TORONTO — There is no way Ontario’s teachers will get salary raises higher than one per cent a year, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday. “We either stay stagnant and roll over like the previous Liberal government did, give the unions whatever they want, or we can be responsible and respect the taxpayers’ money,” Ford told reporters outside his office at Queen’s Park.



Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives passed a law in November that caps salary raises for all public sector workers at one per cent. All four of the province’s major teachers’ unions are challenging the bill in court.



Cole Burston/Canadian Press Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks at a news conference at Queen's Park in Toronto on Jan. 16, 2020.

“We can’t have rules for the heads of the unions that represent teachers and rules for everyone else in the province,” Ford said. The premier’s comments come as all four unions have announced plans to take or escalate job action. Three unions are planning one-day strikes next week — The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA). Teachers in the French school system start work-to-rule this week. See if your child’s school board is affected by the ETFO strikes Monday and Tuesday or the OSSTF walkout Tuesday with these links. All OECTA members are participating in a one-day strike Tuesday. The unions say they are fighting the government’s proposals to increase class sizes and mandate online courses for high school students. The province, on the other hand, says it’s all about money. “Make no mistake about it. This is about compensation,” Ford said Thursday. “It’s the one per cent. If I came out tomorrow and said we’re going to give them another one per cent, this would be done. But we can’t do that.”