Auditor General: reopening Ontario teachers’ contracts cost you $468M

Ontario’s Auditor General says premier Kathleen Wynne’s decision to re-open contracts for teachers last year cost taxpayers nearly half a billion dollars.

Public school teachers withdrew from extracurricular activities and staged protests after the Liberals imposed a 2-year wage freeze in 2012. After Wynne became premier in early 2013 she agreed to re-open negotiations with elementary and secondary school teachers’ unions.

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk report says certain contract changes the Liberals made did indeed save about $2.1 billion as they had estimated. “A big portion of the savings is attributed to, I’m going to talk accountant here, the reversal of a long-term liability of about $1.4 billion dollars that is associated with the elimination of sick day benefit and post-retirement benefits.”

But opposition parties focused on the $468 million lost in the moves.

PC leadership candidate Lisa MacLeod: “I think today kids are in school, parents are learning that $500 million that should have been intended for kids and classrooms went to renegotiate contracts so that Kathleen Wynne would be more popular.”

NDP leader Andrea Horwath: “I think the auditor general’s report just shows how politically the Liberals played with the lives of people so inappropriately.”

The auditor’s report also reminds there could be more costs because of an ongoing charter challenge by several unions before the courts. That decision isn’t expected until April.