Strategic Electoral Dilemmas and the Politics of Teachers’ Unions in Ontario

This article seeks to explain both convergence and divergence in Ontario teacher union electoral strategy. After coalescing around a strategy of anti-Progressive Conservative (PC) strategic voting beginning with the 1999 provincial election, Ontario’s major teachers’ unions developed an electoral alliance with the McGuinty Liberals designed to advance teacher union priorities and mitigate the possibility of a return to power for the PCs. The authors use campaign finance and interview data to demonstrate that this ad hoc partnership was strengthened over the course of several election campaigns before the Liberal government’s decision to legislate restrictions on teacher union collective bargaining rights in 2012 led to unprecedented tension in the union-party partnership. The authors adapt the concept of union-party loyalty dilemmas to explain why individual teachers’ unions responded differently to the Liberal government’s efforts to impose austerity measures in the education sector.