Rail blockades and rotating strikes in Ontario contributed to a flat GDP reading in February, ahead of the March downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association president Liz Stuart says it was a particularly difficult round of negotiations as the Ontario government sought to implement what she called "significant cuts" to publicly funded education.

The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation is the only one of the four major teachers' unions without a contract deal.

Ontario has reached tentative contract agreements with the unions representing the province's 12,000 French-language teachers and 83,000 elementary teachers.

In the end, Lecce and the Ford government handled this strategically, Scott Thompson says. It's the teachers' ball now.

Lecce said classes will average about 23 students in 2020/2021 while making the announcement at Queen's Park on Tuesday.

Next Thursday's strike would come nearly two weeks after a provincewide walkout involving nearly 200,000 teachers from all four of the province's major education labour groups. It was the largest such strike in more than 20 years.

"This is a demonstration of unity. It's a demonstration that we're not divided from our members or from the public in this province," OSSTF president Harvey Bischof said.

On Friday, Ontario's four teachers' unions are planning a province-wide strike which will result in a complete shutdown of public schools for the day.

“It’s becoming clearer just how close Mr. Annibale is with the PC Party," NDP MPP Taras Natyshak said Thursday evening.