Toronto teachers’ walkout sparks equity uproar in ETFO leadership

Black educators in Toronto staged a walkout on Wednesday, August 24^th, 2025, protesting the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario’s (ETFO) newly elected provincial Executive. The action unfolded at the ETFO’s annual general meeting, held from August 11^th to 13^th, 2025 at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto.

The protest highlighted what many described as a glaring absence of racial diversity at the highest governing body of Ontario’s largest teachers’ union. ETFO represents more than 84,000 public elementary teachers, occasional teachers, early childhood educators, and education support staff across the province.

Speaking to CTV News Toronto, one Black teacher expressed frustration, “Black voices are silent and erased from the ETFO provincial Executive.” Another teacher described the outcome as “A troubling step backward in representation, equity, and the commitment to dismantling systemic barriers.”

Three Black candidates ran in the election. Not one was chosen. Teachers questioned how, despite repeated commitments to equity, ETFO failed to elect a single Black educator to its provincial Executive.

The protest follows years of documented concerns about systemic anti-Black racism in Ontario’s public education system. The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s report Dreams Delayed: Addressing Systemic Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario’s Public Education System was cited in coverage of the walkout. In March 2025, ETFO announced a series of equity commitments, including:

• Launching a Black Educator Leadership Program
• Running a public campaign to recruit more Black teachers
• Offering financial support for aspiring Black educators

Yet, as one teacher noted, these promises have not translated into meaningful representation: “We need to walk the talk and vote. Right now, ETFO isn’t doing that.”

Outgoing ETFO president Karen Brown (elected in 2021 as the first Black woman to lead the union) did not shy away from criticism. In a closed-door statement, she declared: “Solidarity that does not include confronting anti-Black racism, it’s a slogan. A union that ignores its own Black members’ struggles is not a union, it’s a club for the comfortable.”

Brown, who was re-elected in 2023, leaves behind a historic legacy. She negotiated a new four-year deal in October 2023 and secured retroactive pay for members in March 2024. Her leadership broke barriers and reshaped ETFO’s advocacy for equity and fair compensation.

As Brown steps down, the question lingers: will ETFO carry forward her vision of inclusion, or retreat into the comfort of the status quo? For many educators, the walkout was about the future of equity within one of Canada’s most powerful unions.

What comes next remains uncertain, but the protest itself has ensured that the fight for representation isa public demand.