Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath is worried the province will lose millions of dollars if Ontario teachers take their concerns to the Supreme Court.

Horwath tells Bayshore Broadcasting News she is speaking from experience -- and points out when the British Columbia government was taken to court by angry health care workers, that province ended up paying around 80 million dollars.

There were about 95 hundred health care workers paid out in B-C, but Horwath warns of catastrophic consequences here in Ontario.

Horwath says if teachers take their case to the Supreme Court, the Ontario government could end up paying over 800 million dollars.

Horwath tells us the fight Dalton McGuinty's Liberals are having with public sector workers is more about seats in the Legislature than kids in the classroom.

She wonders why the Liberals are rushing the bill through the house when it is retroactive to September 1st.

Horwath says it deserves to be debated.

Thousands of teachers gathered on the grounds of Ontario's legislature on Tuesday to protest the bill that would freeze their wages and trim their benefits.

Their unions say the bill tramples on their collective bargaining rights because it also bans strikes and lockouts -- and they vow to take their concerns to the Supreme Court if they must.

The Ontario government says this measure is aimed at reducing the province's 15-billion dollar deficit.

Horwath expects the bill to receive second reading in the house Wednesday or Thursday.