Again to the Premier: Abiola is a grade 4 student from my riding. She wrote to me with some important questions about this government’s plans to build housing on the greenbelt. She asked: Does the government know that they will ruin that piece of protected land? Why is the government harming the natural resources of the province? When there is plenty of available land outside the greenbelt, why do they choose to build houses on a more important piece of land?

Speaker, why does a grade 4 student understand the environmental harm of this government’s greenbelt carve-up but this Premier does not?

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and ... (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves these citizens well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I couldn’t agree more with this petition, affix my signature and will send it to the table with page Leonard.

I’d like to thank Dr. Sally Palmer for sending me this petition. It’s titled “To Raise Social Assistance Rates” and it reads, “To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontario’s social assistance rates are well below Canada’s official Market Basket Measure poverty line and far from adequate to cover the rising costs of food and rent: $733 for individuals on OW and soon $1,227 for ODSP;

“Whereas an open letter to the Premier and two cabinet ministers, signed by over 230 organizations, recommends that social assistance rates be doubled for both Ontario Works (OW) and the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP);

“Whereas the recent small budget increase of 5% for ODSP still leaves” many “well below the poverty line, both they and those receiving the frozen OW rates are struggling to live in this time of alarming inflation;

“Whereas the government of Canada recognized in its CERB program that a ‘basic income’ of $2,000 per month was the standard support required by individuals who lost their employment during the pandemic;

“We, the undersigned citizens of Ontario, petition the Legislative Assembly” of Ontario “to double social assistance rates for OW and ODSP.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature to it.

First, I want to talk about the title of this bill, Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. The president of OECTA thought that maybe the title of the bill should be “the failed Conservative government keeps on failing students act.” The official opposition critic, the MPP for Ottawa West–Nepean, suggested a different title: “the micromanaging school boards as a distraction from the underfunding of schools act.” I think both of these names are better suited for this legislation than Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act.

Now, members of this House know that yesterday I had a group of students, participants in the Girls Government program, here at Queen’s Park. They attended question period. They met with you, Speaker. They met with the Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions—thank you very much for your time—and they watched question period. Through their learnings and from their day at Queen’s Park, they had a number of questions from what they observed. One of the questions that a student had was, why is it that the government was claiming that the opposition voted against certain measures that sound good? That was the question.

I explained to all of the students that oftentimes there are a number of tactics that the government side, in particular—the Conservatives—employ to make it seem like they’re actually doing something about an issue that needs to be addressed, but not really. A good example is naming pieces of legislation, naming bills, with titles that make it look like they’re doing something really meaningful and bringing in change, but the content of that bill, or the actions that the government is taking through the legislation, may not be what is required, may be a plan or an approach that doesn’t work, or falls far short of what needs to be done.

So I think that this bill, with this title—Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act—is actually a very clear example of what the student was asking and the example that I gave, which is the legislation, the content of the bill, doesn’t match the title. The title should be instead what I suggested earlier from our education critic and the OECTA president’s suggestions.

Now, this bill: Does this legislation really lead to better schools and student outcomes? No, not really. Because what do we need for better schools and student outcomes? We need better funding. We need proper funding of our schools. We need proper funding of students. This bill not only doesn’t do that; this bill doesn’t fix a systemic issue, a root issue, which is that the funding formula that doesn’t work.

The government recently brought in the 2023 budget, and in the government’s budget, the funding for education doesn’t even keep up with the inflation. Everybody knows the cost of everything is up, and when budgets don’t keep up with inflation, it amounts to a cut. With this government, we have seen education budgets be cut year after year.

Now, on the government side, particularly through the Ministry of Education, the spin is that this is the largest education budget ever in the province’s history, forgetting to mention that a good percentage of that funding is for child care for the national child care program that is being funded by the federal government. So the largest budget that the government is claiming includes federal dollars, because child care falls under the Ministry of Education.

As well, we all know that the impact of the pandemic continues and that means higher needs in terms of learning for students and other supports, such as mental health. Now, during the pandemic, many school boards, including right here in Toronto, the Toronto District School Board, had to spend money from their reserves to pay for costs that were associated in order to follow the directives given by this province. The government forced our school boards, the TDSB, to tap into their reserves. And so, what has that led to? That has led to the complete depletion of reserves of the TDSB.

I’m going to quote from a letter that was sent by the chair of the TDSB and the director to the Minister of Education. It reads, “TDSB now faces a deficit of approximately $61 million for the 2023-24 school year according to the broad’s preliminary operating financial position. We have depleted any working reserves and used reserves put away for other purposes. If the pandemic costs incurred by the board were reimbursed by the ministry, the TDSB would have additional funding to support its current financial shortfall without having to reduce programs and services for students.”

Did the government reimburse the TDSB? No. Instead, the government’s response was that they were not going to bail out school boards—Speaker, “bail out.” That term is so inappropriate because it’s as if to say that the boards were mismanaging funds when we know not only was there not enough funding provided by the province but that the province is quite prescriptive when it comes to how boards need to spend the funding that they receive. The minister and the government know very clearly that boards are not allowed to run deficits. So now, without this reimbursement, with a deficit of $61 million and the government’s refusal to fund properly our schools and students, it is going to result in more cuts to staff, more cuts to programs, larger class sizes, unable to address the violence that we’re seeing increase in our schools, no support for students with special needs, no mental health supports—in fact, the Girls’ Government group yesterday came here to Queen’s Park asking for more mental health supports in our schools—and so on.

This bill, inappropriately titled Better Schools and Student Outcomes, does really nothing meaningful in order to support our students, in order to support the teachers, the education workers, the school community and families.

I hope that I get an opportunity—I don’t have much time left—to present our solutions and also talk about the direction that this government is heading in with this bill, because, really, in a nutshell, it is a power grab. It’s a power grab that allows the province to override local democratically elected school boards.

I can see where the government is heading with this, and it raises serious questions. I want to ask the government: Is your intention to appoint people to run our school boards? Is that where this is ultimately leading?

Speaker, I cannot stress enough in the remaining seconds that I have, if we want better schools and student outcomes, fund our schools and students 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—