It is an honour to stand before you today, as the parliamentary assistant to Ontario’s education minister, to support the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. I want to thank the minister for sharing his time with me this morning to highlight how these proposed reforms will help improve student outcomes for Ontario students and support their lifelong success.

As a former trustee, an MPP and a mom, I know how profoundly important education is.

I’m very proud of the work our team has done and continues to do to support Ontario’s education system.

As Minister Lecce has already outlined, these reforms are designed to ensure Ontario’s education system is focused on improving student outcomes across our province’s 72 district school boards, while preparing students for the jobs of the future. At the same time, we want them to be ready to adapt as the world changes around them. We need to ensure our education partners are held accountable, their practices are transparent, and the entire sector is focused on the same provincial priorities; namely, student achievement, especially in fundamental skills like reading, writing and math, because at the heart of our public education system is a shared responsibility to ensure all students and children can succeed and reach their full potential. By proposing the changes to the Education Act, the Ontario College of Teachers Act, the Early Childhood Educators Act, and subsequent amendments to the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, we are making it clear that the success of Ontario’s students and children is our number one priority.

As a former school board trustee proudly serving Ajax students and parents in the Durham District School Board for nearly a decade, I firmly support the reforms to enhance governance and leadership. I can speak from first-hand experience on how important the role of a school board trustee is. They have the important responsibility of serving as their community advocate for public education. They’re required, under the Education Act, to carry out the responsibilities in a manner that assists the board in fulfilling its duties. A trustee must maintain a focus on student achievement and well-being, as well as participate in making decisions that benefit the board community they serve. At all times, they must be focused on being the voices of the parents who elected them and represent the interests of their constituents. It is not an easy job. Oftentimes, many people don’t know what a trustee does.

Speaker, many trustees do amazing work to support and advocate for students. They champion programs and changes in their communities that lead to phenomenal student success. We often don’t see these amazing stories on the news, but we know that they do the work. And oftentimes, we have others that cause disruption within our schools.

Ontario is large and diverse. As such, the job of a trustee varies widely to meet local needs. But there’s significant inconsistency across the province when it comes to trustees and their training and skills. Discussions with our trustee partners and a public survey showed strong support for provincial standards when it comes to trustee codes of conduct. I’m happy to say these proposed reforms will establish this, which ultimately will set trustees up for success in supporting our students and our boards.

Speaker, I support the proposed implementation of standardized mandatory training for all trustees on a provincial level to ensure they have the knowledge and skills necessary for this very important job. And because Ontario is a vast place, we need provincial requirements for trustee codes of conduct, which sets out clear expectations in how trustees fulfill their duties. It’s unfortunate that we have seen some trustees shut down respectful parents who were simply offering views which the board disagreed with. By clearly establishing this standard code of conduct, this legislation seeks to ensure all trustees clearly understand their roles and obligations to their constituents—that they understand what governance is.

And the same goes for directors of education. Directors of educations are leaders in our school communities, but right now, there are very few criteria or requirements for a candidate to assume this critical role. A director is effectively a CEO. It is precisely for this reason that I support establishing government authority to set out a consistent performance appraisal framework to support boards in assessing director of education performance. This would help ensure greater consistency across the province, and that boards are supported in meeting their duties and delivering on provincial priorities.

In addressing the difference we’re seeing in school board performance and renewing our focus on student achievement, we will help more students and families in Ontario to succeed, especially in our marginalized communities. The results are better outcomes for students and children across the province. That is why I believe consistency in trustee training, establishing provincial standards in trustee codes of conduct, as well as a future, standardized performance appraisal framework for directors of education will improve student success in Ontario.

And just as school boards will benefit from greater consistency, so will educators. It is important to have a consistent, evidence-based approach to teaching and learning in math, literacy, special education, mental health, and technology courses. This will ensure students across the province will be able to gain the skills and knowledge they need to take their next steps in life. So we’ll make sure our educators have the tools and knowledge they need to help our students to succeed to maintain Ontario’s competitive edge in the labour market.

Additionally, our proposed amendments will also aim to increase fair and effective disciplinary processes for teachers and registered early childhood educators that support child and student safety. Specifically, we’re taking action to ensure that there’s zero tolerance for educators involved in a sexual offence.

We’re also supporting students who have been victims of sexual abuse by expanding therapy counselling funding provided by respective regulatory colleges to any student victim of alleged sexual abuse. This is a further demonstration of our commitment to protecting our students.

Speaker, we are proud that Ontario continues to be among the top-performing education systems nationally and internationally. However, we know that there is variability in how our education system performs across the province. As Minister Lecce previously mentioned, some of our school boards have struggled with key student performance indicators including elementary EQAO assessments, secondary EQAO assessments, graduation rates, and student attendance. As a former trustee and as a parent, I know we must do better—it is my condition that we need to do not just pockets of excellence, but excellence across our boards.

Moreover, parents are telling us that they feel powerless and out of touch, with limited knowledge and ability to affect the education system for their children. It is one of the main reasons that I ran as trustee. I had a problem that I could not navigate with our system. It was cumbersome and unresponsive to the need as a parent.

We have seen many organizations that are up to support parents just to navigate the education system. That is why we are proposing to establish consistent requirements for school boards to share information with parents. As I mentioned earlier, this would be both in how they manage Ontario’s historical education investment, as well as information and updates on student outcomes, and progress around student achievement in fundamental areas. This would help parents measure success right across the province. It’s important, because if this legislation is passed, it will establish consistent information and approaches to student learning, so students will benefit from similar approaches to instruction and learning no matter where they live. That consistency is a big focus for the changes we are seeking to make, because where people live should never determine the impact or quality of their kids’ education.

To help ensure students have the support they need, this legislation proposes an amendment to the Education Act providing authority to the minister to issue binding policies and guidelines on student mental health and well-being. This would bring more consistency to the delivery of mental health education and services in all boards across the province.

As the minister touched on earlier, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act would grant him the authority to establish formal guidelines for a transparent and predictable review process. It would ensure the curriculum is not only reviewed regularly, but ensure students are prepared for success at every level of their lives and for jobs in the future.

It is also an exciting day for our government and the broader education sector at large, as we announce education funding for the 2023-24 school year, with a focus on getting back to basics and developing strong fundamental skills and knowledge. Our government is investing $693 million more in public education for the next school year as part of the Grants for Student Needs and Priorities and Partnerships Fund. That’s a 2.7% increase in the base GSN funding from last year, which, by the way, was already a record-setting investment. This new record-setting investment, announced today, aligns with our proposed reforms, building on the work currently under way, including our new targeted supports for mental health, math and literacy. This investment will support nearly a thousand more educators, which follows Sunday’s exciting news where our government made a $180-million investment to support the development of fundamental skills in reading and mathematics. That investment will also support nearly 1,000 educators, meaning that over the past few days our government has made an investment of nearly 2,000 more teachers.

This reform, proposed in the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, will be supported by targeted initiatives including $140 million to help students struggling with the fundamentals of reading, writing and math. Almost $40 million will be provided over the next three years for summer mental health supports, to support the continuity of care for students with mental health concerns, and almost $20 million for the hiring of additional paraprofessional staff, educational assistants, and custodians to enhance student safety and maintain cleaning standards.

Under the GSN funding formula, school boards in Ontario’s publicly funded education system are receiving the largest investment in education in our province’s history.

In addition, the Priorities and Partnerships Fund investment of $473.6 million will enable school boards and third parties to undertake important curricular and extracurricular initiatives that promote student success, development and leadership skills.

Our goal is to support students with help they need.

As we move forward, we need a strong education system with a unified focus to ensure all students, no matter where they are in Ontario, are ready for the demands of the future economy.

Since our government took office, we have worked to get our publicly funded education system back on track and back into the hands of those it impacts the most: our students, their parents, and educators.

To conclude, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act is another example of our government’s efforts to get our kids back on track. If passed, it would not only help to ensure students and children in Ontario are equipped with the skills they need to succeed, but it would also help make certain we continue to have one of the best education systems in the world for years to come.

The proposed amendments to the Education Act, Ontario College of Teachers Act, Early Childhood Educators Act, and the subsequent amendments to the Ontarians with Disabilities Act make it clear that our government is focused on one thing: improving student success.

We know our teachers are among the very best in the world. We know they do a great job, and we want to ensure that we continue to develop supports and resources that will help them remain leaders in their field. The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act would support educators to be better prepared at teaching the fundamentals of math, literacy, special education, mental health, and technology to help set up our students for success now and in the future.

We realize—and we’ve heard from parents and from our job market—that our students are leaving school not prepared for the jobs. We have over 200,000 jobs available, and our youth unemployment is still very high, and so this is why our government wants to focus and continues to focus on student success.

I look forward to the support of all members of this House on this very important piece of legislation that continues to support and set our kids up for success.

The member for Ajax to continue.

I remind the speaker that it’s not lost on us that the NDP would have voted against the roughly 8,000 new staff hired since 2018 when we came to power. They would have opposed the last increase of $690 million, a 10% increase in the GSN over the last four years, 27% in the Ministry of Education relative to where we started in 2017-18 under the former Liberals.

The message we’re sending in this bill, through Sunday’s announcement, was the hiring of 2,000 front-line staff; specifically, 700 for literacy promotion, educators who specialize in reading; an additional 380 math educators; and then almost a thousand more for grades 7, 8, 9 and 10 destreaming courses—for grades 7 and 8, leading into the grade 9 destreaming and grade 10 to help with that transition out. That’s 2,000 more front-line educators, and the members can’t agree that that’s an incremental step forward to improving literacy in math. It’s odd that they’re not dealing with the substance of the bill that deals with improvements and reform and modernization.

I hope the member will declare a clear position if she and all New Democrats will vote for better when it comes to our school system in Ontario.

Is there a provision in this bill that you specifically oppose, so you—let’s decouple the consultation. Could you name an element that you specifically—

Interjection.

Do you oppose building schools faster? Do you oppose certifying teachers quicker? Do you oppose using our real estate portfolio for educational purposes? Do you oppose having involvement in the faculties of education so we can set out what a modern educator looks like? Do you oppose accountability for school boards who expend billions of our dollars? Do you oppose an integrity commissioner to standardize complaints in the province? Name the issue you oppose.

The way by which we introduce a measurement tool is by ensuring that school boards have to create, through public engagement with families and parents, a board improvement plan. The anchor of this bill is not just words and aspirational mission statements; it is accountability to measure the improvement in our school boards by refocusing on student achievement. So every school board will produce, in consultation with parents, a board improvement plan. They will then post the plan publicly. They will then be benchmarked against the success of implementing and adhering to provincial priorities when it comes to student achievement: better reading, writing and math scores; higher graduation rates; a higher level of attendance within our schools. These are all metrics that matter, and they will help children succeed.

So yes, we’re going to produce accountability in the system, but we’re also going to really move forward with a spirit of collaboration. I think if we all work together and we work smarter and harder, we can lift the standards and the ambitions of kids and give Ontario students the ability to reach their full potential, which we all desire.

We’ll move to questions.

Thank you very much for that question.

It’s the parental part. I know myself that, as a trustee, when I had a problem trying to figure something out for my child—the lack of response from the education system about my questions, the number of doors I knocked on and the phone calls I made, that I could not get a response. As a parent, when your child is in crisis and you cannot get a response from the education system—a system that you’re sending your child to for multiple hours a day—it really takes away from your sense of power as a parent, where you want to protect your child and you want to do the best for your child. That is definitely one of the reasons why I ran as a trustee and why I’m pleased to serve with the minister in this portfolio.

We need to really move back to a child-centric education system, where parents also have a voice in that education—because it shows that when parents are involved in education, students do much better.

I wanted to ask the member from Ajax a question. It seems that just a few weeks ago, we were having a conversation about how much she cares about the education system in the province of Ontario. In fact, for those of you who don’t know, her concerns about education in the province of Ontario are exactly why she’s here. It’s such a personal thing for her.

I’m so excited, with our Minister of Education, to see the progress that we’re making for the benefit of the students in Ontario.

Again, there are too many things that I’m so excited about in this piece of legislation. But I wanted to ask her, as a mom and being a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, what really is personal for her that’s such a huge step forward in this piece of legislation?

As a trained educator myself, I have some concerns with Bill 98, because we see Bill 98 as legislation that has been developed without consultation with educators, with trustees, and without consultation with parents or with students. It’s another cart-before-horse exercise, which we’re so familiar with from the Liberals before. They made drastic changes to education without consulting the community.

During the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs pre-budget consultations, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association—and this is Barb Dobrowolski—said, “Since coming into office in 2018, the government’s agenda has been gutted by ideology rather than evidence. Policy decisions have been made with little thought, foresight or genuine consultation with stakeholders and experts, the consequences of which have been to destabilize public services. Enough is enough.”

The government has reached out and said that they will hold public consultations and allow public input by mid-May. Is this a public relations exercise, or will the government pass amendments to this legislation brought forward by the official opposition?

I want to thank the minister and parliamentary assistant for their dedication to the students of Ontario.

Every day, parents receive information about their child’s school—I personally just received one about three seconds ago, about my son’s school. We know about the permission slips, the class updates and the requests to take part in events. Yet one piece of information we don’t know about is how our child is performing at school.

The EQAO for 2021-22 assessment results showed weaker performance in the math scores across all grades and reading and writing in grade 3.

We know that this proposed legislation will include setting provincial educational priorities for boards.

How does requiring school boards to provide progress reports on provincial education priorities for students achieve support for student success?

Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow members to wear pins in recognition of April being the Canadian Cancer Society’s daffodil campaign.

I am pleased to have the opportunity today to rise to speak to Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. This is another example of the government’s Orwellian naming of legislation. I think a more apt title for it would have been the “micromanaging school boards as a distraction from the underfunding of schools act” or maybe the Wizard of Oz act—pay no attention to the minister behind the curtain—because what we have here is a spectacular refusal to take responsibility for the government’s failures on the education file and the many ways in which this government and this minister are shortchanging our kids. Instead, the government is trying to distract parents by blaming schools, by blaming teachers and by blaming school boards for his underinvestment. And he’s desperately hoping that you don’t notice that, once again this year, education funding is not keeping up with inflation. Instead, he wants you to believe that if he blusters enough about basic skills, you won’t even notice that there’s no actual plan here to address the real reasons why our children are struggling. He’s hoping you won’t pay any attention to rising class sizes, to cuts to teachers and education workers, to the lack of special education supports, to the absence of mental health supports in our schools, to the rising tide of violence in our schools because of the mental health crisis, to the burnout that teachers and education workers are experiencing because of the cuts and the conditions imposed on them by this government, to the impact of e-learning on our students and our school budgets.

This bill and the timing of it, along with the minister’s announcement on Sunday, is smoke and mirrors. It is sleight of hand. It’s saying, “Please look over here so that you don’t notice what we’re doing over here,” so that you disbelieve what you are seeing in our schools with your own eyes.

Are our children struggling? Yes, absolutely. Do they need and deserve better supports? Yes, absolutely. But let’s talk about why they’re struggling and who is actually responsible for what is happening and what the solutions are if you are not a minister who is obsessed with avoiding responsibility.

The past three years have been rough; there is no doubt about that—

One last question.

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

My question is for the minister.

I listened with rapt attention to 40 minutes of platitudes. But in the real world, at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, we know that there are $10 million to $13 million of cuts being proposed with this minister’s performance. In the real world, what that will mean for students with special needs, who are at the top of the chopping block, unfortunately, are fewer autism classes—at least two in the city of Ottawa. I want to mention Steve Legault, whose son, profoundly in need of supports, is only entitled to two hours of education a day. That’s what the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, sadly, has had to do because of a lack of staff supports. And this minister, despite the rhetoric, is continuing a regime of austerity that will make the Legault family’s life worse.

So, Minister, I would like you to deliver a message to the Legault family. Are you going to make sure that you’re going to make the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board whole and they won’t have $10 million to $13 million of cuts, or aren’t you?

Over 100 developmental service workers at Community Living Port Colborne-Wainfleet, members of CUPE Local 2276, have been on strike since March 31. These are some of the workers we so proudly called heroes during the pandemic, who do the often-invisible work of helping people with disabilities live full, rich lives. The main issue is a staffing crisis that has led to members being stuck on shift, sometimes for up to 36 hours. They just want to get back to the bargaining table to secure a fair deal, but this employer has indicated they are in no rush to do so.

Untrained IT and admin workers are caring for residents, including administering medication and managing complex needs. They have hired agency workers, and these unqualified scabs are being paid substantially more than the workers were.

Chris Judge, one of the CUPE members I met on the picket line last week, says he has been stuck on shift so frequently that he misses his children, and hearing his kids upset or crying on the other end of the phone when he can’t come home is absolutely heartbreaking.

Judge and his co-workers aren’t fighting for a raise, although they deserve one. They’re fighting so their employer will respect them as complete people with families and lives. Their message: “We don’t do this to get rich, we do it because it’s meaningful. But our employer uses that against us. They push us to our limits. They take advantage. People are made to feel guilty for wanting to go home at the end of a shift when all we want is to do our jobs to the best of our ability and to have a life outside of work.”

I urge Community Living Port Colborne-Wainfleet, its board and management to get back to the bargaining—

It’s an honour to rise today to share with the Legislature important news from my riding of Sarnia–Lambton. I am extremely pleased to inform the members of this Legislature about a recent announcement that will provide much-needed new funding from the Ontario government for the province’s Homelessness Prevention Program and Indigenous Supportive Housing Program. The county of Lambton will see an increase of over $2 million, bringing total Homelessness Prevention Program funding for this municipality to more than $5.6 million. That represents an increase of over 57% over the previous year’s funding.

I had the opportunity to speak with Valerie Colasanti, the general manager of Lambton county social services, about the importance of this critical new funding. Ms. Colasanti said the increased provincial investment would help Lambton county provide more support to keep people in their homes, and also allow the county to do more long-term planning.

The additional funding will be spent on initiatives such as helping those who live in shelters move into permanent homes. It could also help pay for mental health and harm reduction supports to keep precariously housed individuals in their homes. And it could also provide rent supplements to make rent more affordable.

All of us in Sarnia–Lambton are grateful for this important investment in our community.

We’re going to commit to families in Ottawa and all regions of the province that their funding will increase through an almost $700-million GSN funding enhancement—2.7% this school year—to meet the needs of children now and into the future.

We’re also going to hire 2,000 more front-line teachers. The member opposite calls it a platitude; I call it a person, a leader in front of a child, making a difference on reading, writing and math. That’s going to help.

I hope the members opposite will support us as we hire 2,000 additional front-line educators in schools across Ontario.

Today marks Yom ha-Shoah, the solemn commemoration of the brutal murder and discrimination endured by the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Almost every Jewish person out there has a story of a family member who endured the Holocaust, including myself.

There’s a park that borders my riding dedicated to a well-known Holocaust survivor, Felix Opatowski. At 15, Felix risked his life and smuggled goods out of Nazi ghettos in exchange for food for his family. After being deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1943, he joined the Polish underground as a runner and later helped plan an attempt to demolish the camp’s crematorium.

Not long ago, I attended the premiere for the Legacy Portrait Project documentary, where Holocaust survivors spoke of their experiences with their grandchildren. These conversations filmed in the documentary capture a moment in time, a glimpse into the individual triumph of each survivor, having prevailed over adversity by building families and finding love and joy after the Holocaust.

One in three students in Canada believe the Holocaust was fabricated or exaggerated, and 42% of students have explicitly seen an anti-Semitic incident in their school.

I’m looking forward to September of this year, when the new Holocaust curriculum will be officially launched in schools all over this province. Learning and listening to these stories of the Holocaust is crucial because those who fail—

A few weeks ago, I was privileged to join members of Hamilton Police Service on a ride-along. Unfortunately, many people in Hamilton are suffering from addictions issues, so I wasn’t surprised that all but one of the calls we responded to that night involved a person under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. What did surprise me was the level of compassion displayed by police when they interact with these people. Here are a few examples:

Police prevented a man who was dressed completely in dark clothing, walking straight down the middle of a dimly lit street, from being hit by a car. Police convinced him to go to a shelter and actually drove him there. He could have been killed that night and an unsuspecting driver’s life forever changed.

I watched as police, along with paramedics, de-escalated a family crisis involving a mother and a troubled youth. The youth was eventually calmed and taken to hospital for treatment.

I witnessed wellness checks of our homeless population and police handing out canned good to people who knew them by name.

But I also saw the dangerous side of policing. At the beginning of the shift, I had taken a selfie with a young rookie cop I knew, Marco Arif. By the end of that shift, he was off to hospital with serious facial injuries that he received during an altercation on the job.

I want to thank Constable Arif, Sergeant Scott Hamilton, and all of the women and men who work for Hamilton Police Service.

Now, more than ever, we need our police, and now, more than ever, they need our support.

Meegwetch, Speaker. Good morning.

Remarks in Anishininiimowin.

This morning, I would like to share parts of an open letter from Norman Shewaybick from Webequie First Nation:

“On April 7, 2023, the home that my family has been occupying since 1999 burnt to the ground. It housed eight of us in total (and yes, we had working smoke alarms). Luckily, we were all able to self-rescue without injury before the fire spread. The house was engulfed in flames within 20 minutes. All we had was a measly fire extinguisher. We lost everything.

“Last fall, another fire left families homeless because there are no fire services to call.

“In Webequie, there is no fire service, there are no enforceable fire codes, there is no fire truck or a fire station.

“While we live in poverty, our lands are being valued in the trillions and mining is being aggressively pushed to promote Canada and Ontario’s future prosperity.

“It is preposterous that legislation like the Ontario Mining Act is fully applicable on our lands but not the Ontario fire protection act or Ontario fire code and that governments have not already found a way to work with ... First Nations in Ontario.”

There is so much more to Norman’s letter. I do not have enough time to share it all this morning, but it’s an important letter.

Meegwetch for listening.

I rise this morning to stand up for every resident of Brampton North or Ontario who drives a car, heats their home, or shops at a grocery store. It’s on their behalf that I join my caucus colleagues in calling on the federal government to end their carbon tax.

For many families in my community—and this may come as a shock to downtown Toronto progressives—access to a car is a necessity, not a luxury. For families in my community and across Ontario, heating their home with natural gas is a necessity, not a luxury; grocery shopping to feed their family is a necessity, not a luxury. Maybe some progressives will argue that those families could stockpile blankets to stay warm in the winter or just shiver a lot. It would appear that those same progressives suggest that those families simply fork out more money for their groceries. They call it “doing our part,” or “civic duty.”

I’ll tell you what, Mr. Speaker. I’ll do my part by voting in favour of measures that cut taxes on gas, food and other necessities.

And it’s the civic duty for every member of this House to stand up for Ontario families and demand the federal government scrap this ridiculous carbon tax.