My question is for the Minister of Education.

Over the past decade, Ontario’s population has grown rapidly. This means that more families now call Ontario home, and more children have enrolled into our publicly funded education system.

The previous Liberal government failed to plan for the future and shamefully closed 600 schools at a time when they should have addressed the growth in our province.

I am hearing concerns from parents about the importance of their children being able to attend a school near them. Families are counting on our government to take action when it comes to providing top-quality schools for their children.

Can the minister please explain how our government is ensuring that new and existing schools will address future growth needs?

Strong public education and a sustainable school infrastructure system are fundamental in meeting the needs of growing communities like mine in Oakville North–Burlington and across Ontario.

Across our province, many communities continue to welcome and embrace Ukrainian refugees who are fleeing persecution and war in their home country. In our local schools, Ukrainian children have been welcomed into classrooms, where they are receiving a top-quality education in communities that they now call home.

Can the minister please explain how our government is supporting our schools to provide a safe and welcoming environment for Ukrainian children and their families?

I’m glad to see that my students from Scarborough Southwest are here today.

My question is to the Minister of Education.

Schools in Scarborough Southwest are literally falling apart, and it is unacceptable that, despite the urgent facility needs identified by schools and school boards, our children are forced to learn in poorly equipped classrooms.

Speaker, this government claims to be making historic investments while simultaneously committing less than inflation and underspending their education budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.

My question is, how will this government address the backlog of repairs that we have across the province and ensure that our children are in safe and well-equipped classrooms?

Speaker, not only are our schools crumbling, but the government’s continued underfunding of our education system is leading to cuts in teachers and education workers. These cuts have resulted in oversized classrooms, inadequate specialized learning programs, and a lack of mental health support. This has a direct and detrimental impact on our children’s education.

So my question is, again, will this government provide our children with the support that they need, instead of putting pressure on our already underfunded education system?

I do appreciate the question from the member opposite.

I’m working with the Minister of Infrastructure to accelerate building schools in this province. We brought forth legislation designed to help fix the problem cited, which is, there are too many schools that need repair and it takes too long to get it done. In this bill, we’re going to accelerate the approval process. We’re going to allow joint-use projects with community partners, to build better recreational facilities for our kids.

In the budget, $14 billion is committed over the next decade to build new schools—$550 million this year alone.

And the Auditor General has requested and recommended to government to invest 2.5% of our budget in maintenance and renewal in the GSN. We have done that. We are providing that stability and those funding guarantees to school boards.

We know there is much more to do.

If the members opposite want to improve the state of schools, they will vote for the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act to ensure we deliver schools quicker and get things done for the children of this province.

When it comes to education, just this morning, the Ontario Human Rights Commission issued a statement on the legislation posted. They said, “The OHRC is pleased to read that the government of Ontario is committed to overhauling the language curriculum and screening all young children, as recommended in its #RightToRead report.”

We have strong support from Dyslexia Canada, from special education families, and from the parent associations of Ontario—demanding that we lift standards and we do better for kids.

We just announced a $690-million increase—the entire Ministry of Education budget. When you compare the peak of spending under Premier Wynne, it’s 27% higher.

We are investing more, we are expecting more for children in this province, and we’re going to continue to stand up for families in Ontario.

Thank you, once again, to the member for their interest and their work in building a health care system that delivers for all Ontarians.

Statistics show that doctors generally stay and practise in the area where they complete their medical education. Recognizing this, our government has taken a pragmatic approach to ensure that we are increasing medical school seats in regions across the province, focusing on areas that need it most. Because no matter where you live, everyone deserves access to a world-class health care system.

That is why we also announced the Scarborough Academy of Medicine, under the University of Toronto, and the northern Ontario medical school, as well as the first-ever medical school in Brampton, which will help solidify local health care needs in the region for generations—something the Liberals and NDP promised but never delivered.

This is how we are building Ontario’s health care system to be stronger, more resilient and better than ever. That begins with a solid foundation in education.

This petition is titled “In Support of Improving Education in Ontario.

“To the Minister of Education:

“Whereas the government is committed to delivering a world-class education system that helps prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow; and

“Whereas the legislative changes proposed through the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, together with future regulatory amendments, would, if passed, lay the groundwork for a truly world-class education system, unified with a singular focus to improve student outcomes in important lifelong skills like reading, writing and math; and

“Whereas Ontario school boards are not consistently working toward the same priorities, school board performance varies across the province on indicators related to literacy, math, graduation and student attendance; and

“Whereas some parents can review and assess their school board’s performance while other boards do not proactively share this information; and

“Whereas in response Ontario is taking action through proposed legislation to set student achievement priorities and expectations for Ontario’s education sector, and proposed legislative and future regulatory changes, if passed, would allow the Minister of Education to set provincial priorities to:

“—focus boards in important areas of student achievement like reading, writing and math;

“—require school boards to report on progress toward these priorities and enable the Ministry of Education to support struggling boards sooner;

“—allow the minister to require school boards to make any report that the minister may require from the board available to the public;

“—require enhanced school board financial reporting on funding and spending, planned and actuals;

“—allow the minister to strengthen rules around financial accountability and transparency;

“—allow the minister to prescribe school board limitations in participating in business activities that could place school boards in financial risk;

“—allow the minister to enhance the financial accountability of school board-controlled entities, promote greater school board-municipality co-operation on delivering child care and enable an accelerated apprenticeship pathway;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly as follows:

“To support the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023, and ensure its passage.”

I proudly affix my signature to this petition and will give it to page Frederick.

As a strong believer in public education, a representative of democracy, of working families and as a parent, it is an honour for me to rise in the House and express my support for the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

Whenever I talk to hard-working families in Newmarket–Aurora, Speaker, the subject of education always comes up. Many families like what the Minister of Education is doing in terms of updating the curriculum to better reflect the needs of the labour market and ensuring our schools are safe and welcoming learning centres for all students. However, they also tell me there’s a lot more that needs to be done, and they’re frustrated by what they perceive as a big and impersonal bureaucracy in the form of their local school board that resists change and is neither properly accountable nor transparent.

Speaker, I do not typically quote former Premiers, but I think it is appropriate here to quote former NDP Premier Bob Rae’s Royal Commission on Learning from December 1994 as it nicely surmises what I hear from parents:

“One complaint that we heard, repeatedly, was that the public education system no longer seems to be responsible to the public. This is one major cause of the lack of confidence that so many seem to feel for the system. Although board of education trustees and provincial governments are elected, there exists widespread unease that schools have become a kingdom unto themselves, with little need to report to parents or to the world at large what they are doing with our kids, and whether they’re doing it successfully.”

Speaker, that situation has only increased in the three decades since that report was written.

As a parent with a child who has been part of this education system, I know first-hand and can understand parents’ frustrations. I believe the Minister of Education has done a phenomenal job of driving transformational change, but the problems in the education system are deep-seated and go back decades, as the royal commission reported nearly 30 years ago.

The education system simply hasn’t been meeting the needs of students in terms of learning core skills such as reading and math—and again, I can state this as a fact as a parent. The former Liberal government’s discovery math and discovery reading programs were out of date, out of touch and in serious need of retooling.

Teacher education programs don’t provide consistent training in the fundamentals such as math and literacy. Information about the overall performance of school boards isn’t easily accessible by parents or the public, which has a significant impact on accountability and transparency. In my previous life in the private sector, if a multi-million dollar corporation could not provide accountability over the spending of revenues, well, I’ll tell you now, Mr. Speaker, executives and boards would be quickly undergoing a makeover. And how it pertains to school boards? The ministry has a limited ability to drive or enforce provincial priorities. I have to admit this is why I know there are so many disillusioned families in our communities when it comes to the public education system. What the province prioritizes is not what the final outcomes are in our communities. Thus, a disconnect that needs to be corrected.

Increasingly, Speaker, parents get see verbal spats among school board trustees that are also costly, time-consuming and add to the erosion of public confidence in the system. I have witnessed this first-hand in my own community of Newmarket–Aurora in York region. Speaker, we believe that the governance and accountability of trustees and our entire school boards will indeed improve our local education system so they can focus on what is important—back to the basics of reading, writing and math—so it is all about student outcomes and not about having to deal with situations that deter from this focus.

Thankfully, Speaker, our government is taking action to address these long-standing problems. The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will, if passed, include legislative and regulatory reforms under four statutes to support improved outcomes through the following actions:

—drive provincial priorities and expectations for Ontario’s education sector from the province through to the province’s classrooms to enhance accountability and transparency;

—enable more effective governance through reforms for education sector boards of trustees, including a standard code of conduct;

—help to maximize the considerable real estate assets of school boards;

—ensure Ontario’s teachers are trained for the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s classrooms; and

—provide the information and tools necessary to ensure consistent information and approaches to student learning, including student learning about mental health and well-being.

Les conseils scolaires de l’Ontario comptent près de 700 conseillères et conseillers scolaires, qui prennent des décisions importantes et font valoir des perspectives précieuses et des considérations locales sur la façon dont les conseils scolaires sont régis. Les dirigeants des conseils scolaires jouent un rôle crucial pour veiller à ce que le système d’éducation de l’Ontario soit centré sur ce qui compte le plus : l’acquisition de compétences durables comme la lecture, l’écriture et les mathématiques.

Nous savons que les parents et les élèves ont besoin d’un plus grand nombre d’outils aux fins de transparence et de responsabilisation. Il est donc impératif que les personnes exerçant des fonctions de direction acquièrent les connaissances nécessaires pour assurer une éducation publique de qualité aux élèves de leurs conseils scolaires.

Toutefois, il existe aujourd’hui des incohérences dans la province en ce qui concerne le soutien et la formation fournis aux conseillères et conseillers scolaires et l’évaluation du rendement des directrices et directeurs de l’éducation.

Si elles sont adoptées, les modifications législatives proposées permettraient ce qui suit : d’autoriser le ministre à établir des politiques et des lignes directrices énonçant la formation que doivent suivre les conseillères et conseillers scolaires, y compris le contenu de la formation, le moment où elle doit être suivie et la fréquence; et de permettre au gouvernement d’établir un processus d’évaluation du rendement des directrices et directeurs de l’éducation.

Afin de renforcer le code de conduite auquel doivent se conformer les conseillères et conseillers scolaires et de réduire les perturbations pour que les conseillères et conseillers scolaires puissent se concentrer sur le rendement des élèves, les modifications proposées, si elles sont adoptées, établiraient un nouveau processus impartial, dirigé par le commissaire à l’intégrité, régissant le règlement des plaintes relatives à des violations du code de conduite.

These reforms are a major step forward in the government’s efforts to make sure all parts of Ontario’s education system are unified to prepare students for the jobs of the future and to be accountable to parents and taxpayers for these results. The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act is necessary and is long-overdue legislation that will make a positive difference in the lives of students and parents. Positive and successful student outcomes are what our communities deserve.

I hope that my colleagues on the opposition benches put partisan politics aside and show their support as well.

This morning, I listened to the MPP from Ottawa West–Nepean, our education critic, describe what’s actually happening in schools, and I wonder what else in wonderland these members are talking about, because what we are seeing in our schools are students who do not have access to mental health supports. We see students who are losing teachers and educators and aides in the classroom. We see a deteriorating condition when it comes to the actual physical environment that they’re in. We also know, despite the numbers that this government likes to throw around, that if you actually look at the numbers, if your funding was to keep up with inflation, that would be $2.5 billion more. You talk about getting back to basics. To me, basics would be a safe, warm classroom for kids, with a teacher.

It’s a pleasure to rise and attempt to engage the government here on this education bill. I have to, though, take a step back, because one has to ask the question: When a government makes simultaneous announcements in the same area, what’s actually going on? On Sunday—this past Sunday—the education minister talked about this bill, but at the same time released the funding announcement, as the member for Ottawa West–Nepean mentioned in debate earlier this morning. Why do that? People are busy enough. Parents are busy enough. Kids who are working in our public school systems, attempting to be the best students they can be, are busy enough. As we await information about what this government’s plans are for our public education system, why release two things on the same day?

I have a theory, Speaker, and its doesn’t go to motive. It’s a theory about why a government would do such a thing. I think it’s because there’s some bad news here. I know we’re going to have a debate, in the questions and answers to my time this afternoon, about what that news is. I think it’s bad news.

Here’s why. I heard the education minister this week in debate get up and describe the funding announcement this week and this bill as a net positive thing for students and a net positive thing for our schools. But what the member for Ottawa West–Nepean said very clearly this morning is that the proof in the pudding always shows up at a school board level. It always shows up at a school board level when the people charged to actually oversee the schools at a local level look at the details about staff allocations, look at the details about resource allocations, and figure out what they’re going to do with what the government offers.

This is what we’ve learned at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. After burning through reserves, based upon previous cuts from this government, they are staring down the probability of $10 million to $13 million in cuts going forward. That’s not a net positive, as I see it. Here in the great city of Toronto, the Toronto District School Board has done the same assessment, and after burning through, I believe, as much as $70 million in reserves, they are now looking at $64 million in cuts. I know the education minister likes to talk about math and the importance of training up kids at math, but the math that I was trained to use myself leads me to believe cuts are not a net positive thing.

These 2,000 staff positions the minister talks about: As I read through the details of my colleague’s presentation of what the minister presented, what I understood is that these aren’t necessarily assigned to a particular occupation. They’re math coaches, as I understand it, Speaker. If you were to take those 2,000 positions and put them across the entire school systems of all the boards that we have, you wouldn’t even be sprinkling a meaningful amount per school. So if the minister truly wants kids to win and succeed, win and be the best person they could be, why would he be sprinkling such a paltry amount of resources by way of staff?

This is what I know from actual math. If the government had simply kept pace with inflation, according to the Bank of Canada—an actual, statistical source of data, unlike this government—they would be spending $2.5 billion more this year in education. That is what would be required just to keep pace with inflation.

Now, what happens when we don’t keep pace with inflation? What happens when school boards get shorted? What happens is, ultimately, staff and students get shorted. Sadly, I hate to tell you, Speaker, the people who are often at the top of the getting-shorted list are students with disabilities.

I want to talk about a few stories, one of which comes from home and that has had some modest progress as recently as today, thanks to a family who is tireless in advocating for their child, but I think it will help give the government some sense about when they propose enhancements, but deliver cuts, who suffers.

Elliot Legault is a high school student in the city of Ottawa. His family lives in Ottawa Centre. Elliot Legault is an autistic adolescent. He’s non-verbal, but what his behavioural analyst determined at the school board level and to the family is that Elliot has an incredible amount of gifts to give and bring, not only for himself but to his class.

But what happened in the pandemic is interesting. Because there was so much virtual education happening—special education was still going on in person, so Elliot, actually, during the pandemic, was one of those few students who got the benefit from schools being relatively open so he could, as is his wont, get up and walk around and explore and experience learning in a very interactive way. It’s a necessity for Elliot; it’s a necessity. So the pandemic, oddly enough, was a positive thing for Elliot as he was grappling with his learning journey in his high school.

But when people came back from virtual learning, things were very different for Elliot. There were obvious tensions with other students. Getting up and walking around are not necessarily understood by other students as part of Elliot’s learning journey and could be understood as disruptive, and conflicts could be created. The only way those conflicts get mediated is with trained people in the classroom. That is the only way those conflicts get mediated. So the Legault family advocated for their son and went as far as the autism program at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and made a proposal, successfully, to have CHEO-based resources allocated to their son’s high school to make sure staff could figure out how to quickly mediate conflict as it was happening so it didn’t spiral out of control, so a classroom didn’t have to be cleared.

That’s incredible. I think about the amount of parents who have the capability to figure out all those avenues of advocacy where they can connect with the children’s hospital to the high school to the staff, but they accomplished all those things. But when people came back, those resources were time-limited. The CHEO resources were not there forever. They were gradually withdrawn, and staff were told, “Okay, here we go. We have all these students coming back in the high school now, and you’re going to have to figure out a way to help Elliot without an EA today.” That was often the response: “You’re going to have to figure out a way to accommodate Elliot without the ability to move around, to go in the hall and walk back and forth, and keep him in the classroom.”

You can tell it’s a ticking time bomb of a problem. A conflict is going to happen. A classroom is going to be cleared. And surely enough there were a couple of incidents. Sadly, the Legault family was dealing with the situation that I was first presented with back in the fall of Elliot’s high school education being reduced to two hours of learning a day—two hours. What does that mean for his dad, Steve, and his mom, Carrie? What it means is, Carrie is the full-time, stay-at-home educator. Carrie is not allowed to pursue her professional employment because we do not have the requisite staff to be able to help Elliot in Elliot’s learning journey—quite frankly, not just Elliot’s: It’s everybody’s learning journey when you have a mixed environment and kids learn how to interact with different kids who learn differently. So the Legault family is told by fiat that their son is only entitled to two hours of education a day.

I was made aware of a mom recently in Durham who just recently found out that her seven-year-old son has not been allowed outside for recess since October—since October. Why? Because staff worry that he is a flight risk. Staff worry that there is a conflict brewing at any corner, and they do not have EA resources, so the child stays inside for recess.

This is what happens. This is what happens when you short public education, and it doesn’t go away by talking about 2,000 staff who are math coaches who magically might be able to present themselves to a classroom one day and help Elliot or help this seven-year-old I’m talking about. It doesn’t.

So then the problem in this bill, as I understand it, gets even more complicated, Speaker, because in a context where this government is proposing enhancements to funding, enhancements to staff, but actually cutting the ability of school boards and schools and staff to provide that support, they’re blaming school boards for improper governance. I would never say, Speaker, that there aren’t problems at a school board level, certainly as there aren’t problems in this building with how we interact and make decisions. There’s always going to be, and you have to have good governance processes to hold people accountable, absolutely—absolutely. But beginning with the supposition of negativity is a problem.

It also concerned me, Speaker, that the Ottawa public school boards’ association—I might have gotten the acronym wrong—the body that’s responsible for bringing together the school boards to advocate here was not consulted on this bill. They found out about it in the media. Can you imagine, Speaker, for any one of us, if we were presented with a project of law a constituent wanted us to embrace, and that constituent just took to the media and said, “My MPP is lousy because they don’t care about my issue,” but we’ve never been consulted on it in the past and someone just holds forth and questions our integrity? We would be outraged, wouldn’t we? We would feel like we were being disrespected. But that is precisely what this government is doing to school boards right now.

So I want to invite this government, if they’re listening, to redo this process. If you’re actually interested in code of conduct policies—proper code of conduct policies that will help make sure that when there is a complaint about staff behaviour or trustee behaviour amongst each other—I want the government today in debate to confirm that they will consult with public school board authorities, consult with employee groups and parent organizations, put in as much effort as they did into the physical and health education curriculum of 2018. Do you remember that, Speaker? They went out on the road with that, and they found out from communities that their approach was wrong. I want them to put a similar amount of resources and effort into the issue of code of conduct.

I’ll tell you why, Speaker. There’s a disturbing story from my own community that I take to heart, that not a day when I walk into this place do I not think about. A very prominent trustee in our community for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth. Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth runs a family health organization. She’s a family physician with an incredible pedigree and reputation in our town. Why? She was one of the primary health care providers during the pandemic that brought the immunization wave, the wave of mass immunizations that happened in our community, particularly for essential workers: people working in grocery stores, warehouses, trucking, the occupations that were essential, but they weren’t health care. It was Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth that came to be known as a major organizer in our community for her work on mass immunization. Her efforts immunized over 15,000 people. They were called “Jabapalooza” efforts. They filled up entire streets—the Fourth Avenue where her clinic is based, the Common Ground family health organization clinic. You could see the street; she worked on it with the city. The road was blocked off, with people backed up for a long way, because they were scared about going to work if they weren’t protected through immunization; they were scared about passing on a virus to an immunocompromised loved one.

Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth came to be known in our town for being a leader because of her work in the pandemic. And then, because of her experience in public advocacy, she decided, “I want to serve the public more.” So she ran to be a trustee of the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board in the very area where her clinic is based.

Trustee Kaplan-Myrth is also the first—to my knowledge, at least—elected Jewish trustee we have had in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board in a long time. And sadly, given what we have seen in some quarters of social media, she has been subjected to a tremendous amount of hate and anti-Semitic vitriol—constant. It’s gotten to the point, Speaker—I want this said for the record. I won’t read the text of the emails Trustee Kaplan-Myrth has received, but it’s gotten to the point where every single day she’s receiving a death threat from anonymous email accounts. That’s not an exaggeration—every single day. That is what she is dealing with.

So what has her approach been from advocacy to change the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board? On January 18, 2023, she went to the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board with a proposal to hire a Jewish equity coach, because there had been a number of disturbing incidents of anti-Semitism in schools and because of what she had experienced herself. The board unanimously adopted that approach, and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has set in motion by which schools can start to grapple—led by leaders in our Jewish and this Jewish equity coach—with dealing with the issue of anti-Semitism. Something to do—they didn’t ask for the government’s help in this. Trustee Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth led that effort.

So what I would tell this government if they want to revamp code of conduct processes is to talk to Dr. Nili. Talk to Trustee Nili. Talk to advocates in other school boards who have had to deal with awful incidents of hate in the classroom and awful incidences of hate that they’ve received as elected officials and ask them for their advice, because your provincial code of conduct will be better from those engagements. I’m happy to send along all the contact information I have from the rather ugly chapter that continues to unfold in our city.

I also, for the record, want to shout-out Proton Mail. Why, Speaker? Because Trustee Kaplan-Myrth approached Proton Mail—which if people don’t know about, it’s an encrypted form of email you can sign up to. This is where a lot of the hate for Trustee Kaplan-Myrth has come from: sources that can’t be traced. And this company, when Trustee Kaplan-Myrth reached out to them, was horrified at the hate being spread out from their platform, and volunteered—

Speaker, if I’m understanding your comments correctly, given the government has proposed code of conduct changes provincially, I’m talking about a trustee who has been on the receiving end of a lot of hate. So I’m going to continue down this path, Speaker, because I believe it to be important. But I believe I am sticking to the spirit of what my colleagues are proposing here.

Proton Mail took action. This government could engage them as well. They could engage people who believe in good, corporate responsibility, inclusive learning environments, inclusive behaviour, but you didn’t that. You dropped this on a Sunday without talking to anybody about it. That’s not the way you deal with hate in our classrooms. It’s not the way you mitigate and deal with conflict. That’s my point.

Speaker, if we want to move forward in having positive education in our system—let me recap—what do we need? We need actual funding to go into our schools, and that has to keep account of where we’re at with inflation. Right now, we are $2.5 billion short, and who suffers? Disproportionately, students with disabilities.

The minister talked about the Right to Read report launched by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. I agree with him—a profound and important report—because I had the chance to meet with those advocates around dyslexia as well. But moving into a phonetic reading curriculum, thinking about embracing what they are talking about, requires systemic changes to the curriculum, not only in the classroom but at the educational development level for teachers and education staff in colleges and universities. That requires money. We can’t continue to ask staff and we can’t continue to ask school boards to burn into reserves and do more with less.

And it particularly disturbs me at a time, Speaker—I was getting ready for debate this morning and I was surveying the ways in which in our larger economy, which our school boards and our schools are part of—there is an incredible amount of wealth sloshing around out there. Since 2019, profits in the oil sector have increased globally by 1,000%—

The issue here is school boards don’t run on reserves. School boards run on funding. Governments send that funding to school boards from revenues that they draw in from a variety of sources. One of them is taxes from individuals and companies.

My friend from Peterborough–Kawartha, I think, knows that. But in a context where energy companies are making out like bandits and a Conservative government in England is prepared to set in a windfall tax for energy companies, why does this government—

Interjection.

What I’d tell my friend from Peterborough–Kawartha is the government is shorting our public schools, and they could be allocating funds to help them. That’s not going to come out of thin air; it comes from a government, like a Conservative government in England, that will actually find the resources to fund schools well.

You want them to do code of conduct processes well, you want them to do math and education well, you want them to do shop classes well—it doesn’t come from thin air. It comes from a government with the courage to ask people who have to share. We got a lot of people hoarding wealth and shorting our public education system.

It’s really too bad you don’t have the courage to do that. It’s really too bad you don’t have the courage to ask people who are super wealthy—because back home in Ottawa Centre, there’s a lot of affluent folks. When I knock on their doors, they say, “Joel, if the government of Ontario would ask me for a special levy on my company to pay for public services that my employees support, I would do that.” But these guys are only interested in one thing: cutting taxes, attacking public services and making our communities worse.

It is an absolute honour to be here. I believe that the education of our children might be the most important issue facing us today, so I’m very thankful for this opportunity to stand before you and provide my full support to the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. Once again, it’s an honour for me to represent the hard-working people of Thornhill and to stand up for the hard-working Thornhill families. I want to thank the minister for bringing this forward, along with his amazing team.

When I speak with parents in Thornhill, they tell me they’re concerned about the quality of education their kids are receiving, and they wonder if it will do an adequate job of preparing them for the years ahead. To be honest with you, as a parent of children in the school system, I share this concern. I’m always worried about the outcome of my child, not just today but in the years to come. We want to set our children up for success.

Sadly, this particular concern amongst parents has been around for a very long time. I hope that my Liberal and NDP friends will take some time to look at a report that was issued by the Royal Commission on Learning, chaired by Monique Begin and Gerald Caplan back in 1995. To quote from the report, “Many parents came to us with shocking evidence of kids who finished high school yet wrote with all the sophistication of a nine-year old, of report cards that seemed deliberately contrived to sound like gibberish, of schools that made them feel unwelcome, intimidated, indifferent to them and not much more engaged with their children.”

Nearly all of the parents I encounter—and I encounter quite a few. This is a reality for me. Like a few members in this House, when I go home, I hang up my hat as a member of the community and I become a mother. What I believe in is the idea of public education, but their school or their school board needs to be far more accountable to families and taxpayers. I agree with them.

Before I discuss the many merits of this bill, I also want to thank the Minister of Education for taking such a strong stance against anti-Semitism in schools and making learning about the Holocaust mandatory in the grade 6 curriculum. He did this back in February, and secondary school teachers within the Toronto District School Board were subjected to a professional day presented by the OSSTF teachers’ union regarding a false narrative of anti-Palestinian racism. Many teachers who attended described the presentation as hateful, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.

This is a predominantly concerning issue for me, not just today but literally every day in Thornhill. I can pick up my phone right now, and I can tell you about a school that has just described an anti-Semitic incident—in my own son’s school. This happened just yesterday—just yesterday. This is a reality for me.

While other people have turned their backs, Minister Lecce has not. He has always embraced this, and he has come to us and been there for us. Combatting anti-Semitism in schools is just one bold action that the minister has taken over the past four years to improve education in our province.

Our government was the first to mandate anti-sex-trafficking protocols, and we implemented a lifetime ban on any educator found guilty of a serious Criminal Code offence like sexual abuse or violence. In fact, we went even further by publicly posting the names of any educators involved in serious criminal proceedings with the aims of enhancing transparency for parents and protecting kids, because it’s always about protecting kids.

In our government’s first term, the Minister of Education revoked regulation 274, which was a regressive hiring rule that was brought in by the Liberals to appease the teachers’ unions. Now, instead of simply rewarding years of seniority, teacher hirings by school boards will be dictated by merit, where qualifications and experience guide hiring.

Regulation 274 was not the only Liberal mess our government cleaned up in the education file, Speaker. You may also remember the previous government disadvantaged countless numbers of students by closing over 600 schools across Ontario. After a decade of school closures, Ontario is once again building schools to prepare young people for the jobs of tomorrow. Those children are mine; they live in my home right now. We’re investing over $15 billion over 10 years to support school construction, improve existing structures and create new child care spaces.

Perhaps more importantly, the Ministry of Education has been busy updating the curriculum to ensure it does a better job of getting students ready for the workforce. In simple terms, that has meant focusing on more science and math, including digital and financial literary, and encouraging more students to take a good look at the skilled trades for lucrative and rewarding careers.

In the 1994 report I just mentioned, it said there is “a shared concern out there. It’s that Ontario’s schools aren’t equipped to deal with the future—a problem significantly exacerbated by our utter ignorance of what that future might bring.” The future is here now. We’re living it right now. Speaker, we know there’s a growing demand for jobs in the skilled trades, and that in the tech sectors, we need to promote learning STEM skills. I believe our government is definitely on the right track with respect to that.

These are real and meaningful accomplishments that have improved Ontario’s system of education to the benefit of students and parents. Clearly, the Minister of Education is driving transformational change, and the bill that we are debating is a necessary step toward improving education in Ontario.

Our legislation will increase accountability by giving parents new tools to navigate and understand the education system while establishing basic qualifications for directors of education. Additionally, the minister will now be able to establish key priorities to ensure students have the skills and knowledge they need, especially in areas such as reading, writing and math. These are the core places.

Should it pass this House, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act would enact over 20 necessary reforms, but I’d like to focus my remarks on a few measures that will increase accountability and transparency in the education system.

I believe most school boards are doing a relatively good job of educating our children. Ontario enjoys a five-year graduation rate of 89%, which is a key contributor to the province’s economic growth. Unfortunately, thousands of students annually are not graduating high school within five years, and eight out of Ontario’s 72 school boards have consistently shown the lowest performance in the five-year graduation rate in the past nine years.

To add to this problem, the Ministry of Education has limited ability to drive or enforce provincial priorities through to schools and school boards, and information about school board performance, education spending and how that money supports education outcomes is not easily accessible to parents, taxpayers or the public at large.

Just to put this in proper context, Speaker, Ontario’s school boards receive over $27 billion in provincial funding to operate over 4,600 school facilities and a complex system of transportation. Some boards say they can’t make do with the money they have, even though our government is making record investments in education and funding has increased every year we have been in government. Understandably, many hard-working families in Thornhill and across this province are a bit confused about where all that money is going. Families have questions about their local school board’s ability to manage money, and they deserve answers.

To address these issues, our government’s legislation, should it pass this House, will:

—set provincial priorities on student achievement, require performance reporting and strengthen ministry powers to address variable board performance;

—require school board transparency in funding and outcomes;

—direct and/or prohibit school board participation prescribed business activities;

—empower the minister to send in support personnel to boards failing to align with provincial priorities and create corresponding obligations for school boards to co-operate;

—enhance financial accountability of school board-controlled entities to the public; and

—amend the Education Act to support the creation of an accelerated apprenticeship pathway starting in grade 11.

That’s an important factor because we want our kids to be exposed to the skilled trades, hands down. These are prudent, common-sense reforms that make school boards more accountable and transparent to families and taxpayers.

Our government is committing to taking a more prominent role in the performance of our education system, and that starts by passing the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. Families and taxpayers demand and deserve greater accountability and transparency from their school boards. Speaker, I hope that all of us in the House can at least agree upon that.

I’m proud of our government’s actions to update the curriculum and ensure our schools are safe and welcoming, and I’m proud of this minister for delivering a thoughtful reform bill that will help make sure all parts of Ontario’s education system are unified in putting students first.

I’m going to be sharing my time with the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Speaker—

Interjection.

It’s an absolute honour to rise in the House today and offer my full support to the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. Ever since our government was first elected in 2018, we’ve been busy ensuring our schools are safe, welcoming and inclusive learning centres for all students and modernizing the curriculum to ensure it’s preparing young people for the jobs of tomorrow.

And once again, the government of Ontario is investing in schools and in our province’s next generation. I’m pleased to say that after a decade, when the previous Liberal government closed over 600 schools across the province, our government is investing $15 billion over 10 years to build new schools, improve existing facilities and create new child care spaces for working parents.

Our hard-working people in Chatham-Kent–Leamington who pay their taxes and play by the rules have been very clear: They value public education, and they’re happy to invest in public education, but they want it to focus on preparing young people for the workforce, and they believe the system needs to be more accountable.

For the most part, Ontario is on the right track—for the most part. We’re among the top-performing education systems nationally and internationally. Our leading five-year graduation rate of 89% is a key contributor to our economic growth, and it supports efforts to maximize the productive capacity of our future labour force.

But, unfortunately, Speaker, our education system is not firing on all cylinders at the moment. This new legislation proposes specific remedies to get our system back on track. The performance of our public education system can be tangibly improved through greater accountability and transparency, better governance and leadership, maximizing school capital assets, training teachers for modern-day classrooms and ensuring there’s more consistent information and approaches to student learning. Speaker, those key reforms are the basis of the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

Our government has accomplished a great deal on this file over the past five years, but further transformational change requires both legislation and updated regulations. Speaker, if our legislation is passed, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will increase accountability by giving parents new tools to navigate and understand the education system and basic qualifications for the directors of education who oversee our school boards. This act will allow the minister to establish key priorities to ensure students have the skills and knowledge they need, especially in areas of reading, writing and math.

If passed, this act would legislate reforms under four statutes: the Education Act, the Ontario College of Teachers Act, the Early Childhood Educators Act and the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001. Speaker, our government’s legislation will enact over 20 key recommendations across five themed categories, including, of course, accountability and transparency, governance and leadership, maximizing capital assets, teacher training and oversight, and consistent information and approaches to student learning. Clearly, these five themes are incredibly important to reforming our education system, but I’d like to spend a few moments on discussing teacher education and oversight.

Teaching is a special, important and challenging calling. I want to be clear: The great majority of teachers are dedicated professionals who deeply care about their students. I respect their work and our teachers, and so do my friends and colleagues on both sides of this House. Teachers like my amazing wife and many of our dearest friends are responsible for preparing our students for post-secondary education and entering the modern workforce. We need to make sure they have the very best people in front of them in every classroom.

Unfortunately, Speaker, teacher education programs do not currently provide consistent training in the fundamentals required by teachers and students, such as math, literacy, special education, mental health and technology in the classroom. Additionally, Speaker, the Ontario College of Teachers is not certifying teachers at the rate where they’re needed, and many believe that teacher disciplinary processes should be enhanced to improve overall student safety.

Should this pass, Speaker, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act would fundamentally change teacher training to be more holistic across the learning continuum, aligning with school structure and student needs. It would require initial teacher education programs in all faculties of education to include topics that are consistent with enabling teachers to graduate with a minimum of grade 9 math proficiency, appropriate proficiencies in literacy, enhanced learning and awareness of evidence-based approaches to teaching students with special needs, and appropriate learning in mental health and wellness.

Should it pass, Speaker, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act would remove barriers by introducing alternative certification pathways for priority groups and expediting entry into the workforce for individuals with relevant work experience. Our government would work with the Ontario College of Teachers to create more flexible certification options that will get more qualified teachers in the classroom faster, where they’re needed. We’ll also work with key stakeholders such as our Ministry of Colleges and Universities, Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development and faculties of education to develop real opportunities for flexible, accelerated initial teacher education programs to better attract mid-career teacher candidates in needed areas such as French-language education.

This bill would increase public confidence in the regulation of the teaching professions and the protection of students by amending the Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1996, by: specifically allowing for student victims of alleged sexual abuse, child pornography or criminal sexual acts by any teacher to receive funding for therapy; and clarifying certification reinstatement timelines for individuals who have had their licences revoked, so that it would take five years from the date of revocation before an individual may seek reinstatement from the college.

I have no doubt that parents and the broader public will support these very reasonable measures. There is no question that real reforms are needed and they have been needed for many years. This goes way back to the 1994 Royal Commission on Learning that then-Premier Bob Rae initialized.

To sum it up, “There’s no excuse for bad teachers....” And quite frankly, there must always be a priority for the student to have learning over an inadequate teacher’s right to a permanent job—it’s fundamental. Quite frankly, it is universal. Teachers should be trained in the fundamentals of math, reading and special education, as well as mental health, and our college of teachers needs to be empowered to protect our most vulnerable.

This government is listening to concerns across this province and across my riding of Chatham-Kent–Leamington. This act is driving transformational change—

This government did no consultation with parents or parents’ groups in putting this education bill forward, so let me read into the record a letter that I received from a school, from the school council of the Cootes Paradise Elementary School in my riding, who wrote to myself and the minister. They said immediate action is needed in their schools.

The letter says, in part, “Our children with additional needs are not getting the education they deserve. We demand better for our children. There are three primary issues: insufficient funding, EAs needed in every kindergarten class and transparent contingency plans needed for staff absences. There’s a lack of funding for EAs provincewide.”

They conclude by saying, “It’s time to act on your promises, invest in EAs, hire enough of them, pay them what they deserve, mandate at least one EA per kindergarten class, plan for contingencies.”

My question is, why did this government not spend $600 million of federal COVID dollars? Why did you underspend your education budget by $500 million? This would have helped the school in my riding, Cootes Paradise Elementary School, to deal with the problems that they’re facing right now.

Every day, parents tell me that they receive information from their children’s schools. They get permission slips, updates on class activities, requests to take part in fundraising, artwork, report cards—the list is as endless as their backpacks are full.

Yet one piece of information they don’t receive is how their children’s school is performing. Ontario’s 2021-22 EQAO assessment results show weaker performance in math across all grades and reading and writing in grade 3. You were just referencing this.

I know that our proposed legislation includes setting provincial education priorities for boards. How does requiring school boards to provide progress reports on provincial education priorities for student achievement support student success?

There’s a lot to unpack there, but I am glad that the member from London West brings up reading programs. My wife has been a teacher for over 10 years, a special education teacher here in Toronto, and every year—

Interjection.

To the parent from London West who’s watching this, this bill actually addresses the lack of transparency in programing from the school board level. It gives an opportunity for parents to find out exactly where those resources are going and what they’re spent on.

The question to the member: Are you going to laugh at that transparency for your constituents or are you going to vote against this legislation that allows for that clarity?

Speaker, as a strong believer both in parliamentary democracy and public education, I’m pleased to join today’s debate and provide my full support for both the Minister of Education and his game-changing legislation, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

Speaker, whenever I speak with constituents and parents in my riding, education is almost always top of mind. In my social media group, I have over 100 parents’ groups. Families in Markham–Unionville have made it clear to me a number of times that they strongly support Ontario’s public education system, but they believe that the education system needs to be understandable and navigable for all parents, and it needs to be focused on the fundamentals—reading, writing and math—which, of course, includes financial literacy.

To quote the report issued by the 1994 Royal Commission on Learning that was established by the then-NDP Premier Bob Rae, “Helping children master basic reading and writing skills is a critical first step, and every teacher of young children must be proficient at it.”

Speaker, I’m very optimistic about the future. We are building up Ontario. We are building up Ontario’s auto industry for the future of electric vehicles and EV battery production, encouraging the growth of a strong and resilient life sciences sector and attracting billion-dollar investments by manufacturers who know that our province is open for business. In short, Speaker, we are building a modern and advanced economy right here in Ontario.

But, Speaker, if we want to grow these sectors and if we want to attract billion-dollar investments to our province, Ontario must have a well-educated and highly skilled workforce. And at a time when Ontario is facing the largest skilled labour shortage in a generation and more than 40% of jobs in Canada are at high risk of getting disrupted by technology and computers, it is critically important that we prepare the students of today for the jobs of tomorrow.

When our government took office five years ago, we knew we had to update the curriculum to better help our students meet the needs of the modern labour market. More specifically, that means: making financial literacy and digital proficiency key priorities; investing $200 million to support a four-year math strategy; teaching valuable transferable skills such as leadership, communication, collaboration and critical thinking; promoting the skilled trades as a top-choice career path for young people; and increasing awareness of and accessibility to apprenticeship programs.

Last week, I had a very interesting experience. My water pipe in my laundry room leaked, and I called for a plumber. He came, he got it fixed, and he charged me $280 for two hours plus materials. I talked to him: “Man, if you work five days a week, 52 weeks a year, you’ve got more than $70,000 a year for one job per day.” Then I said, “Do you know what? If you get three jobs a day, you earn more than our Premier.” He smiled at me and said, “Do you know what? I got six jobs today.” This is how we want our young children to have a better job for the future and a career—also, improving science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, learning.

The good news, Speaker, is that our government has implemented many updates to the curriculum, and we are getting the job done across the province. The bad news is that approximately 15,000 Ontario students do not graduate high school within five years, and non-graduates have higher rates of unemployment and lower-than-average incomes.

As Ontario’s economy increasingly becomes a digital and global economy, we can’t afford to leave our young people behind. We need to take concrete and effective action, now. As you know, Speaker, our government recently announced that we are investing more than $180 million in classroom supports for students to boost their reading, writing and math skills. Reading and writing proficiency is critical to lifelong success. If a plumber cannot read the manual, how can he repair or install anything?

This is why we are delivering a $109.1-million investment for 2023-24 to help more students build stronger reading skills. This includes supporting nearly 700 reading-focused educators in classrooms who can help work one-on-one or in small groups to help students who need additional support in literacy; new tools and approaches in the curriculum, ensuring early readers experiencing challenges get the support they need; introducing new early reading screening for students in senior kindergarten to grade 2, to ensure they receive the necessary fundamental skills and early intervention in reading they require.

We are also building upon our four-year, $200-million math strategy by investing an additional $71.8 million in math recovery that will support nearly 400 new math-focused educators in the classroom, double the number of school math coaches in classrooms to provide direct support to teachers and students, introduce one math lead per board to lead curriculum implementation and support math culture in classrooms, provide subsidies for additional math qualification courses and professional learning for new teachers, and expand access to digital math tools and continue virtual tutoring services to provide additional support for students.

Speaker, these new initiatives to support students further demonstrate that Ontario’s government is working for families. But, Speaker, it is clear that if we want to truly reform the education system to prepare our young people for the jobs of tomorrow, we need legislative action. In the event that our legislation is passed, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will allow the minister to establish new key priorities to ensure students have the skills and knowledge they need, especially in areas such as reading, writing and math.

Speaker, I would love to walk my honourable colleagues through every section of this legislation, but my time is limited, and this bill is quite comprehensive. So instead, please allow me to focus on the fifth pillar, which is all about providing consistent information and approaches to student learning.

The current system simply isn’t meeting the needs of students in terms of learning the basics of reading and math or adequately preparing them for the labour market. Parents feel as though they are kept on the outskirts of their children’s education, and they aren’t sure how they can help to improve the system for their children. Well, Speaker, our government believes that parents should be in the driver’s seat when it comes to their children’s education, and the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will enshrine parental rights, should it pass. This would include requiring all school boards to provide and promote parent-friendly information as outlined by the minister. Parents would be provided with frequently updated provincial information for parents that will spell out their rights, roles and responsibilities within the education system.

Our legislation will support consistency in the delivery of mental health education and services, and promote inclusive language on special education in French versions of the Education Act and the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001.

And, Speaker, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will help the minister work for families by establishing formal guidelines for a transparent and predictable curriculum review process that ensures the curriculum is reviewed on a regular basis and that it reflects future labour market needs. We are now using iPhone 14. The previous updated curriculum was 2009, which was iPhone 1—never updated in the last 14 versions of iPhones. We need to update regularly.

We are already taking action to support standardized and consistent student learning by investing in mental health and math supports and implementing literacy screening. As I mentioned earlier, Speaker, the Minister of Education has already taken many actions to update the curriculum to include more math and science, and focus on financial and digital literacy.

The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will build on these actions, Speaker, but I am especially excited about the proposed handbook for parents. All too often, parents feel helpless when they encounter a big government bureaucracy that they feel does not reflect their views and does not listen to their concerns. That is especially the case when I speak with new Canadians whose first language is not English. Many of these folks worry they may get into trouble if they express any dissatisfaction with the education their children are receiving, and that is only if they are listened to.

We are fortunate to live in a free society, Speaker. And in this free society, this government will always side with parents, giving them a voice. Clearly laid out information for parents is an excellent idea that deserves our full support.

Speaker, I hope that all of our honourable colleagues on both sides of this House support our government’s legislation.

I appreciate the question from my colleague the member for London North Centre. If this government really wanted to improve student outcomes, to ensure better schools in this province, they would consult with the education workers who are delivering the programs in our schools. I’m not confident that there’s a simple fix to this legislation that would deliver the outcomes that we want to see, because it all comes down to engaging with the people who are supporting students in our classrooms. It is reaching out to parents to really understand what it is that parents want to see in our school system, and it is using that information to move forward in a way that meets the needs of students in the province.

It’s very interesting to hear the response from the member to my last question, and it shows that the NDP simply doesn’t know how this actually works. You see, the Ministry of Education sends funding to the board. The board then sends it along to the school. They are responsible for the programming decisions. It’s not the government who sits here and says, “Let’s look at these programs and see what’s best for the needs of those children.” It is up to the broader public sector—the school boards, in this case—to make those priority decisions on what programming is best for children. That is exactly how that system works, and I know this first-hand because, as I said, my wife has been a teacher for over a decade and tells me how that system works and how the programming actually doesn’t have any clarity around how those decisions are made. And parents are left in the dark when programs like reading programs are cut.

Now, we know the funding is up. You can read the budget. You see it’s 27% higher than when the last Liberal government was here—a hard stop on the facts.

Interjections.

My question to the government side: I find that this is a curious set of priorities that the government is choosing to focus on. This morning, I brought it up at question period. It was brought up that school programs like the ones that provide nutrition to students in Niagara are in crisis across this province: 16 schools have closed their nutrition program, 30 more are projected to close and 49 have been affected. The government knows that we are facing a $400,000 shortfall on the nutrition program. My question is, why are we not making items like this a priority right now when we are talking about education?

Thank you for the question from the opposition side. It is very important that we need to carry on supporting the francophone communities in our education sectors. That’s why we are investing more in education. If we have the opportunity to read about our budget for this fiscal year, we may see that there is a $2.1-billion increase in investing in the public education sector. That is one of the reasons why we are supporting this bill: because we are investing more in education than ever.

This is very important to me, because we need to always understand our own jurisdiction. We don’t cross our border. We don’t step on other people’s toes. We help each other so that we can be a board that can help our students move forward. That’s why in this legislation, we need to provide more funding for school boards for trustee training so that they know what they should do and what they shouldn’t.

The Minister of Education also announced that we are investing more than $180 million for 2023-24 in math and reading support for Ontario students in our classrooms and at home. This is building upon our previous $200-million investment with support to students with our four-year math strategy. The numbers go on and on. I don’t know why you are not supporting this one, but this is very well-supported education—

There is already a great deal of accountability built into the system. In addition, at faculties of education, there is constant research taking place about looking to improve how different subject areas are taught. The bottom line is, the money is not there to look after children and give them a fair education.

So a code of conduct is fine. I just don’t see that that’s where the problems lie. The problems lie in lack of funding and class sizes that are too large.