Ontario Teachers Strikes: 57% Side With Unions Over Ford Government, Poll Finds

TORONTO — Nearly twice as many Ontarians side with teachers’ unions as those who side with Premier Doug Ford ’s government in the ongoing labour dispute, including 22 per cent of Progressive Conservative voters.

“By a margin of nearly two-to-one (57 per cent versus 30 per cent), the public are siding with the unions, not the Ontario government,” pollster EKOS Politics said as part of new research released Thursday. 

“All in all, the Ford Government was already in some difficulty with Ontario voters. This current dispute with the teacher unions is the last thing they need at this point and, depending on the outcome, it could end up crippling their prospects in 2022.”

Ten per cent of the people polled said they support neither the government nor the unions. 

EKOS Politics polled 634 Ontario residents over the age of 18 by phone from Jan. 15 to Jan. 19. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 3.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

All four major Ontario teachers’ unions are currently involved in some kind of job action. 

The high school teachers’ union has been holding rotating one-day strikes since December and elementary teachers launched one-day strikes Monday. 

Several school boards said Tuesday that first term report cards for elementary students won’t be sent home. An ongoing work-to-rule campaign by elementary teachers includes not inputting marks electronically, so some boards said they weren’t able to produce the report cards, including the Toronto District School Board, Peel District School Board and Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board.

A province-wide one-day strike by the Catholic teacher’s union shut down all Catholic schools Tuesday. 

With files from The Canadian Press