Jon Liedtke joins 610 CKTB’s Gene Valaitis for his regular weekly segment, Liedtke’s Got a Take!
Jon Liedtke critiques Ontario’s $750 teacher supply allowance managed through Staples, arguing the program slashes purchasing power, redirects $300 from existing board budgets, and funnels $66 million to a US private equity firm while burdening teachers with extra administrative price-matching before school starts.
Transcript (Gemini Generated):
Gene Valaitis: It’s time for Liedtke’s Got a Take. Good morning, Jon.
Jon Liedtke: Good morning, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Uh, we’re going to be talking about Ford’s brand-new $750-a-year teacher supply allowance. And, uh, this is a classic example of everything going wrong when it didn’t have to. So, Jon, on paper, $750 for teachers to buy classroom supplies sounds like a — like a win, like a great idea. So why are teachers complaining on social media and saying the deal is not as was originally presented?
Jon Liedtke: Hi, Gene. Yeah, I mean, look, $750 for teachers to buy these classroom supplies, it would be great. The problem is, is that the moment that teachers logged onto the portal on day one, the Staples portal — Staples received the contract for this — they realized that their purchasing power was completely gutted by markups. Now, $750 sounds great for a back-to-school photo op, but in reality, what teachers were seeing when they first logged on, cases of paper that school boards would previously buy for $50 going to $85, duotangs that cost 38 cents to the public going up to almost a dollar, notebook packs doubling in price over — overnight. So, you know, when you saw that the allowance buys almost half as much as what it would if you just actually had cold hard cash… That’s not a frontline investment. That’s, you know, that’s — that’s a slap in the face.
Gene Valaitis: Oh, man. It’s worse than I thought. Okay, so the —
Jon Liedtke: Oh, it gets worse, too, Gene.
Gene Valaitis: Okay, well, the Ontario government is handing out 60 million for this program. Isn’t this brand-new money going straight to the front line?
Jon Liedtke: Okay, Gene, I’ve got three shells for you, and I’m going to put the ball underneath one of them, okay? We’re going to play budget shell game. School board guidelines confirm that out of $750 allowance that’s coming, $300 is being pulled directly out of existing school board funding. That’s 40% of recycled money. So, I mean, so this is a gift in the sense that they’re actually clawing back from local school board budgets as well. The Ford government took $300 of existing board funds, stripped away local bulk buying power, handed the whole pot to a single American-owned private equity giant, and slapped a brand-new cash label on it. And then, worst of all, I actually was reading one teacher on social media who said that she doesn’t have a homeroom class, she’s a music teacher, and while she used to receive $300 a year for supplies, now she’s not receiving any of that because of that clawback. So she’s saying, “How am I supposed to pay for the papers, and the notebooks, and everything I need for my classroom as well?” So this is a, you know, it’s a political sleight of hand. We’re robbing Peter to pay Paul, but taking a victory lap in front of the cameras.
Gene Valaitis: Well, you know, when I heard of this, I was thinking giving teachers direct control over their classroom budget, it really sounded like a good idea in principle, no pun intended.
Jon Liedtke: I think so as well, too, 100%. Customized spending at the classroom level does make total sense. A math teacher doesn’t need to buy world maps, a phys ed teacher doesn’t need beakers, and a science teacher doesn’t need basketballs, and I could keep going. Um, giving teachers the autonomy to tailor the spending directly to their curriculums is smart, pragmatic policy. But nobody was asking for that autonomy to be funded by cannibalizing existing school board budgets and locking teachers into a single corporate portal of an American-owned corporation with zero price checks. And, you know, there — we’ll talk a bit about the mistakes that are going to be made and how they’re rectified, but at the end of the day, you know, give teachers control? Yes. Force them into a corporate monopoly? I think that this is where the policy collapses.
Gene Valaitis: Well, I think we have to at this point give the minister a great big, you know what? Aw, muffin. You know, the minister’s come out and has said teachers are just missing the list of 200 essential items offered at huge discounts, and that the portal isn’t mean — isn’t meant to be perfect on day one. Now, is that a fair defense, or is he just spinning out a botched rollout? I’m — I’m going to take botched rollout for $500, Alex.
Jon Liedtke: Oh, this — this is a car that’s just spinning its wheels right now. This is linguistic gymnastics. The minister stands up there and tells us teachers simply missed seeing the 200 discounted items. Great! But there’s also 3,000 items in that catalog. So what about the other 2,800 items that are marked up 250 to 300% higher than standard public retail? And the fact that Staples had to scramble together on night one to set up an emergency 1-800 number to help match the hotline prices with what they should be proves the deal was rushed out the door without basic procurement safeguards in a contract. How could this be allowed to happen? And telling teachers it’s not meant to be perfect on day one, when kids are about to be sitting at desks, potentially without the proper supplies that they need, is not a defense; it’s an admission of gross administrative incompetence.
Gene Valaitis: Wow. Well, what about local? Why are we funneling $66 million into a single American-owned equity giant?
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, that’s the $66 million question. We endlessly hear Premier Ford preach about Buy Ontario and support local Canadian enterprises, but when it comes to this massive contract of 66 million, where does the government go? Well, they’re handing the keys to Staples, a company owned by a massive American private equity firm. Instead of letting $750 per teacher circulate through local businesses however they see fit, and Canadian suppliers, profits from Ontario tax dollars are going to be routed to a US megacorp. Where is the local economic common sense in that? And they say that they did it because it made sense regionally because of the footprint that Staples has. But the teachers are having to go onto the computer to buy the stuff, Gene, so what does the footprint matter?
Gene Valaitis: All right, just about out of time, Jon. Bottom line here: teachers are back in school next Tuesday, students are back in the classroom, the portal is live. Where does this leave things?
Jon Liedtke: Yeah, it leaves us with a system where taxpayers pay more, teachers are getting less, a foreign-owned private equity firm gets, you know, a guaranteed captive market, and when teachers should be spending time setting up their lesson plans and getting their classrooms ready, they’re having to play administrative Price Is Right detective price-matching games to find out how much should things cost, am I getting the best deal. And it’s a load of paperwork for them that they have to do on top of what their jobs already are. And I imagine that when it comes time for the next round of negotiations with the union, they’re going to bring up this — it’s a sticking point — going, “Look at all the new work that we have to do.”
Gene Valaitis: Yeah. You know, this reminds me of that incredible quote from Ronald Reagan when he was talking about the worst sentence you can hear, and that is: “Hi, I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Jon Liedtke: “I’m — I’m here to help,” run the other way!
Gene Valaitis: Oh, yikes. Great take, my friend.
Jon Liedtke: Thank you, Gene. Talk to you tomorrow.
Gene Valaitis: There he goes, Jon Liedtke. Liedtke’s Got a Take.
This aired on 610 CKTB
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