TORONTO — Ontario elementary teachers opened their new $750 classroom-supply accounts this week and found the government-mandated Staples portal charging more than the same retailer’s public website for identical items.About 80,000 homeroom elementary teachers now have access to the Classroom Supplies Fund. Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy pegged the program at $66 million when it was unveiled in March. Teachers must order through a closed Staples Professional site at eway.ca, with goods shipped to schools.Education Minister Paul Calandra announced the vendor in August after a Supply Ontario process that drew eight bids. Staples ranked first with the lowest evaluated price. “After an open, fair and competitive process led by Supply Ontario, Staples Canada was selected as the vendor with competitive pricing, nearly half the price of the second-ranked bidder, significantly increasing value for taxpayer dollars,” Calandra said.Teachers comparing catalogues this week told The Star a four-pack of notebooks listed at $2.51 on the portal versus 79 cents on the regular Staples site. Marker packs showed $4.82 on the portal and about $2 on the public site during a sale. CBC reported the same gap after the portal went live..In a statement to the Western Standard, Staples Canada split the catalogue in two. “There are more than 200 core items in the program, identified by a green symbol on the Classroom Supplies Fund portal at eway.ca,” the company said. “Those core items were determined through Supply Ontario’s survey of approximately 25,000 Ontario elementary teachers, who identified the products they need most. Those prices are the lowest available at Staples.”Staples said it then added “other products teachers may find helpful.” On those complementary items, it pledged prices “the same or less than can be found at Staples in-store or online.” The match is not applied at checkout. If a teacher finds a higher portal price, the company said, they must call a dedicated line.That line went in after the first day of ordering, not before Queen’s Park locked teachers into a single vendor. The statement does not say whether the notebooks and markers flagged this week were “core” or “complementary,” or why a match requires a phone call instead of the lower price at checkout.A Sept. 1 Staples release quoted Chris Saniga, the company’s chief B2B officer: “We are pleased to have been able to work with Supply Ontario to ensure teachers’ $750 goes as far as possible; the prices for the items will be very competitive and, in most cases, significantly below market.” The same release said Supply Ontario’s teacher survey set the core list and that Staples “provided the best bid.”.The $750 is not all new money, and it is not all available to spend. A ministry technical guide for 2026-27 says each account is $450 in new funding plus $300 transferred from classroom-supply money boards already receive. The official program page says the $750 includes tax. Orders under $50 incur $9.99 shipping, taken from the same balance. Calandra’s office has said the portal lists about 3,000 products. Staples now says more than 200 of those carry the green “core” tag.Premier Doug Ford launched the fund on March 11 in Etobicoke. “The days of teachers having to put their hands in their own pockets to pay for school supplies, those days are done,” Ford said.Unions had warned the portal would open too late. School starts next week. Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association president René Jansen in de Wal said in August, “Everything comes out late — they are oblivious to how the system works.” Some downtown Toronto schools told CityNews the accounts had only just arrived.
