OSSTF unveil London, Ont. area endorsements ahead of provincial election

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) have endorsed four Ontario NDP candidates and one Ontario Liberal candidate in the London area ahead of the upcoming provincial election.

The education union unveiled its support during a news conference at the union’s London office on Wednesday that also included a presentation of OSSTF’s education platform.

Incumbent NDP candidates Teresa Armstrong for London-Fanshawe, Terence Kernaghan for London North Centre and Peggy Sattler for London West have all received endorsements from the OSSTF.

The union, which is made up of 60,000 teachers and education workers, is also backing the NDP’s Oxford candidate Lindsay Wilson, as well as the Liberal candidate for Elgin-Middlesex-London Heather Jackson.

While most of the union’s endorsements across Ontario are for the NDP, a number of Liberal candidates and two Green Party candidates have also received support. The governing Progressive Conservatives did not receive any endorsements for their candidates.

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OSSTF president Karen Littlewood says the endorsements were based on interviews with those running for provincial parliament.

“We didn’t say, ‘we’re just going to support one party.’ We said, ‘we’re going to support candidates who support public education,’ and that’s why we made the decisions that we did,” Littlewood told Global News.

OSSTF is also looking for candidates who the union believes will adhere to its education platform.

First unveiled last year, the platform looks to “rebuild Ontario” through strengthening public education.

That strengthening includes increasing student-centred supports and services, improving learning conditions for all, providing safe and healthy learning and working conditions, addressing systemic inequities and “centring schools as part of our communities” through investments in services that support education communities such as child care.

Littlewood says many of the issues the OSSTF’s platform brings attention to were heightened during the pandemic, particularly through school closures and other responses to COVID-19.

“What’s happened is we end up with hybrid learning where you have a teacher in the classroom with a laptop and some kids at home and some kids in the class, and nobody gets what they need through that. It’s been a cheap alternative,” Littlewood said.

“I get that it was an emergency situation, but there’s better that can be done and we have to do better going forward.”

While every provincial election has the potential to bring plenty of consequences for public education, Littlewood says this year’s election is especially important.

“We know that with bargaining coming up – our collective agreements expire Aug. 31, 2022 – so that’s coming and it’s going to be affected by who gets elected,” Littlewood said.

The Ontario government has yet to call the June election, but Global News has learned that the Ontario legislature is set to adjourn immediately after the budget is tabled this Thursday.

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