: Canadian Teachers’ Federation release via GlobeNewswire (Oct. 14, 2026); Amii (Sept. 2026); Lexpert.