TORONTO - A move by Ontario teachers to create a $3-million war chest to prevent the Progressive Conservatives from winning this fall's provincial election is part of a Liberal-fronted campaign, Opposition Leader Tim Hudak said Wednesday.

Members of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association will pay $60 more in dues to fund the campaign to stop the Tories from defeating Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberals in the Oct. 6 vote.

"Our goal is to elect an education-friendly legislature in order to protect the gains in education made over the past eight years," union president James Ryan wrote in a letter to members.

Teachers are concerned when they hear Hudak talk about things like merit pay and making cuts to eliminate the nearly $17-billion deficit, Ryan said in an interview.

"When we hear words like merit pay, we think of the Tea Party states in the United States, who have all gone to that and are having massive disruptions in their systems," he said. "We look at Mr. Hudak's statement that there has to be cuts to balance the budget and the only thing he's willing to protect is front-line health care. Well education isn't in there."

Conservative members of the legislature are hearing from teachers who disagree with their union's position, said Hudak.

"We're receiving a lot of emails and calls from individual teachers who are quite upset to see their union dues being used in this way, as part of the Working Families Coalition," he said.

The 45,000-member teachers' union is one of the main sponsors of the self-described Working Families Coalition, which Hudak called a "front" for the governing Liberal party.

The teachers' union is part of Working Families, said Ryan, but is running its own campaign to protect gains in public education made under the Liberal government.

"This campaign is about who speaks for children, an issue-based campaign which talks about the great achievement of Ontario's schools," he said. "It is not going to be an attack, there are no attack ads on anyone, and it encourages people to go to the political platforms of all parties."

The Working Families Coalition sponsored television commercials during the Academy Awards broadcast in February portraying Hudak as a corporate lapdog. It also includes the Canadian Auto Workers, the Ontario Nurses Association, the Service Employees International Union and the Building Trades Council of Ontario.

Working Families helped defeat former premier Ernie Eves in the 2003 provincial election, portraying him as slick and out of touch with a "Not this time, Ernie" campaign. The organization also worked against PC leader John Tory in the 2007 election.

The Conservatives formally complained to Elections Ontario that the coalition is connected to the Liberals, but the agency concluded Working Families is independent. The Tories are appealing that ruling.

Hudak said his mother, father and sister all worked in the Catholic school system in Ontario and drummed the importance of public education into him as he was growing up.

"I come from a family of teachers," said Hudak. "The importance of supporting the classroom is deeply ingrained in me from talking about it around the kitchen table."

The union is aware of Hudak's family history, said Ryan, but wants to hear a firm commitment that he will not cut education funding or "prospects aren't good" for seeing teachers vote Tory this October.

"If Mr. Hudak doesn't want to cut education, tell my members you won't take a nickel out of education and you will continue to invest in the educational system," he said. "Our members would love to hear that and it would allay our concerns, but we have not heard that."

Hudak said he wants teachers to judge him on the PC campaign platform, which has yet to be released, and predicted they will "be impressed."