Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press

A nasty standoff between the Alberta government and its 51,000 teachers – with each side accusing the other of lying — is set to turn into an all-out advertising war.

Finance Minister Nate Horner’s office confirmed Wednesday it plans to release an advertising campaign to push its side in the dispute, countering a campaign by the Alberta Teachers’ Association that has been ongoing for weeks.

“The government must now correct the false narrative the ATA has created,” Horner says in a statement.

As the clock ticks toward a potential provincewide strike by Alberta’s teachers, parents say classroom overcrowding is having a disastrous domino effect on learning with tutors being hired to fill in the gaps.

Kira Schulz says she hired a tutor for her 10-year-old daughter, Skyelar Schmidt, to prevent her from falling behind while trying to tune into teachers over the din of her peers jammed in classrooms.

"It's really tough to see," Schulz said from her home in Airdrie, a bedroom community of Calgary.

Legendary Alberta stuntman and animal wrangler John Scott says he was always better at faking stunts on a horse for the big screen than doing the real ones at rodeos.

His skills made it to Hollywood movie sets and later helped him teach actors Brad Pitt and Jackie Chan the ways of the saddle on his ranch near Longview in southern Alberta.

"(Chan) had never been on a horse, but after 15 days he looked like he had been on a horse forever," Scott said of Chan in the 2000 film "Shanghai Noon."

Alberta teachers have officially started the countdown clock toward an Oct. 6 provincewide strike, with both sides accusing the other of failing students.

"Teachers’ patience has run out," Jason Schilling, head of the Alberta Teachers' Association, told reporters Wednesday.

He announced that if there is no deal in place by Oct. 6, the union's 51,000 members will hit the picket lines.

“What teachers want is simple: classrooms that are properly funded, respect for the work that they do, and wages that reflect their value to Alberta's future," Schilling said.

Alberta's wasteful purchase of children's pain and fever medicine three years ago helped inform the province's decision to charge some people $100 for a COVID-19 vaccine shot this fall, Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday.

Advance polls in a historic federal byelection for Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot open today.

For the first time ever, Elections Canada says voters must fill out a blank ballot.

The agency lists a record 214 candidates running in the rural riding, with voting day on Aug. 18.

The majority are part of the Longest Ballot Committee, a protest group calling for various changes to Canada's electoral system.

An Independent candidate running in a rural Alberta byelection says she has stopped door-knocking because of death threats.

Sarah Spanier, 33, of Castor, Alta., says she has told Mounties about the online threats, which include a social media comment saying she would be met with a shotgun if she showed up at someone's door.

She attributes the threats and other derogatory messages she has received to her advocacy for transgender people during her campaign in the Battle River-Crowfoot riding, which encompasses communities such as Camrose, Drumheller and Wainwright.

A survivor of a rockfall last week in Banff National Park is remembering his 33-year-old roommate, who didn't make it out alive from under the rubble, as a kind and generous friend.

Khaled Elgamal says Hamza Benhilal of Surrey, B.C., was one of two people who died after a slab of mountain gave way Thursday, raining rock down on hikers at Bow Glacier Falls, about 200 kilometres northwest of Calgary.

Protests during the upcoming G7 leaders summit in Kananaskis, Alta., may be starkly different than demonstrations happening this week against immigration crackdowns in the United States.

A University of Toronto research group that has been monitoring the meetings of world leaders since 1998 says its analysis shows Canadian protests are more peaceful and smaller.

But similar to the recent demonstrations in Los Angeles, they're likely to be against the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Some outdoorsy Canadians are planning to build their tents with elbows up this summer as the season unofficially kicks off this long weekend.

Sally Turner says she and her husband plan to do their camping, canoeing and biking this year in Canadian national parks, including at Jasper National Park this weekend, because of the U.S. trade war and U.S. President Donald Trump's calls to make Canada a 51st state.

"I have, in the past, camped in the United States, but that's not going to happen in the near future," Turner said while shopping for camping gear in Edmonton.