What to know
- Doug Ford is facing criticism over Ontario’s new $750 classroom supplies fund, which restricts teachers to purchasing through Staples, an American-owned company.
- Peel District School Board teacher Tyrell Smith called the arrangement “a little bit of a leash” and said it was “paradoxical” given Ford’s calls to buy Canadian during the trade war.
- Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles says the Staples deal contradicts the government’s “buy Ontario” messaging, asking how spending provincial dollars at an American-owned company protects Ontario workers.
Ontario teachers are welcoming new funding for classroom supplies, but some say the Ford government is putting a leash on how they can spend it, restricting the $750 annual allowance to American-owned Staples as the province urges Ontarians to buy Canadian during the trade war.
The Ontario government is under fire for providing eligible teachers in the province with access to a supplies fund that they can only spend at Staples, an American-owned company, as the North American trade war continues.
The criticism comes as the Ford government has been urging Ontarians to buy Canadian and support domestic businesses during the trade war. The province, meanwhile, has awarded Staples a sole-vendor contract for its new Classroom Supplies Fund, meaning eligible elementary teachers will access $750 annually through a provincial ordering system to purchase supplies.
Leader of the official opposition, the Ontario NDP, Marit Stiles is openly critical of the move.
“Doug Ford talks tough against the United States in front of the cameras, but as soon as they turn off, he’s all about the American dollar,” Stiles said in a statement to Now Toronto.
“Ontario teachers want to buy Ontario, and buy Canadian. Instead, the Premier has given them no choice but to buy from American-owned Staples. How does that protect Ontario jobs and workers?”
She is calling this a “pattern” from the province.
“It’s a pattern we’ve seen time and again from Doug Ford. Viral clips don’t keep Ontario safe from Trump’s tariffs. We need a Premier that can offer more than tough talk.”
Now Toronto reached out to Doug Ford’s office but did not hear back in time for publication.
What is Ontario’s $750 classroom supplies fund?
Starting Sept. 1, 2026, eligible elementary teachers in Ontario’s publicly funded schools will have access to $750 per year, including taxes, to purchase classroom supplies. The program covers teachers from Kindergarten through Grade 8 who have primary responsibility for a specific classroom or a dedicated special education classroom.
Eligible teachers will be able to order supplies online through the approved vendor, Staples, with the items shipped directly to their school. The school or school board handles the invoice, meaning teachers won’t have to pay out of pocket for purchases made through the program.
Despite being referred to as a “$750 gift card” in some of the political criticism surrounding the program, the government says teachers will actually receive a plastic “Classroom Supplies Card” for information purposes only. The card isn’t required to make purchases.
The $750 is also attached to the classroom rather than permanently to an individual teacher. If a teacher moves classrooms during the school year, the supplies they purchased stay in their former classroom, while any remaining funds are transferred to the teacher taking over that classroom. A teacher moving into a new classroom can access whatever funding is associated with that room.
Teachers who remain eligible can also carry forward up to $750 in unused funds into the following school year, meaning they could have as much as $1,500 available. However, unused funds can’t be carried over if a teacher moves to another school board, moves into an ineligible role or is a long-term occasional teacher.
What can teachers buy?
The government says the catalogue was developed following consultations with elementary teachers and school administrators. Supplies can be filtered by grade and include everything from basic classroom materials to student well-being resources.
That includes:
- Writing tools such as pens, coloured pencils, chalk and whiteboard markers
- Paper products including notebooks, binders and construction paper
- Art supplies such as paint, glue and modelling dough
- Classroom organization items including bins and trays
- Classroom décor, including posters and seasonal decorations
- Essentials such as facial tissues and paper towels
- Student incentives such as stickers and achievement awards
- Learning resources including calculators, flash cards and teaching clocks
- Well-being resources such as fidget toys, stuffies, weighted blankets and calming colouring books
Teachers do not need approval from their principal for individual purchases. Instead, they must attest that the items are for classroom use and will remain school property. An account coordinator at the school or school board can see the teacher’s purchase history and remaining balance.
The new funding is in addition to existing classroom-supplies funding provided to school boards, so the government says teachers will continue to have access to supplies through their schools’ existing education funding as well.
Teachers are concerned about more than the company’s location
For teachers, however, the concerns aren’t only about where the retailer is headquartered. There are also questions about how far the $750 will actually go.
Tyrell Smith, a long-term vocational teacher with the Peel District School Board, said he initially saw the program as a positive when he first heard about it.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s kind of interesting. If you can give teachers a little bit of extra money that they can use at their discretion, that’s kind of good,’” Smith said.
But after looking more closely at the program, Smith said he became concerned that limiting teachers to accessing products through Staples could make the funding less useful.
“School supplies are very expensive,” he said, adding that Staples is, in his opinion, a retailer with prices on the higher end.
Smith said teachers are accustomed to mentally budgeting how much they can get for their classrooms, from pencils and staplers to other basic supplies. With the $750 restricted to one vendor, he worries teachers could burn through the funding more quickly than they would if they had the freedom to shop around different vendors.
“Thinking about $750 and only being stuck at Staples means that $750 probably gets spent a lot sooner than if you had the freedom to spend elsewhere,” he said.
Smith said he would have preferred a system that gave teachers or principals more flexibility to purchase supplies from multiple vendors. He pointed to the existing relationships school boards have with different suppliers for classroom and school equipment, saying it would have made more sense to allow the funding to be used at various vendors.
“It just feels very much like they’re giving this to us, but it’s also like a little bit of a leash,” Smith said.
Smith also acknowledged that the current political climate between Canada and the United States can make the idea of supporting Staples uncomfortable. He said it could even become a “teachable moment” in his classroom, particularly when discussing politics, history and social studies.
“But definitely, it’s very interesting to have a time period where we are not agreeing with the U.S., and we are hearing from time and time again, ‘Buy Canadian, buy Canadian,’ and then we are now, as educators educating the youth, kind of locked into buying from a U.S. company,” Smith said.
“It is paradoxical, to say the very least.”
Still, Smith said his criticism isn’t about opposing the idea of giving teachers additional money for their classrooms.
“I’m nonpartisan,” he said. “As long as it is something that can benefit the classroom, then do it.”
To this end, Smith said the province should find a clearer way to support teachers and schools without imposing restrictions that could limit how useful the funding is.
For Smith, the $750 fund is ultimately a small piece of a much larger issue facing Ontario classrooms.
“I feel like there’s a little bit of a band-aid compared to what we need overall,” he said.
He pointed to special education and behavioural supports as areas where schools need significantly more resources, saying students can face challenges beyond academics that can make it difficult for them to succeed in the classroom.
“I think just overall behavioural support is needed because I think there are a lot of students who, beyond just academic reasons, but other factors involved, sometimes may hold them back in the classroom, and sometimes getting those resources is a little bit tricky,” Smith said.
