OP-ED: Ontario teachers’ union builds $300M war chest

Sue-Ann Levy writes, "The largest Ontario teachers’ union is sitting on a war chest of $300 million, according to budget documents obtained by True North."

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Author: Sue-Ann Levy

The largest Ontario teachers’ union is sitting on a war chest of $300 million, according to budget documents obtained by True North.

The budget documents — made available during last week’s union AGM — also show that more than $180 million is stashed away in a defence fund.

The budget does not indicate what is being defended. But no doubt it is a war chest to fight any and every reform proposed by the Ontario government, most especially the recent mandate from Ontario education minister Paul Calandra to get politics out of the classroom.

Everything the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) does, it would seem, is to promote politics and social justice in the classroom, and it uses taxpayer-funded teacher fees from its 83,000 members to accomplish this.

Tamara Gottlieb, head of the Jewish Educators and Families Association of Canada (JEFA), calls the $300 million reserve fund “extraordinary,” especially considering it has grown by $40 million in the past year.

”This is not just a rainy-day fund; it looks like ETFO is preparing for a battle of unprecedented proportions,” she says.

”When ETFO decides what it wants taught in schools — regardless of the minister of education's directive — it has the financial muscle to make it happen.”

Last week, JEFA presented its thoughtful reform document — a plan for “equal rights and real learning.”

As Gottlieb says, the education system has replaced reading, writing, math and science with “politicized content, union-driven equity agendas and identity-based labelling (of students).”

In addition to declining test scores, violence is at a record high in Ontario schools, particularly those in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

And unions like ETFO are the epicentre of equity-based learning and destructive social justice ideologies.

The president of the union, Karen Brown, now in her second term, has spent 22 years as an executive in the elementary teachers’ union, first with the Elementary Teachers of Toronto and with the ETFO since 2012.

That is longer than her teaching career with the TDSB.

According to the ETFO budget documents, Brown will make more than $350,000 in salary and benefits in the coming year. She has a $61,229 fund for accommodation when she travels, in addition to a $53,605 expense budget.

That’s a lot of fancy hotels and meals for Brown, who says in her report that she travelled across Ontario during the fall and winter for a “listening tour” to gain critical insights into what issues educators face every day.

She cites key themes such as large class sizes, not enough resources, not enough specialist teachers or mental health supports.

She claims that several people she met were upset over reduced prep time, growing classroom violence and the government’s alleged “underfunding” of public education.

It is so funny to read this, as the teachers’ union gripes have not changed in 30 years, when I first covered education during the Mike Harris years in the 1990s.

I especially love the part about the “growing classroom violence.” It is indeed a reality, but Brown would never admit how much teachers’ unions have contributed to that with their focus on DEI and Critical Race Theory instead of academics and a lack of consequences (expulsions or suspensions) for bad behaviour. It should come as no surprise whatsoever that they have vociferously fought the presence of cops in schools.

She even claims in her report that Ontario’s public elementary schools “rank among the finest globally.”

What a laugh.

It shows just how disconnected these unionists are from reality.

If we had any doubt that ETFO is focused on social justice and certainly not helping its members to deal with academics and violence in the classroom, all we have to do is look at the list of three dozen equity and women’s programs to which they provide their teacher-acquired fees.

Anti-Racist initiatives get $78,200; Equity workshops are budgeted at $121,500; Building Allyship for Gender Justice is budgeted at $85,000, and anti-oppressive programs get $149,500.

There is a Gender Equity in Math program, a Racialized members conference, ending Gender based violence and issues in education for non-binary members, budgeted at $28,500

In the annual report, also distributed at the AGM, ETFO officials laud their efforts to “Build a more just society.”

In the past year, the report says they held a Code Black Leadership program (whatever that means); a racialized members conference; a 2SLGBTQ+ members conference; an anti-poverty conference and three women’s conferences.

One featured “experienced femtor,” former MPP Jill Andrew (St. Paul’s anti-Israel MPP), who spoke about her lived experiences in politics. There was also a presentation that focused on “misogynoir trauma.”

The annual report also lists the equity workshops offered in 2024-2025, including: Islamophobia affects all our students; 2SLGBTQ+ awareness in primary (yes, primary!) classrooms; affirming the identities of 2SLGBTQ+ families in schools and Race Matters: Teaching students to be race conscious.

All of this makes it abundantly clear that basic academics — reading, writing and math — have taken a back seat to social-emotional learning and this obsessive focus on destructive ideologies.

As if this isn’t enough, ETFO’s Toronto unit — rife with anti-Semites — led the charge at the AGM to push through a motion to create a resource for all Ontario teachers that gives tips on how to deal with anti-Palestinian racism, affirms Palestinian identity and teaches Palestinian history (I’m certain from a highly anti-Israel standpoint).

Led by executive officer, Laura McCoy, sources say the motion passed 480-193.

But of course, anything to further ostracize Jewish students and teachers.

In fact, when I was down at the hotel where the conference was being held, I lost count of the number of delegates wearing the pro-Palestinian watermelon pins, a symbol of resistance.

So much for no politics in the classroom, as Calandra mandated back in May.

Sadly, our current Doug Ford government left school boards and the teachers’ unions with little oversight in the past six years, and it may just be a case of too little too late.