Thank you, Speaker.

Surely, if the sole desire here was to make sure that every child can attend school in their local community regardless of what board they’re in, the regulations on selling or transferring schools could just be limited to school boards.

What we actually need more than the sell-off of publicly held land to private, for-profit corporations is investments to address the repair backlog so that our children can learn in a safe environment. The school repair backlog is currently well over $16 billion; we don’t know by how much because the government stopped publicly reporting on this figure. But we know that committing only $1.4 billion a year to building new schools and repairing existing schools means that the backlog is going to continue to grow instead of shrink.

Our kids are trying to learn in schools that are not in good repair, including schools that are not fully air-conditioned. When the temperatures hit 30 degrees in Ottawa last week, one of the first things I thought of was the poor teachers and students on the second floor of my children’s un-air-conditioned school. Usually it’s not until late May or early June that the temperatures get that high. I’ve sent my kids to school in the past thinking, “Well, they’re not going to learn anything today. They’re going to be lucky to survive.” Teachers have had to employ creative strategies, including bringing Popsicles to school that they’ve paid for out of their own pockets, and cycling kids through the gym and the learning commons, which have air conditioning. These are our children’s learning conditions.

The government has said over and over again that this legislation is based on what they have been hearing from parents, but I don’t buy it. I have had countless emails come through my inbox since even just the start of this year from parents voicing their concerns with the direction that public education is going. When boards were raising issues about reimbursing COVID relief funds, the emails were pouring in. When the budget was tabled with no real inflationary increases for education included, the emails were pouring in. Since Sunday, the emails have been pouring in again.

Parents who are scared about what this legislation will mean, educators concerned with the Grants for Student Needs numbers all want to know who exactly has been consulted in the creation of this bill—who are the stakeholders that were involved? We know that it wasn’t any of the teachers and education unions, because they were very clear that they were caught completely off guard by this legislation. That’s incredibly insulting when the ministry is in bargaining with these teachers. That’s not how you build a respectful relationship.

Cara Kane, a parent in my riding of Ottawa West–Nepean, sent me an email yesterday with her concerns about this bill and whose interests it represents. She said, “Firstly, it is quite bothersome to state that this is in response to what parents want ... how does he know what we want? What is he basing this off of? There has been no public consultation whatsoever with parents on this proposed bill. I want my child to go through this world as a kind person, who respects equity and diversity, who advocates for the community and stands up to bigotry, who explores her passions in a supportive environment, whatever they may be—whether it’s math and science, or art and literature, or anything in between. I fear this bill is woefully out of touch with what parents actually want for our children, and there is absolutely no way for the minister to know this without actually engaging in a public consultation process that include the voices of all parents. I am also deeply concerned about the bill’s new powers, which would require boards of education to report to the minister on these outcomes and provide the minister with the power to dissolve boards and appoint a provincial supervisor in the place of trustees. Communities vote for trustees—having a provincially appointed supervisor who has no relationship to/with the community, no understanding of what the school and community needs or values, and is not elected is insulting at best, and dangerous at worst.”

What we needed to see from the minister this week was a significant investment in our schools, one that actually accounted for inflation and for all of the massive challenges that our children are dealing with—a plan that actually provided for smaller class sizes; a plan that actually put more teachers and education workers in every school so that every child could get the supports they need from caring adults in their classroom; un plan pour résoudre la pénurie d’enseignants et d’enseignantes dans le système d’éducation de langue française; a plan that made significant investments in mental health, so that every school in Ontario would have access to at least one regularly scheduled mental health professional; a plan that actually tackled the root causes of violence by providing mental health supports and increasing staffing levels; a plan that made sure that all of our children are in safe and supported learning environments by clearing the repair backlog; a plan that provided critical supports for our most vulnerable learners—students with disabilities and accessibility needs; a plan that adequately funds special education; a transition plan for the autism legacy kids; a plan that makes significant investments and provides transparency and accountability to our provincial and demonstration schools.

Instead of that, what we have is a communications exercise that seems largely designed to deflect blame. And what is frustrating is that once again it is our children who pay the price for this minister’s intransigence and this government’s underfunding, just as they have paid the price throughout the past three years.

It is time for the minister to finally accept some responsibility, to finally make the investments that our children so desperately need, and to finally come up with a plan that actually provides our children—every child in Ontario—with the supports that they need to thrive and flourish.

I’d like to thank the member from Eglinton–Lawrence for her question.

I would have to say, number one, what I hear the most about is the concerns about where the funding is going and what is going on with that funding. In this bill, we will have school boards actually post financial results of what’s going on, and it’s going to be tied to our student outcomes. At the end of the day, this is what it’s all about. Everybody agrees—all my constituents want to see the best outcome for their child.

This is what it is all about: ensuring that transparency with the school boards so that we can have reporting that is tied to student outcomes.

Thank you to the two presenters. I’m really excited about how this bill can create success for our next generation. I see that schools are taking too long to build, and they are getting more and more expensive. What is this bill going to do to help us so that we can prepare the school boards so that nothing gets delayed and we still have a top-quality learning environment for our students to accommodate this unprecedented growth?

Thank you to my dear colleague for asking a very important question. Writing, reading and math are very important for our children’s future. Every single one of the pages, the young people here, need to be well prepared for their future. No matter when they go through high school or when they graduate from high school, they need very well-trained reading, math and science for their future.