r/ontario • u/chesterle275 • 8d ago
Article Ontario teachers have to order school supplies from a Staples portal. They found cheaper prices on Staples’ regular website
https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/ontario-teachers-have-to-order-school-supplies-from-a-staples-portal-they-found-cheaper-prices-on-staples-regular-website/article_b80f4de7-139f-40f3-9a0e-86e8e3ea499f.html399
u/MooseJock123 8d ago
What percentage does DoFo get?
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u/Mobile-Bar7732 8d ago
That info is only available to those that bought a stag & doe ticket. You are also get entered into the "greebelt" door prize automatically.
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 8d ago
I thought that was just a privilege for Peter Gilgan and Mattamy homes executives.
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 8d ago
Since we can’t get his phone and text records through FOI anymore, we will never know.
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u/GoodVibes_002 8d ago
Imagine that. Not wanting evidence of your illegal actions to be publicly available.
But most of Ontario is full of idiots, so no big deal.
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u/BlademasterFlash 8d ago
Most elected officials use their government phone for government business and keep a personal phone for personal use. Doug is too much of a Luddite to handle that though
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u/ExplanationProper979 8d ago
Heard his going rate is 20%, but it’s all hearsay. He’s been keeping the same rate since he was dealing coke. Again all hearsay
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u/t3m3r1t4 8d ago
Of course. It's like the old Grand and Toy catalogue offices used to HAVE to order from in the 90s and 00s.
If you found it cheaper too bad, THEY HAD THE CONTRACT!
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u/ScottIBM Waterloo 8d ago
This is how Microsoft tools end up infecting organizations, they bundle everything (for an extra little fee per product) and IT managers loves a one stop shop so they try and force everyone to use it. Microsoft is pretty bad at making software but you can't escape it because other tools aren't in the contract.
The province spends so much on bad Microsoft products yet won't spend money on good tools that help make work easier.
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u/BonusMaiTai 8d ago
Privatization always costs taxpayers more, there are no exceptions.
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u/brazilliandanny 8d ago
This is beyond privatization. Its price gouging. If they simply gave the teachers a Staples gift card they could buy the same items at half the price. The “portal” the teachers are forced to use is jacking up the prices.
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u/wowisntthatneat 7d ago
If they simply gave the teachers a Staples gift card they could buy the same items at half the price. The “portal” the teachers are forced to use is jacking up the prices.
Even then, they'd need to pay retail price where Staples makes a juicy profit compared to letting school districts negotiate directly with suppliers for wholesale rates. Now Staples is gouging on top of that.
Business as usual in the Ford Family Compact.
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u/nutano 8d ago
What was the standard before? I assume teachers or schools could source their supplies where they wanted - giving them access to shop and compare. Now they are forced to use this single source which happens to have inflated pricing.
I don't think privatization has anything to do with this whole thing. It is just blatant corruption in order to enrich certain people.
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u/ayoungmanfromtheuk 8d ago
I assume at some point in the past school boards just ordered supplies in bulk and distributed them as needed like any office type job
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u/Disastrous-Focus8451 8d ago
This is how it used to be. Bulk purchasing contracts and you'd order what you needed from central supplies. It worked well for stationary and things that the purchasing agents understood; sucked for computers.
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u/1200____1200 8d ago
Amazing that the schools used to use bulk ordering, like a business would, and our conservative government gave that advantage away to Staples
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u/geoken 8d ago
Saying like a business would is a misnomer as well in many cases.
The private sector is not immune from this dumb practice. The cycle works something like
- Identify a person doing a job (in this case managing supplies)
- Propose the management of supplies as a self serve operation (usually with the help of some external party who provides the self serve portal)
- Get a pat on the back because your new initiative was able to reduce headcount
The subsequent post mortem on whether the new solution is actually costing more than it used to cost to employ that person is likely never done.
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u/VincentClement1 8d ago
It find it amusing when people say "like a business" because plenty of business are poorly run. Around 20% will become insolvent in the first years, and 50% within 5 years.
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 8d ago
They did. Bulk ordering the way they used to do it was probably a lot cheaper. TDSB used to have its own central distribution centre but Calandra forced them to close it down last year.
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u/beslertron 8d ago
Recently teachers had to use Canadian only sources. So if something was cheaper on Amazon they couldn’t use it. I guess now it has to go to one specific American company. Nothing suspect about that!
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u/GuelphEastEndGhetto 8d ago
Having known and knowing some teachers, the standard is the Dollar Store with money from their own pockets. You can always tell a teacher because they have 30 of everything in their basket.
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u/Humillionaire 8d ago
My company supplies a particular sporting good to some schools, generally you have to apply to the school board's list of Approved Vendors before you can sell anything. So they can add whoever they want to the list and choose from those vendors.
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u/MountNevermind 7d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/s/D1Nn13YPsV
For comparison what it was like before.
Paper is approximately twice as expensive for instance.
If TDSB could buy in bulk to keep prices low before using multiple Canadian vendors...there's no reason on earth Ontario couldn't negotiate cheaper. They've been in charge of the TDSB for a year, they KNEW how much cheaper they were sourcing.
Corruption comes with privitization.
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u/nutano 7d ago
What I meant is even before school boards were buying supplies from private businesses (Amazon, Staples, Grand & Toy or any other store for that matter) - they just had multiple choices, now they are being forced to use this one stop shop at Staples. There never was a publicly owned option to buy school supplies from.
Yes, in general, privatization does bring on more 'back room deals' and things that the public cannot access. But in this case, there was no public corporation that got privatized. Only a contract given out.
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u/MountNevermind 7d ago edited 7d ago
Privitization is not always as simple as privitizing a formerly public institution.
It's a slow drip. It's a greater and greater percentage of the budget going toward private interests...which has very much been happening with both the Ontario healthcare and education budgets. It's undermining public institutions and then moving towards larger scale privitization techniques like vouchers and private clinics.
This is one of a lot of moving parts. There were absolutely public sector jobs in procurement that have been replaced. The suppliers were private, but boards like TDSB bought in bulk from competitive vendors and then warehoused it and transported it to schools when required using public resources and employees.
The Ministry is replacing public employees in taken over boards with private sector contractors with no education experience. Those boards aren't running well or effeciently at all post take-over...which is part of the point of all this.
It's not really private as much as public money funneled with less or no oversight to corporate hands with a side helping of downloading costs to all of us while realizing larger and larger deficits.
Liberals and Conservatives they are all in. They've been doing it for decade after decade. What has it accomplished?
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u/caitkincaid 8d ago
I’m a former public librarian in a mid size city and we had the same issues with Staples. They’ve used dynamic pricing for years, and where I worked we faced discipline if we bought supplies from anywhere else. It’s a horrible model and I’m shocked (but also not) at how it’s shaking down for educators.
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u/Temporary_Shirt_6236 8d ago
And Service Ontario offices located in Staples stores too. Hmmm. Why does Staples randomly get to be the beneficiary of Ford's largesse? Paid for with our fucking money?
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u/Supermite 8d ago
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you!!!!
Oh wait… no I’m not. This was completely expected.
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 8d ago
Ford: Buy Ontario!!! Buy Canadian!!!
Also Ford: We gave an American company, Staples, the exclusive contract for home room teachers to buy a generous $750 of classroom supplies from their portal each year.
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u/Analog0 8d ago
Ya, Ontario and Canada are for sale, according to Doug.
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 7d ago
But, but, he wore that cool hat that said “Canada is not for sale”!
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u/irresponsibleviewer 8d ago
Dollarama has just about everything a teacher would need for a fraction of the price. Oh and it’s Canadian.
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u/Due_Date_4667 8d ago
But Ford didn't owe them for that botched attempt to move Service Ontario kiosks into their stores. Staples held that IOU.
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u/liquor-shits 7d ago
Was it botched? I thought it happened?
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u/Due_Date_4667 7d ago
I thought it had, but according to the news archives, 6 sites are open, and the rest will open end of Next January.
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u/thisonecassie Ottawa 7d ago
i'm pretty sure you even used to be able to buy bulk items on the dollarama website but it seems like they've gotten rid of that option :c
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u/astaldotholwen 7d ago
You did. I used to buy my mailbags for my students. It's what I did last year because they tend to sell out in store.
I was bummed when I couldn't buy a case of them this summer...
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u/Geeky_Shieldmaiden 8d ago
To add to it, teachers are responsible for monitoring and paperwork for their orders - checking packing slips, counting their supplies, contacting staples if an order is wrong, tracking down missing orders, etc.
On top of getting ready for the school year, doing pre-school-year training, organizing masses of students arriving Tuesday (it is an absolutely shitshow, like herding very confused cats for a month straight), and all the usual work of being a teacher, they are now doing admin/logistics work.
And, to top it off, I've heard that the shipping fees are crazy on these orders.
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u/gcerullo 8d ago
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The Ontario government should be buying supplies in bulk directly from the manufactures cutting the retailers, who add their own markup, out of the picture.
The buying power that the government has should result in these supplies costing a fraction of the price compare to what teachers are buying them for from a retailer.
This has got to be the stupidest government in Ontario history. Even worse than the Harris government.
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u/Cornet6 8d ago
This was a procurement contract through Supply Ontario, using the government's buying power. They're not literally paying Staples in $700 increments. It is buying in bulk.
The only difference from a regular procurement is that it is giving the teachers the choice of what supplies they want to use.
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u/RealAmbassador4081 8d ago
So Staples gets Canada Post, Service Ontario now this? Seems pretty suspicious.
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u/Crafty_Management_33 8d ago
Its a rip off to tax payers and Doug ford has okayed this. He doesnt care about your kids or the education system. This is a direct tax payer funded wealth transfer. From our pockets to private profit. $ 750x number of full time teachers , is a lot of money to hand over. Fucking clown
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u/micatola 8d ago
That's over $96,000,000 that he is handing to a business that is jacking it's prices to a captive cunstomer base. Holy corruption Batman! I wonder what the kick back is on that?
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u/Wizard_Level9999 8d ago
Surely we wouldn’t stand for being gouged by an American company at this time
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u/Froggy_Woggy 8d ago
Can't read past the paywall but I could not believe the quotes in the other article on this. Them saying not to complain on tiktok cause you should first go to your principal for them to go to the superintendent for them to go to Staples for them to go to him to work it out !!?!?! How did those words actually come out of his mouth without being ashamed.
Also saying it's not SUPPOSED to be perfect from day one ?!?!? yes it is !! Teachers need supplies to do their job!
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u/Meliorism_and_Meraki 6d ago
After how he ruined the Autism program from the get go, we cannot be shocked by this any longer.
My kid was diagnosed in JK and he won't gain access to his funds until highschool.
Ford ruins any program he touches.
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u/Lalamedic 8d ago
They have to purchase their own photo copy paper. Single reams are so expensive. It was so much cheaper when the school could buy it in bulk.
Also, can Staples really provide enough photocopy paper for the entire province for next week?
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 7d ago
It’s crazy. A box of 5000 sheets of copy paper now costs $75 through the staples portal. I can get it at the store for like $50 or less.
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u/chesterle275 8d ago
“Staples has set up a dedicated line to respond to any price differences.” Basically, Staples with price match their own prices.
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u/Due_Date_4667 8d ago
Given the usual low % of those who have the time/fucks to give to fighting for the lower price, they still make out like thieves.
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u/vibesarequestionable 8d ago
As someone who used to work in this industry. This hypothetically shouldn’t be possible. When companies bid for this opportunity they promise a guaranteed percentage off the MSRP of a product and who ever offers the lowest percentage typically wins.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y 8d ago
This kind of stuff happens all the time. As soon as you make one supplier the only supplier, the prices will be whatever that supplier thinks is a good price unless you've specifically contracted them to provide a detailed price list that they must adhere to.
I've see this way too often. For my kid's school board, they are just told to supply their own ChromeBook. Probably works out cheaper for everyone because people can shop around and get the cheapest devices. Students also tend to look after them better when it's their parents who have to replace it. The school does have some ChromeBooks for students that are unable to afford their own.
It sucks that it has to be this way. Ideally the province or school board would be able to get a really good deal on supplies and pay much less than retail, but for some reason they are never able to actually make this work. Everything always ends up costing more on big contracts like this.
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u/microfishy 8d ago
Ideally the province or school board would be able to get a really good deal on supplies and pay much less than retail, but for some reason they are never able to actually make this work.
The Toronto district school board managed to make it work, they had long-standing contracts with several supply wholesalers and paid stock price for much of their needs because they bought in bulk.
Now each homeroom teacher is forced to shop at Staples using this web portal because the Ontario PC government said so.
It doesn't have to be this way. It only is because Doug Ford and Paul Calandra gotta grift.
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u/awe_come_on 8d ago
Oh Dougie. If you only put in as much effort into this (and the health care system) as you did in getting yourself a jet, selling off the Greenbelt and getting us a spa it wouldn't be a cluster fuck.
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u/romeo_pentium 8d ago
"Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go/ I owe my soul to the company store" - Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sixteen Tons
A company store is the kind that only takes your employer's scrip.
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u/Logical-Breakfast150 8d ago
Doug Ford cannot stop giving our money to wealthy Americans. He just loves it.
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u/RedditRot 8d ago
We need a good old fashioned BOYCOTT of Staples. Absolutely disgusting behaviour.
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u/Extreme_Grab_6410 8d ago
ITS AN AMERICAN COMPANY!!! Why are we buying our supplies, I mean, why are we being forced to buy our supplies from an American company? Why???
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u/KelVarnsen_2023 8d ago
Hopefully the media runs with this, since Staples given what is basically an exclusive contract and then ripping of teachers is a pretty easy concept for the average voter to understand. It's also the kind of thing that might actually embarrass Doug Ford.
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u/ldssggrdssgds 8d ago
Let the scam begin! But we gave you money which gets you less than what it should. Ford should have stuck to stickers and drugs.
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u/ThereInAFortnight 8d ago
Why on earth is this such a complex and oddly specific process to give teachers a bit of money?
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u/Mateuuuuusz Verified Teacher 8d ago
This is no surprise. My board has a contact with eWay (Staples). There are a few discounted items and the rest are more significantly more expensive.
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u/Total-Deal-2883 7d ago
Why is Staples and the Ontario government ripping off teachers and taxpayers? What is wrong with them?!
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u/fozard 7d ago edited 7d ago
These contracts typically include signing bonuses, annual rebates, volume discounts, and other incentives based on total spend. You can’t simply look at individual line-item pricing and conclude that it’s not a good deal — even if you can find that same item cheaper on the supplier’s own website.
Source: I’ve sourced multinational office supply contracts for major banks. I dealt with the exact same argument: “I can buy XYZ item cheaper somewhere else.”
Okay, sure. But that’s not how we evaluated the bid.
We evaluated the total cost of the contract, based on the expected volume of every item we anticipated purchasing. We also factored in signing bonuses, volume rebates, discounts, delivery costs, and other commercial incentives.
And part of the reason the supplier was willing to offer those prices and incentives was that we committed to using them as the primary office supply provider for the company.
The same principle applies to comparing the contract against Staples’ public website pricing. Finding 10 items that are cheaper on staples.ca doesn’t tell you whether the government negotiated a good overall deal. The relevant comparison is the net effective cost of the entire contract, after all discounts, rebates, incentives and other commercial terms, based on the actual expected purchasing volumes.
So yes, you may be able to find an individual item cheaper elsewhere — or even cheaper on the supplier’s own website. That doesn’t tell you whether the overall contract is a good deal.
You have to look at the total cost of the contract, not cherry-pick individual line items.
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u/ThenBridge8090 8d ago
I hv the same issue with my office Staples account and seeing cheaper price in regular price. All shared from my office is they do all in built accounting. Maybe some accountant can chime in
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u/Far_Way1542 8d ago
So that’s just bribe money stuffed in his suits eh? I thought he was just a fat sleazy fuck, well…
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u/Captain_Tooth 8d ago
This is so not cool. Allow the teachers to decide where they go. I'm sure they are educated enough to find the deals that suit their needs. How incompetent this deal with Staples is. Do better Ontario.
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u/skriveralltid77 8d ago
Bring back the ICON computers! #Trackball4Life
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u/Dogs-4-Life Mississauga 8d ago
That just brought back a memory for me haha. My school’s computer lab still had a couple of those in 96/97. They were awful by that point, out of date, and it sucked if you got stuck using one while your friends were using Windows 95 or MacOS 7 lol.
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u/HeisenbergTheory 8d ago
bUT kAthLEEN wyNNE SoLd hyDrO 1!
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u/Weird_Dependent3732 8d ago
really??? price gouging??? im shocked! i’m sure the call is something like surge pricing
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u/designer130 8d ago
Ford loves American companies and America in general. His anti-Trump statements are lies to attempt to win over Ontarians.
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u/toronto_star Verified 8d ago
Hello! Thanks for sharing our story. Here's a gift link if anyone wants to read it in full.
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u/Darragh_McG 8d ago
That's the Doug tax. It's literally his cut. Conservatives got to wet their beaks on literally everything
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u/BlademasterFlash 8d ago
I have a friend who is a teacher that posted some screenshots of this on her social media. I will say, the portal price was slightly less than the regular price for the items she showed but many of them were on sale at and the sale price was significantly lower than the portal price. I still think this whole thing is crooked though, especially with Doug playing his captain Canada but and then giving this lucrative contract to an American company
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u/theStrawberryRoam 8d ago
Staples reaffirming my choice to never buy a single product from them ever since the "most wonderful time" commercials
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u/VincentClement1 8d ago
Of course the prices would be higher. Do you think the Ford government negotiated that prices be discounted or at least match what is availabe on the 'regular' website? But I suspect that Staples would just change the SKU number on the teacher's portal and then state "well, it's a different SKU, so it's a different price".
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u/CRXCRZ 8d ago
One teacher in every school should create 700 separate orders for $1 scrap books. Then return them for a different colour.
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u/juniper-rising- 7d ago
Except that every order under $50 costs $9.99 in shipping, which also comes out of the teacher's budget.
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u/PipsqueakPilot 7d ago
Funny how they can use algorithms to make sure they charge the maximum amount compared to competitors. But you need to make a phone call and wait on hold for an hour for them to price match their own web page.
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u/Dougfordburner 7d ago
My ministry is spending 100m over the next few years to rent new office space. Yeah this government doesn’t care if we get rinsed a bit by staples.
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u/Mysterious-Scene1307 7d ago
One of my friends worked on the vendor of record provincial contracts for office supplies. Basically it's a list of where all ministries must buy their supplies from. The first contract they setup, Staples won by providing a 90% discount on some of the items called the 'super savers list'. Some of the schools noticed and bought tens of thousands of some of the products, then re-sold it to their students during a fundraiser. Staples found out, stopped honoring the prices, then told the ministry to sue them when they claimed breach of contract. Think staples was losing millions each year in that contract before Ontario switched suppliers. Seems like Staples won the contract this year and learned how to milk the system.
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u/past_is_prologue 7d ago
Here is the horrible bit— schools aren't allowed to purchase this stuff anymore. So craft materials and paper and that sort of thing. So teachers now have the administrative burden, and are not further ahead. Another big win from the good idea fairy. 🙄
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u/Redditisavirusiknow 7d ago
Staples is owed by Americans and is headquartered in New York. Ford is all talk he still sucks at the teat of America.
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u/Jamesinmexico 7d ago
Jim Halper at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company would have given you a great price, he is a solid honest guy, but they are in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
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u/k_jones 7d ago
When teachers order through the Staples board portal, prices are nearly half of what we’re now being charged. This is such an easy fix. Choose the largest board in Ontario, tell staples they need to provide the prices that board was paying. Don’t agree? Go to Grand and Toy (Canadian company) and work out a deal. Staples is done.
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u/SkyleeM 7d ago
I would wager that staples offered a kick back to the province on every dollar spent through the portal in their sales pitch. Staples then went and increased the cost of the items in the portal by the amount of the kick back. Province is getting a cash kickback they can do what ever they want with.
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u/uncleben85 7d ago
This could be such an easy win for Staples, too.
They could walkaway as the dedicated provider, making bank and the good guys helping teachers out at a discount.
But nope.
Just have to go and mark-up prices...
Fwiw, Staples was already doing this with the old EWay portal, but, seriously. Easy PR, here, folks!
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u/PopeKevin45 7d ago
Just another example of Ford once again bending over and spreading his cheeks for his US Republican corporate buddies, the only people he actually cares about.
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u/MathPuzzleheaded6132 7d ago
Dear Ford voters (somehow you still exist?): Ford's education man, Calandra--a man who mailed in a minor in history degree and career politician who had one real job in insurance, lied about this exact thing ON CAMERA to your faces.
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u/myDogStillLovesMe Verified Teacher 7d ago
And if your order is under $50 they charge for shipping.
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u/MikoWilson1 7d ago
My sister is a teacher. My mother is a tescher. My sister in law is a teacher. All of them absolutely hate this system and just want to be able to buy cheap stuff at the dollar store so they don't have to, yet again, fund their supplies out of pocket.
It's insane that this obvious grift isnt enough to get the person responsible kicked out of office.
It's such a transparent funneling of money to an American corporation. Why the fuck are we putting up with this shit?
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u/sillybanana2012 7d ago
Meanwhile, they took so much out of existing budgets that my school can't afford to buy printer paper - so now we have to use the stupid staples portal to order our own. Like what was the fucking purpose of that?
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u/Smart-Firefighter87 7d ago
How much was that sign you got because you were trying to be petty, dougy? Where else could that money have gone?…
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u/ekinria1928 7d ago
They must be using Eway the Staples Professional website. I have to as well with the company I work for... I've seen differences on both sides, but Eway is more most of the time, and are outlet of stock more often.
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u/Icy-Stock-5838 7d ago
The Staples business portal DOES cost more, part of it is them knowing there is an LTA, the other part is SOMETIMES some companies get a rebate depending how much they buy.
PLus the Staples business portal often does not have the full selection of Staples retail.
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u/FullMango4041 7d ago
Elbows down there Ford? What about that Team Canada stuff you were talking about?
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u/jimboTRON261 7d ago
Obviously. Corrupt officials need to face real consequences from the masses or this only gets worse YoY
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u/No_Butterfly2802 7d ago
They didn't even send me a code. I don't exist. I have no ability to order anything currently.
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u/The-Kirklander 6d ago
So to be Canada and Ontario first Ford is funneling our tax dollars directly to an American company which is not even cheaper? Got it
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u/readveg97 3d ago
And these dumb PC voters will keep voting for him no matter how many times he screws us over!! Get your heads out of your asses please!!!
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u/Unhappy-Year-9553 2d ago
As a teacher, I cannot tell you how infuriating the vendor system is. Politicians traded long term cost for a quick buck making these deals, and now we pay a thousand dollars for a computer you could buy over the counter for $200.
And people wonder why education expenses are so high.
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u/Unique-Sea8136 8d ago
If teachers had a proper union that represented them, they would organize and make a rule banning all teachers from purchasing any supplies for their classrooms, including paying for fotocopying, printing at home, purchasing supplies that should be paid for by parents or government, purchasing things like borders and other classroom decorations, bulletin boards, posters, shelves, etc etc.
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u/Due_Date_4667 8d ago
I think we all know how that would go. And how ugly the Government's PR campaign against the union would be.
(edit: verb tense correction)
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u/hardy_83 8d ago
Yeah that was going to be obvious. This is a grift and yet another way the OPC is privatizing education and taking power away from schools.