The province is giving elementary teachers $750 for school supplies
Doug Ford says he came up with the idea in a Dollarama
Teachers, rejoice: this coming September, Premier Doug Ford is giving every elementary school class teacher a provincially branded $750 gift card to buy crayons, pencils and other necessities.
For years, teachers across the province have been footing the bill for classroom supplies with their own cash. They got a federal tax break for it, and some schools offered them a small stipend to help out, but these could be as low as $10 a year—hardly enough to stock a room full of grade schoolers.
Ford spoke about his new program at a north Etobicoke school earlier today. “The days of teachers having to put their hands in their own pockets to pay for school supplies, those days are done,” he said. The subsidy is expected to cost the province $66 million a year.
Ford said he got the idea after running into a couple of teachers buying supplies at a Dollarama, which is typical of the everyman-about-town persona he’s cultivated: a roaming premier, solving problems as he sees them. (Minister got a ticket from a speed camera? Rip them out. Stuck in traffic next to a bike lane? Sorry, cyclists. Commute down the 401 taking too long? Tunnel time.)
Ontario’s teachers’ unions have been sounding the alarm about the Ford government starving the public education system, arguing that the province’s schools will require a $6.3-billion investment to get them back up to speed. Or, put another way, 8.4 million little blue gift cards.
Speaking at an unrelated press conference this morning, David Mastin, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, commented on the situation. “We shouldn’t be looking at Kleenex, paper towels, pencils, pens and paper stationery as gifts,” he said. “These things should be an automatic in education.”
Related: Justifying recent OSAP cuts, Doug Ford told students to stop taking “basket-weaving courses”
Mastin further pointed out that the premier’s “gifts” come ahead of contract negotiations between teachers and the province, which will kick off this summer and are expected to be “very contentious.” If this was a peace offering on Ford’s part, it may be too little, too late.
Anthony Milton is a freelance journalist based in Toronto specializing in long-form magazine writing. He previously worked as an assistant editor at Toronto Life, where he launched the Front Row newsletter. He regularly contributes all sorts of stories to the magazine, including deep dives on sports, business and housing as well as short-form commentary on our ever-changing city, from its obsession with cherry blossoms to its maddening NIMBYism. His work has also appeared in Maclean’s, Ricochet, TVO, the Trillium and more.
