Good morning. Let us pray.

Prières / Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on April 19, 2023, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 98, An Act to amend various Acts relating to education and child care / Projet de loi 98, Loi modifiant diverses lois en ce qui concerne l’éducation et la garde d’enfants.

Questions?

J’aimerais demander à la députée—elle a bien expliqué le cas des écoles francophones qui ont besoin d’avoir plus d’espace mais qui ne sont pas capables. Mais il y a également la pénurie grave d’enseignants francophones pour nos écoles. On voit en ce moment que la quasi-majorité, sinon toutes les écoles francophones, ont du personnel non-qualifié pour enseigner parce qu’elles ne sont pas capables. En ce moment, en Ontario, on a besoin de 1 000 nouveaux enseignants ou enseignantes francophones par année. Est-ce que vous voyez quelque chose dans le projet de loi qui va nous aider à renflouer la pénurie d’enseignants/enseignantes francophones pour s’assurer que chaque enfant francophone a accès à une éducation de qualité? Ça, ça passe par des enseignants/enseignantes francophones qualifiés.

En fait, c’est un problème réel auquel j’ai fait face quand je faisais partie du conseil scolaire. Alors, un voit un conseil anglophone qui a une école qu’ils doivent vider, parce qu’il n’y a pas assez d’étudiants; ils seront transférés dans une autre école. L’école devient vide. Le conseil scolaire francophone a des écoles dans la proximité qui débordent et ils demandent au conseil anglophone d’obtenir cette école-là. Par contre, le conseil anglophone refuse de transférer l’école en disant qu’ils risquent d’en avoir besoin dans un futur éventuel.

Alors, ce n’est pas une collaboration qu’on voit. Ce n’est pas justifié et ça crée vraiment des injustices pour les apprenants francophones qui sont entassés dans des écoles avec des portatives et qui ont, à toutes fins pratiques, plus d’espaces communs comme la bibliothèque ou même la cafétéria. Alors, on voudrait vraiment voir plus de collaboration. Dans le projet de loi, il y a une possibilité d’obliger les conseils à collaborer. Je pense que c’est une bonne chose.

C’est dommage qu’il y ait eu un groupe de travail qui a été établi par le gouvernement, en collaboration avec les associations scolaires, pour développer des recommandations et des solutions, et que ces recommandations-là ne soient pas mise en oeuvre. Alors, j’encourage le ministre à travailler avec la ministre des Collèges et Universités pour créer plus de postes d’enseignants.

My question to the member opposite: We know there’s going to be a significant population increase and we need to use all the tools in our tool box to build more schools and more opportunities—both English-language schools and French-language schools. I just wanted to see if she’s supportive of building more schools in this province, including in many places like her own riding.

It’s a pleasure and an honour to stand in this House on behalf of hard-working Brampton Centre families and offer strong support for both the Minister of Education and our government’s necessary and comprehensive legislation, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

Speaker, I’m addressing this chamber as the elected member for Brampton Centre, as a graduate of the Peel District School Board, as a mother of five children currently or previously enrolled in the public school system, and as the Associate Minister of Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity. That said, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Education, not just for updating the curriculum and taking action to ensure schools are safe and welcoming learning environments for all students, but for advancing the cause of women’s education in Ontario.

As my colleagues are well aware, our province is facing a very real shortage of skilled trades labour. In just a few years, it’s estimated that one in five jobs in Ontario will be in the skilled trades, yet the average age of people entering the trades is 29. Unfortunately, there is still a stigma attached to careers in the trades, especially among young women.

Women make up 47% to 48% of the Canadian labour force but hold fewer than 4% of jobs in the skilled trades and less than one quarter of jobs in the tech sector. Clearly, we are missing out on a talented demographic that could impact our province’s long-term future. So I applaud the Minister of Education for encouraging young women to take a good look at lucrative and rewarding careers in the skilled trades.

I also applaud him for signing an agreement with Shoppers Drug Mart to distribute free menstrual products to schools in all 72 boards. That’s a perfect example of taking action to make sure our schools are more welcoming and inclusive learning centres.

As I mentioned a moment ago, our province is experiencing a profound shortage of skilled labour, so it is critically important that we update the curriculum to ensure it aligns with the ever-changing needs of the job market.

On many occasions, Brampton families have said to me that the education system really needs to get back to basics. Parents in the riding I’m proud to represent support the minister’s focus on more math, more science, more financial literacy, and greater exposure to the skill trades, but they believe much more needs to be done and that school boards are not accountable to families. We recently saw that in my own community for years, students and parents voiced their concerns about widespread anti-Black racism, discrimination and inequities that were preventing hundreds of Black students from graduating on time. But they were systematically ignored by the Peel District School Board, forcing the province to step in and take action.

Speaker, Ontario’s $27-billion education system is overseen by about 700 trustees who do not always possess a consistent set of skills, training, or a standard code of conduct. The majority of school trustees are diligent and caring public servants, but this system of local governance is badly in need of reform.

If I may, I’ll quote the 1994 Royal Commission on Learning that was created by then-Premier Bob Rae and chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister Monique Bégin and long-time New Democrat Gerald Caplan: “Trustees are elected by a tiny proportion of the electorate, if indeed they don’t win by acclamation. It might be embarrassing to discover how many constituents know their trustees’ names. Board agendas too often reflect matters that are light years away from what happens in their schools; anyone who has sat in on a meeting of a school board knows that it can be a truly surrealistic experience.”

That royal commission outlined a number of deep-seated problems in education that have been with us for a very long time.

It’s clear that if we want to truly reform the education system to prepare our young people for the jobs of tomorrow, we need to take legislative action.

Speaker, in the event that our legislation is passed, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will increase accountability, giving parents new tools to navigate and understand the education system and establish basic qualifications for the directors of education who manage school boards.

The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act will also allow the minister to establish key priorities to ensure students have the skills and knowledge they need, especially in areas such as reading, writing and math.

Many of my colleagues are incredibly happy and proud that this act is going to mandate a handbook for parents that would outline their rights and responsibilities within the education system. Just imagine: If you didn’t go through the Ontario public education system, or if you moved to Ontario from elsewhere in search of a better life for your family, you would not have the experience of how best to navigate this system for your children. That is why a handbook is such a game-changer. One of the best ways to hold school boards accountable to families and taxpayers is to remind or even in some cases inform parents that they have rights when they deal with their local board. A handbook for parents is a great idea that is long overdue for our province.

But the act goes further than mandating a handbook.

Our legislation will ensure that trustees have the knowledge and the skills they need to perform their duties, and that their conduct is held to provincial standards. The act would amend the Education Act to require mandatory training for trustees, as prescribed by the Minister of Education. It would create a standardized trustee code of conduct that would be binding on all trustees and set clear expectations for how trustees should discharge their duties.

Speaker, the media has at times publicized some high-profile disputes between trustees—and we did see that in Brampton a couple of years ago. Such disputes are costly, time-consuming, and they erode the public confidence and detract attention from a school board’s primary duty, which is to promote student achievement.

Our legislation would establish a transparent and impartial process for resolving trustee code of conduct complaints through integrity commissioners who would be empowered to conduct investigations, dismiss complaints made in bad faith, determine whether or not the code of conduct has been breached, and impose binding sanctions on trustees.

I’m pleased to add that the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act also includes several other accountability and transparency measures for school boards. The act would enable the minister to require school boards, twice a year, to report publicly on their spending. It would strengthen the minister’s authority to direct and/or prohibit board participation in activities that could place the board at financial risk. It would allow for the appointment of professional corporations to investigate a board’s financial affairs when it is in distress. And it would establish the minister’s authority to prescribe financial policy and accountability matters for board-controlled entities.

Speaker, these reforms are very much in line with the royal commission’s recommendations from nearly three decades ago. To again quote the report, it said, “We recommend the transfer of several key responsibilities away from boards. We believe that determining the level of each board’s expenditures, for example, should be the ministry’s job....

“The primary responsibility of school boards would be to translate general ministry guidelines into viable local practice. Their job is to make local policy consistent with both provincial policy and local realities. They set clear expectations and guidelines for their schools and work with them to make sure they’re progressing towards those ends.”

That’s what the royal commission said nearly three decades ago.

Speaker, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act is thoughtful, comprehensive and incredibly sensible legislation that will help our kids prepare for the jobs of the future and empower parents, and make Ontario’s 72 school boards more accountable to families and taxpayers. That is why I, as a mother of five, am proud to rise in support of this bill.

I would like to share my time with the member from Carleton.

Je veux remercier la députée d’Ottawa–Vanier. C’est très encourageant, vos commentaires sur ce projet de loi.

J’étais très intéressé par les circonstances que tu avais décrites, que les conseils scolaires anglophones n’étaient pas préparés à vendre les écoles fermées aux conseils francophones. Est-ce que tu peux détailler un petit peu le pourquoi? Quelles étaient les raisons pour lesquelles ces conseils ont refusé?

That was a loaded question.

After consulting with parents, being a parent, and listening to parents question what is happening to the taxpayer dollars that they work hard for, what is happening when schools are being misrepresented in communities and the trustees that have committed these breaches of code of conduct are being dismissed by integrity commissioners—we need to hold our boards to a higher account, as we are members in the public eye. We are doing that by having boards explain to us what is happening with the hard work and tax dollars that—so many families work hard to put their children through school for an education and for a better future. That’s what we’re doing with this act.

I commend the minister and our government for making these changes and holding boards accountable to parents, taxpayers, and so many other families who are coming into Ontario.

There has been a lot of talk this morning from the member on accountability, but this government needs to look themselves in the mirror.

You are not accountable to the taxpayers of the province of Ontario. You are fighting all the way to the Supreme Court—with taxpayer dollars—the ability for taxpayers to see the mandate letters, which will say what your government is trying to do with their money.

In fact, now what you’re doing is meddling with democratically elected trustees.

There’s a quote I would like to read from an article: “Conservatives’ approach has been to interfere with other levels of government whenever they can, micromanaging, dictating, limiting consultation, ramming through legislation, and generally making a mess as they go.”

You did not consult with parents. You did not consult with educators. Here you are trying to impose all kinds of rules on trustees, when you yourself do not provide the funding and do not hold yourself to the same standard.

What do you have to say to parents and to people who realize that this government is not walking the talk?

We will go to questions.

To the member opposite: I was also a trustee, and there was actually training on Robert’s Rules of Order.

I’m just wondering what training anybody in this House had specifically on becoming an MPP and the standing orders in this place.

So I don’t think that’s a valid argument.

You’re talking about excluding a lot of people—parents. I was a parent when I became a trustee. You don’t want to hear their voices.

There is mention of mental health in this bill and these school boards educating and supporting children with mental health. Yet, in this province, the wait-list is well over 28,000 children long—to get mental health supports.

What are you doing to support—

Thank you to my colleague for that question.

When you are elected to a new position, you do not get extensive training on how to do this work. Many people who are elected as trustees, as councillors or as members don’t have experience even in following Robert’s Rules of Order or any of the structures that these boards have. This is why a training program and making sure that our trustees know what their roles are in the community is extremely vital and very important, because it helps them know how to be able to represent their students and how to be able to support their students.

Also, the code of conduct piece is very important. We have seen in the news parents who are really frustrated with how their children are being cared for and how some of these members are conducting themselves in the community.

So this is a benchmark, and I think it’s important that we have this go through.

Also, I worked within the mental health field. I used to go into schools and had a lot of difficulty getting into—

I’m happy to have a few minutes to talk about Bill 98. I want to start with a few letters that I got from my constituents.

I’ll call her Carole—Carole wrote to me: “I am a school bus driver.... Every day I strive to provide safe and timely transportation for students in my community. Due to a funding shortage, we have been forced to cut back on the number of buses and routes in our region. That means that often, despite” all “my efforts and those of my colleagues, students are late or not picked up at all. It’s frustrating to be in this situation. We are doing everything we can but the system is under extreme pressure and it may buckle at any time. Please, for the sake of the students across this province, give the system emergency funding so that I can do my job and” I “won’t leave kids stranded.”

You have to realize that I represent 33 small northern communities, most of them far apart. Many of them do not have a school in their community. Kids have to be bused long distance to get there, and when the school bus doesn’t come, that means that the student does not go to school. Is that fair? I don’t think so. We all want our kids to have the best chance in life, and that means getting an education. To get an education, you have to get to school. But when there is no money to hire drivers, to pay them a decent wage, to make sure that you have enough routes, then kids in Nickel Belt miss day after day.

I have another; I’ll call him Manfred. He wrote to me: “I am a constituent in your riding—I work as a bus driver ... and I need your help! Ontario’s student transportation sector is in crisis. School bus delays and cancellations are plaguing the system, leaving students and parents stranded. Parents are being forced to take time off to drive their kids to and from school”—if they have a car. “As a professional driver who takes great pride in driving a school bus, I want this to change.

“Ontario school bus operators, many of which are small ... businesses”—and where I live, they’re small businesses—“are struggling to make ends meet in what is the hardest jurisdiction” in our province “to do business. As an employee of”—and he names his employer—“this worries me as I am committed to the company and the sector. Drivers are not paid adequately and without proper funding from the Ministry of Education, the situation will only get worse.”

I fully agree. We need a good, safe transportation system. None of this is in the bill that we are talking about.

I would like to talk about l’École Notre-Dame du Rosaire, à Gogama. L’École Notre-Dame du Rosaire a presque dû fermer ses portes parce qu’il n’y avait aucun enseignant ou enseignante pour aller à Gogama. À Gogama, on parle, quand tout va bien, d’un minimum de deux heures de route pour se rendre à l’école la plus proche à Sudbury, ou d’un minimum d’une heure et demie de route pour se rendre à l’école la plus proche à Timmins.

Gogama a besoin d’une école. On a l’École Notre-Dame du Rosaire, mais la pénurie d’enseignants francophones, elle se vit au quotidien dans le nord de l’Ontario et dans le Nickel Belt.

Le gouvernement a mis en place un groupe de travail sur la pénurie des enseignants et des enseignantes dans le système de l’éducation de langue française. Ils ont donné des recommandations, mais aucune de ces recommandations-là, qui ont été demandées par le gouvernement de M. Ford, n’a été mise en place.

Ça, ça veut dire—on s’entend tous : on a besoin de 1 000 enseignants/enseignantes francophones supplémentaires par année. On a une stratégie pour se rendre là. Le gouvernement a demandé à son groupe de travail de leur donner une stratégie. Et qu’est-ce qu’on fait? On les ignore. Ça, ça veut dire que l’année prochaine, ça va être encore la même chose.

Les jeunes de Gogama risquent de ne pas avoir d’enseignants dans leur école. Si on regarde l’école Notre-Dame, à Foleyet, on est dans la même situation. Foleyet, c’est, minimum, une heure et demie—une heure et quart, si tu vas plus vite que la vitesse—pour te rendre à Timmins. Même chose : une heure pour te rendre à Chapleau. Ce n’est pas raisonnable de demander à un enfant de quatre ans, cinq ans, d’être en autobus pendant une heure et demie de temps pour se rendre à l’école. On a besoin d’écoles à Foleyet, à Mattagami, à Gogama, partout dans le Nickel Belt, mais s’il n’y a pas d’enseignants/enseignantes, ces écoles-là sont à risque de fermer. Pourquoi? Parce qu’on n’a pas suffisamment d’enseignants. Le gouvernement le sait, a mis un groupe de travail en place, a des recommandations qui ont été faites pour eux, et qu’est-ce qu’ils font? Ils les ignorent. Ce n’est pas acceptable.

Je vois que le temps passe quand même assez vite. If you look at what happened to our education system since the Ford government came into place, you will see a $1,200 decrease in budget per student since the government came into power; you will see four less educators—teachers—per 1,000 students since the government came into power. Now they’re telling us, “We will increase the number of teachers for reading.” Yes, there will be one new teacher for every 2,850 students. If you take every kid from, I would say, Levack, Onaping, Cartier—go all the way to the watershed, Gogama, Mattagami, Foleyet, Ivanhoe Lake—all of this, they don’t make 6,650 kids. Who came up with those ratios? How is this supposed to help the people I represent? The kids in Nickel Belt deserve the same amount of support as everybody else. And yet, we have a government that comes up with ratios that, frankly, need to be looked at.

Put a bit of a northern lens on what you are doing. The people of the north are Ontarians. You were elected to look after everyone, not just the people who voted Conservative—the 18% of Ontarians who voted for you. You were elected to look after 100% of Ontarians.

When you come forward with changes like this, I can assure you that the people of Nickel Belt feel like we were left behind, and this is wrong.

We have to fix the school bus problem. Not a day goes by that there’s not a route in Nickel Belt that gets cancelled because they can’t find a driver, because there isn’t enough money to pay them a decent wage, and they have had to make changes and take other jobs.

Don’t get me wrong; it is not hard to find a job in Nickel Belt. We have new mines opening all over the place. We have lots of opportunities for people to make good wages. Do you know why? Our mines have been unionized for a long time. The unions fought really hard to get good-paying jobs with good benefits. It’s not surprising that people will go to those good-paying jobs.

But we still need bus drivers. This is an important job. This is a job that makes sure that the kids in Nickel Belt get to go to school. You have to look at all of those small, rural schools that are at risk of closing and bring forward action that could change all of this. Unfortunately, none of that is in the bill.

When you talk about maximizing the assets that you have, well, have a look at what it looks like to run a French school. All of them have portables. All of them have more kids than the school was built to serve. All of them are looking to expand. We are looking at the English school boards, which often have schools that are half-empty, and which could be better used for all of our students. None of that is clearly stated in the bill. There’s a lot that needs to be urgently done so that our kids have the best chance in life.

This is what makes Ontario so good. We have a top-notch education system, but in the last five years, under this government, we have seen a steady decline. The competitive advantage that we have in technology, in knowledge, in business comes from the fact that the people in Ontario have access to a good education. Under your watch, all of this is going downhill, and we will all pay for this for a long time to come. You have a chance to do better. Don’t let it go by.

Question?

Further debate?

I appreciate the question from the member opposite.

Does the curriculum need to change? Absolutely. I represent many First Nations, and they have shared their stories with me. They have shared their stories with the people of Nickel Belt about what the real story of Ontario is, through the eyes of Indigenous people. We had a working group that was going to make recommendations so that every child in Ontario knows the story of what happened to Indigenous people in Ontario, but this government stopped this working group and never implemented the Indigenous curriculum that has needed change in our province for a long time. Yes, the curriculum needs to change and make sure people know about Aboriginal—

We all need different supports to make sure that we attain our full potential. For some students, that will mean that they need one-on-one support. For other students, that will mean that they need a quiet place to be able to write their exams.

We have the knowledge and the skills to do an assessment of every child to meet their differences and put a plan in place for them to thrive, for them to achieve their best potential, but when there are no resources on the front lines to be able to have an educational assistant to support that child, to have an ECE to support that child, then it is all for none. We can do the assessment, we can put a plan together that will allow them, but there is nothing in that bill that will guarantee that the specialized needs of disabled children will be met in schools. This is shameful.

When I hear some of my colleagues talk about discrimination against the trades—where we come from, where I come from, trades have always been something that people look positively towards.

I can tell you that my youngest daughter is an electrician. She went and did a trade. She has a good job working for Vale, has all sorts of opportunities, has good benefits, and belongs to a strong union. Those are all things that are built from our education system.

Yes, STEM is important, and it is available in Nickel Belt.

The 2022-23 school year is coming to an end in a couple of months, and they are working on it.

It is clear that drivers need a pay increase. The operators in my region are getting between a 0% and 2% increase per year. The price of gas and diesel has gone up about 100%, but they’re getting a 2% increase.

Treat bus drivers and the entire school bus system as an integral part of our education system. In Nickel Belt and in many parts of Ontario, kids cannot go to school if there isn’t a school bus. We need school bus drivers in order for that to happen. Let’s respect them.

Question?

I want to congratulate my colleague and talk about school bus drivers. Very few people talk about school bus drivers and how important that job is, as they, quite frankly, take our children’s lives in their hands every single day, particularly in the north, I would think, with the highways and roads they have in the north. But I want to be clear: It’s not just a north problem. It happens in my riding. I get lots of calls about school bus drivers and the fact that they can’t find drivers, they’re cancelling bus routes, they’re low-paid.

My question is pretty simple: What do you think we need to do to attract more school bus drivers—

Thank you to my colleague from Nickel Belt for her contribution to today’s debate.

In your opinion, what are some of the ways this bill and this government continue to leave disabled students and students with learning disabilities behind in Nickel Belt?

Since we’re talking about acting for all children, all students, all citizens, let us remember that the workforce is constantly changing and our education system needs to adapt in response. It’s 2023, and our curriculum should reflect this, particularly in math, science, literacy, and civics.

If left with a Liberal government, aided and abetted by the NDP, our curriculum would be left just as outdated as those parties are.

To the member opposite: Does the opposition really believe that curriculum should stay stagnant and become irrelevant, or should it change with the times? What does the member opposite say about that?