Many of the more than 35,000 public-service employees from two unions in British Columbia will be heading to the picket lines on Tuesday morning if they are not called back to the bargaining table, the union heads say.

“We think our government is out of touch with both our membership and the public‚” said Paul Finch, bargaining chair and president of the British Columbia General Employees’ Union. “We think the government needs to take a knee and revise their position here.”

The BCGEU, which represents 34,000 public-sector employees, as well as the Professional Employees Association (PEA), which represents more than 1,800 licensed government professionals, each issued a 72-strike notice on Friday.

The night before they had to leave their home in the Northwest Territories because of an encroaching wildfire, Paschalina Nadli and her daughter carefully packed up their truck.

Their community of Fort Providence, NWT, where fewer than 1,000 people live, is located west of Great Slave Lake along the Mackenzie River. It was placed on evacuation alert on Saturday evening as a wildfire raged nearby.