Big Majority of Ontario Public is Supporting School Teachers Over Doug Ford, New Polling Finds

Doug Ford appears to be losing his battle against Ontario school teachers.

According to fresh polling data from EKOS, a clear majority of Ontarians (57%) say they support teachers in the ongoing labour dispute between the Ford government and Ontario’s school teachers.

Meanwhile, fewer than one-third of respondents (30%) said they’re backing Ford. One-in-ten said they support neither side.

“By a margin of approximately 2:1,” tweeted EKOS president Frank Graves, “the Ontario public are siding with the teacher unions, not the government.”

By a margin of approximately 2:1 (57/30%) the Ontario public are siding with the teacher unions, not the Government pic.twitter.com/6GOi3l4zQ1

— Frank Graves (@VoiceOfFranky) January 22, 2020

Strikingly, the polling data shows a significant number of Progressive Conservatives have decided they’re not backing Ford in this fight.

While 87% of official opposition Ontario NDP supporters and 80% of third party Ontario Liberals supporters say they stand with teachers, one-quarter of Ontario PC supporters are not in lock-step with Ford — in fact, 22% of Tories say they stand with the teachers too.

Graves said the polling result is a teaser of a larger set of polling data on the Ford government’s labour dispute with teachers that will be released later this week.

The polling data, collected between January 15-19, comes as Ford’s point man on education has struggled during his moment in the spotlight.

Last week, Education Minister Stephen Lecce repeatedly dodged basic questions about the educational benefits of his online learning plan during a radio interview with CBC Ottawa.

Lecce had previously defended the plan by noting it would move Ontario closer to a model of education in Republican-controlled states like “Alabama” and “Arkansas.”

Later, a man portrayed in an article by the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington as an ordinary parent angry at teachers was revealed to be a conservative activist in Lecce’s home riding with apparent ties to the education minister.