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.

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?

After decades serving as a school board trustee in the largest school board in all of Canada, I have seen many of these situations that this bill is recognizing here today and as this debate continues. The opposition had a chance to make positive change, but unfortunately they did nothing. We have witnessed the negative impacts left by the opposition, and we are committed to improving them.

The new legislation we are introducing is a step in the right direction. It’s the first of many steps aimed at getting students back to focusing on the fundamentals.

We are determined to see the graduation rate and EQAO scores improve, and better student outcomes.

I beg the question: Why were these priorities not addressed—

I appreciate the member’s question.

It’s so important that all children are supported, but ultimately the nutrition program is run by the municipality, and so the school boards have to work with the municipality to ensure that nutrition is being provided in schools—and this bill allows school boards to do this. So I encourage the school board to work with the municipality, and I encourage the member to work with his municipal counterparts to resolve this situation.

Madam Speaker, our government is making an historic investment in Ontario’s schools by providing a projected $27.6 billion in public education for the 2023-24 school year.

Along with the funding for school board operations, targeted initiatives will support student achievement and well-being. The proposed legislation would, if passed, refocus Ontario’s education on student achievement, prioritizing skills development in reading, writing and math, and hands-on learning. It advances a vision for the system that is centred on preparing students to succeed in life and work, putting highly qualified educators in the classroom while strengthening the voices of parents in their child’s education.

That’s why I’m proud to support this legislation.

This is the challenge—when you’re asking a question about a situation you know absolutely nothing about and assuming that the member doesn’t know what they’re speaking about.

In that particular situation in Findlay Creek, the school was actually not on the capital priorities list. The school board had other schools on the capital priorities list, even though Vimy Ridge Public School had 24 portables at the time and the population was doubled. Even though the school was overpopulated, the school board refused to add a second public elementary school to their capital priorities list.

I worked with the community of Findlay Creek, we created a petition, and we petitioned the school board to place a public elementary school on their capital priorities list and, in fact, they listed it as their top capital priority. As soon as they did that, the Minister of Education, during the next round of funding, provided funding to approve the top capital priority. But that was something—

One thing that our government will do is, we will always respect and value the unique and diverse nature of Ontario’s communities, Ontario’s students and Ontario’s families, because they’re just one piece of what makes our province great.

Our school boards must be able to tailor education delivery to local contexts and needs. The school boards have a responsibility to use the funding that they receive responsibly and appropriately.

That’s why not only are we making historic investments in our education budget, not only are we spending $27.6 billion in education, but we are also making sure that school boards are being held accountable for the money we are giving them. Ultimately, we want to make sure those dollars are getting into the classroom, where they belong.

Speaker, we know that student success is very, very important, and I know that all members agree that students need to be given every opportunity to succeed in the workforce—ready to go forward with rewarding careers, whether they go to post-secondary by way of university, college, a trade, or another path.

Our government announced that, starting with students entering grade 9 in September 2024, they will be required, toward their Ontario secondary school diploma, to obtain a technological education credit. This is just one example of our government supporting all students for the jobs of tomorrow.

How does this bill further support student learning?

Thank you to the member for her presentation.

I know that the riding of Carleton—similar to my own riding—has a wide variety of schools and school boards, mixed urban and rural. That represents all of what Ontario has.

We have a variety of school experiences. There are four unique, publicly funded school systems, 72 district school boards, over 3,900 elementary and 870 secondary schools.

In Toronto, there are schools with more than 2,000 students. In northern and rural Ontario, there are schools—including some in my own riding—that have less than 200 students. While each of these schools use the same curriculum, the learning experience is vastly different.

This proposed legislation includes one set of priorities for all school boards for all students. Can the member talk to us about how this will be beneficial for the boards and, more specifically, how it will be beneficial—

At the end of the day, all school boards have a common responsibility to promote student achievement. Our goal with the proposed legislation is to reinforce this responsibility. Through the proposed measures, we would ensure that everyone, from leaders across Ontario’s 72 district school boards to the province’s classrooms, is working toward the same goal of improving student outcomes and are held accountable to students and parents.

Our government values school boards’ knowledge of and connections with their local communities. They will be able to continue leveraging their expertise in these areas to deliver the province’s priorities in a way that is responsive to local needs.

This question is for the Premier.

After five years of Conservative rule, our schools and our students are struggling more than ever—overcrowded classrooms, fewer in-school supports, and a school repair backlog that gets bigger and bigger every year.

Now, after three years of start-and-stop learning disruptions, this government has tabled a funding package that fails Ontario kids yet again. It won’t stop pending layoffs, and it won’t give students the extra support they need to graduate as skilled and engaged citizens.

To the Premier: Why should families believe this government’s promises on education when they’ve continually shown just how out of touch they are?

Again to the Premier: When will this government stop shortchanging students, restore funding, and get kids the support they need to succeed?

Teachers, education workers, parents do not have faith that this government will fix the crisis in our education system, because they all know that there are four fewer high school teachers per 1,000 students now than there were five years ago, even with their additions. I’d like to encourage this government to do the math. That is a net reduction in the teacher-student ratio—not to mention the planned upcoming layoffs of thousands of education workers.

To the Premier: Is this the legacy you want to leave Ontario?

Interjections.

It is ironic—NDP math. There are fewer students and more staff—8,000 more in Ontario schools—and yet somehow the opposition, with a straight face, could declare there’s less going in the publicly funded school system. We increased staff by 8,000 more front-line workers—EAs, ECEs, and teachers in the school system. We just announced an additional 2,000 front-line teachers focused on what matters most: boosting reading, writing and math. We introduced legislation to get back to the focus.

I noticed that some of the members from the Leader of the Opposition’s caucus, when they were trustees, called for the very provisions in the bill today. The member from London West, the former chair of Thames Valley, called for school boards to establish a minimum code of conduct for trustees. She called on the minister to do that. She called on the board of trustees to approve a multi-year strategic plan. She called on school boards to report annually to the public. She called on us to undertake more effective governance of school boards. That’s exactly what the bill does.

Instead of your ideological opposition to progress and to change, vote for this bill. Expect—

Interjections.

I thank the member for her comments. I appreciate the thoughts on school boards and a lot of the elements involved in this bill, but I want to comment that our government prioritizes growth and we’ve made significant progress in expanding educational infrastructure, including schools, teachers and child care facilities, to meet the growing needs of our communities. Our track record has been very positive. We’ve generated momentum and created opportunities for students and families in Ontario. This bill, if passed, will further promote growth and provide even more opportunities for students and families across the province.

My question to the member is, will you take these factors into consideration as you consider whether to support this legislation?

It’s an honour for me to rise and add the voices of the great people of London North Centre to debate on this bill that we have on the floor today, Bill 98, Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

The first thing, like the member for Parkdale–High Park, that I would like to focus on is the title itself. The title, Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, clearly puts students as secondary. They’re not even at the beginning of the title of this bill—and it’s not even about students; it’s about outcomes.

When you take a look at this bill, it’s very clear that the well-being of students in Ontario is not a concern for this government. Had that been a concern for this government, there would have been collaboration. There would have been communication. There would have been consultation with the people who know students best. Those include education staff, parents. But instead, we have not seen any consultation. We’ve seen that this government has bullied forward with this piece of legislation, and there will be consultation after the fact, which makes it a mere exercise for the actual democratic process.

This is also what some would say is a smoke-and-mirrors exercise for a government that refuses to properly fix or fund the education system. It’s hard for people in the province to trust this government. Since 2018, we have seen tremendous attacks and cuts on our schools. In 2018, there was the overt attack on the health and phys ed curriculum. We saw the government set up a snitch line. We saw a bogus consultation process, and we also see a shell game that they have enacted with privatization of education, quite frankly, making sure that private schools had the rapid COVID tests before our publicly funded schools.

So the public is really less likely to trust this government as being the protectors of public education, because they also decided to launch this legislation as a surprise attack on a Sunday.

ETFO correctly points out that this was the second time in two days that ETFO was caught off guard by Ministry of Education announcements, demonstrating clear lack of consideration and respect for education stakeholders. OSSTF’s Karen Littlewood said that this legislation “has very little in terms of supports or resources for students, despite its misleading title.... This legislation seems primarily focused on how school boards operate, and not how on we can better support students and make up for the learning loss experienced during the pandemic.”

This legislation, Speaker, sees students used as pawns.

Mental health shows up a total of four times in this bill, and it’s only in terms of policies and guidelines; it’s not in terms of actually making sure mental health supports are there for our students when and where they need them. Despite the claims of this government, it is not in the bill.

The Ontario Public School Boards Association, in the pre-budget consultations stated, “A continued increase in the number of school-based mental health professionals (social workers, psychologists, guidance councillors, child and youth workers, school mental health workers) to address the significant increase in the number and severity of students requiring support,” yet we don’t see the government funding this properly.

And from the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, Barb Dobrowolski says, “Since coming to office in 2018, the government’s agenda has been gutted by ideology rather than evidence. Policy decisions have been made with little thought, foresight or genuine consultation with stakeholders and experts, the consequences of which have been to destabilize public services. Enough is enough.”

Barb also goes on to state, “misleading statements that government officials offer in public, like when they claim to be making historic investments in education while conveniently ignoring that funding does not keep up with inflation”—it’s shocking, Speaker. We see this very calculated, very concerted shell game. We hear the government claim that they’re making tremendous investment, but yet we actually see funding going down. We see that students are now receiving $1,200 less per year, per student, because of this government’s cuts.

We heard at the standing committee in the pre-budget consultations that this government is also trying to create a crisis in education. Everyone remembers back when John Snobelen was caught on a hot mike saying that they needed to create a crisis in education, and the same is true now. This bill purports to refocus Ontario’s education system, but we don’t need a refocus. We need to make sure that schools have the resources that they need. In the government’s own materials, they contradict themselves. They state that Ontario is among the top-performing education systems nationally and internationally, and then they go on to say that they want to overhaul the system. It’s disturbing, Speaker.

I also want to return to some of the focuses of this bill, because this bill does seem to focus—or the government will claim this bill focuses on trades and apprenticeships, when it doesn’t get pointed out in the bill frequently or at all, and remind this government that it was the Mike Harris government that ripped trades classes out of schools. They destroyed that program so that grade 7 and grade 8 students would have that experience of working with their hands, of understanding that this was a viable and very rewarding experience, to build, to create. And it was continued by the Liberals, because that was never returned to schools. That is a loss. Expecting students that are going to be exposed to this in high school—it’s too late; it’s too late, Speaker. Students often are faced with a choice. They choose arts or music or trades as one of their electives. It’s incredibly unfortunate.

But also, this government seems to undermine the very nature of what education is itself. I’d like to also consider that in the creation of Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, this government has not even abided by the skills that students need in Ontario’s classrooms. We hear a lot about leadership, about collaboration, about communication and critical thinking, and this government has displayed none of those things. They have not communicated. They have not collaborated. They haven’t even shown critical thinking by talking to the very experts in education. Instead, they’re bulldozing forward with their plan.

David Moscrop from TVO says that the government is hoping to “reshape the province’s education plan, gearing it toward ideas that are more reminiscent of plans for an early 20th-century ... factory than a contemporary society.” He also goes on to talk about the immortal poet William Butler Yeats, who is frequently cited in education circles, who stated that education was not the act of filling a bucket, but of lighting a fire. It’s about inspiration. It is about showing students what is possible. It is about igniting curiosity and showing them the skills that they have. As a former educator myself—a teacher librarian, in fact—I could see the difference: When you could get the right book into a student’s hand, it would change their life.

It’s just incredibly shocking that this government is bulldozing ahead with this without any real consultation, any real collaboration. They simply don’t understand what’s necessary.

The members from Niagara Falls and from St. Catharines have talked about the students going hungry because of this government not funding school nutrition programs. We’ve seen it in the London area as well. In London and Middlesex county, there’s a program, the Ontario Student Nutrition Program, which feeds 25,000 students at 89 schools weekly. They’ve seen an overall increase of 900 students and four schools over the previous academic year. Not only that, Danielle Findlay, who’s one of the organizers of the program, pegs the cost of a healthy snack around $2.50 per student. Do you know what the province pays, Speaker? Just 75 cents.

Just to conclude, I want to again, in the brief time I have, return to the words of David Moscrop, who says, “The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act should be thrown into the wastebin and forgotten, and the government should take its boot off the neck of local school boards. If the government wishes to improve education, it can spend more on teachers and reduce class sizes. That’s a fine way to make space for learning that will pay all sorts of dividends to a free and democratic society.”

Speaker, this ham-handed, lacklustre, ineffective way of addressing the crisis in our education system is shown in Bill 98. We need more mental health care workers in schools. We need to address violence in schools. For heaven’s sake, Speaker, Bill 98 does not mention violence once, and we know it is something that is happening everywhere.

It’s time for this government to put on its big-boy pants, and to do the right thing and fund education properly.

Thank you to my colleague from Niagara Falls for his question. I have to say, the member has been such a strong advocate for the students, the teachers and education workers and the school community of Niagara Falls, so thank you for your work on that.

To answer his question, absolutely not. When kids go hungry, they are not going to be able to learn but they’re not going to be able to do anything, because that is all that the student physically—and it has an impact mentally as well. It’s going to overtake them, in terms of the need for the students. It’s so important, and we have to take a number of different measures, from ensuring that school nutrition programs are well funded and run and in place in every school for every student that needs them, but also that the families are not living in poverty, that they’re not being—not only where the cost of living is increasing, but prices of basic things like groceries are being gouged. Rents are through the roof. On so many fronts, it has been so difficult to keep a roof over your head, to feed your children, and now, with the government taking away student nutrition funding, you are not going to get better outcomes—

Thank you to my colleague for his comments on the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. He was referring to having the proper books and the proper curriculum for our students, and I couldn’t agree more, Speaker. I know our government is really taking a serious look at that in updating the curriculum. Under the previous Liberal government, unfortunately, they chose not to do that, and so when our government formed our first government in 2018, I know our Minister of Education made that a top priority.

And so we are now legislating this review of curriculum, implementing a mandatory curriculum review process: no fewer than three years, no matter who the government is, no matter who the minister is. Does the member opposite support that, and will they support this bill?