Madam Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to rise in this chamber and offer my strong support for Bill 98, also known as the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act. I also want to thank the Minister of Education and his parliamentary assistant for the incredible work they’re doing to ensure our schools are inclusive and welcoming learning centres and the curriculum is relevant to the challenges of tomorrow.

Ontario’s curriculum, Madam Speaker, now includes a stronger focus on STEM learning and math, as well as instruction in financial literacy and greater access to training and work in the skilled trades.

After a decade when the previous Liberal government closed over 600 schools across the province and refused to listen to the concerns of parents, our government is investing approximately $15 billion over 10 years to build new schools, improve existing facilities and create new child care spaces. Since 2018, Speaker, our government has invested over $2.2 billion in education capital projects, including 100 new schools, 80 school additions and nearly 6,500 new licensed child care spaces.

I want to applaud the minister, who just this past May, for Asian Heritage Month, announced partnerships with the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto and the Tribute to Early Chinese Immigrants Canada Foundation for providing teachers and students with supplementary resources to encourage and facilitate a better understanding of Asian heritage, as well as the shameful Chinese exclusion act of 1923 and the Chinese head tax.

Speaker, it’s incredibly important that young people learn more about the incredible contributions of Asian Canadians, that we combat the anti-Asian racism in our schools. I’m proud of the Minister of Education for taking action.

Parents in Richmond Hill have told me that they strongly support public education because they want their kids to succeed in life, but Richmond Hill parents also believe that school boards have to be a lot more accountable and have to be a lot more transparent about the money that they spend and the results that they receive. I believe this is a very reasonable request, Speaker. I also believe it is fair to say that most school boards are doing a very good job managing their resources and educating our young people.

I say that, Speaker, for a simple reason: 89% of high school students graduate within five years. That’s an impressive figure. Speaker, it’s up from 85% just a few years ago. Unfortunately, there are about 15,000 students every year who do not graduate within five years.

Here’s the situation in a nutshell: Some boards are having trouble managing their resources and are even cutting front-line staff, despite the fact that we are providing them with record funding. That’s a significant problem, Speaker, but what’s worse, some boards are consistently underperforming when it comes to getting students to graduate high school within five years.

Speaker, I also want to add that I will be sharing my time with the member from Perth–Wellington.

The minister has been doing an incredible job of updating the curriculum, but the Ministry of Education is limited in its ability to drive and enforce provincial priorities through the schools. Moreover, many parents are rightfully frustrated because information about school board performance and the relationship between education spending and its ability to support education outcomes is not easily accessible to the public at large.

I have a lot of respect for elected school board trustees. They volunteer their time to ensure that school boards are focused on the students’ achievement and that resources are managed competently. Across the province, Speaker, about 700 elected trustees provide local government over a $27-billion education system. Yet trustees lack a consistent set of skills, training or a standard code of conduct, and the public has at times been distracted by disputes among trustees that are costly and time-consuming.

Back when he was a school board trustee with the Toronto District School Board in 2015, my honourable colleague the member for Spadina–Fort York had much to say on this subject to the Toronto Star: “I’m angry with trustees who, for the past year and a half engaged in feuds with each other, lobbing missiles through the media, thinking they were hurting only their opponents, but who were destroying the board’s reputation.”

Even worse, Speaker, many parents see their local school boards as big and impersonal bureaucracies and feel powerless to effect change when they aren’t satisfied with the education their kids are receiving. This is especially the case with new Canadians whose first language is not English. Some of them even worry that they might get into trouble if they voice an objection.

Clearly, Speaker, parents, students, taxpayers and everyone deserve some better accountability from their school boards, and that’s what the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act is all about.

I’m quite enthusiastic about the proposed handbook for parents that will spell out their rights and responsibilities regarding their children’s education. Our government strongly believes in empowering parents, and I’m sure that such a handbook will prove to be incredibly useful during parent-teacher conferences.

Speaker, this is what the Ontario Human Rights Commission recently had to say in a written submission regarding our legislation: “The commission supports the proposed improvements to transparency, communication and reporting through publicly posted board improvement plans, updated to parents twice a year.” I will add, Madam Speaker, that Bill 98, the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, goes much further than mandating a handbook for parents.

School boards sit on the largest vertical real estate portfolio in the broader public school sector, with over 4,600 open or operating schools. Our legislation, if passed, would strengthen the ministry’s oversight over the use, sale and development of school board real estate, including the power to direct boards to establish a framework for surplus properties, along with the ability to direct a sale or sever a property.

Maximizing capital assets will help board student achievement as well achieve the effective, efficient and sustainable use of school board funding and property. In fact, Madam Speaker, this was one of the recommendations of the Drummond report that was commissioned by former Premier Dalton McGuinty: “Efficiency can also be found by maximizing the value of school board capital assets.... The minister should have the power to order the sale of unused properties, especially when such dispositions could meet other needs.”

Our legislation would also strengthen accountability over school board spending, including additional resources for financial investigations when needed, and require transparent reporting on school board spending and how it supports student outcomes.

The act will enable the minister to require school boards to report publicly against standardized categories of spending twice annually. It will strengthen the minister’s authority to direct and prohibit board participation in prescribed activities that could place the board at financial risk.

This act will allow for the appointment of professional corporations as investigators in board financial affairs when there’s distress.

Speaker, I have a lot more to share, but I would like to share this time with the member from Perth–Wellington. Thank you.

Thank you to my colleague for this question. It is important and you are correct that a student’s education can provide a solid foundation for their future success.

Our government is making historic investments in Ontario schools by providing $27.6 million for public education in 2023-24. In addition, the Ministry of Education is also providing $180 million in 2023-24 for math and reading supports for Ontario students in our classrooms and at home. We also have the previous $200-million investment—we supported students—for a four-year math strategy.

It is important that boards have a unified focus on student success. That is why we see and we stress the achievement of the students, and prioritizing development in reading, writing and math is so important. We will work together with them to strengthen this.