They need school math tutors over there.

Absolutely—double the amount of school math coaches.

But we’re not stopping there; we’re expanding online learning opportunities provided by TVO and TFO that will provide resources for both students and teachers, available wherever there are.

Another item announced in last week’s fantastic budget, brought forward by the Minister of Finance, was that Ontario is expanding resources and partnerships so that more students will have hands-on learning experiences to further their financial literacy learning and growth. We will be releasing self-directed learning modules that provide senior students with further opportunities to explore how financial literacy helps them transition to post-secondary pathways and compete in a rapidly changing economy. Foundational knowledge such as financial literacy prepares Ontario’s students for success by giving them the basics that they need to pursue a career in STEM, the skilled trades or entrepreneurship.

A new initiative that was also brought forward in last week’s budget that deserves a bit more of a spotlight is the expansion of the co-op program for special education students. We believe that every child in Ontario, especially those with intellectual and physical disabilities, should be able to graduate from school, access a job and live a life of dignity and respect. It’s why our government is expanding placements in co-op to allow these students to get the hands-on learning experience that they deserve. Educational assistants will provide individualized supports to students with disabilities, to help them be successful in all areas of their learning, including co-operative education.

Another landmark initiative brought forward in last week’s budget is the $25-million fund to screen every student from senior kindergarten to grade 2 on their reading competencies and provide targeted supports for those who really need it. We know that early interventions are crucial. This will be the most comprehensive program of its type in our country—yet another way that the Ministry of Education and the public school system here in Ontario lead the charge in our country.

Teacher-led reading assessments will also ensure that students who are struggling with reading at a young age are identified early, to allow appropriate supports to be put in place sooner, supporting long-term reading success. The investment will provide kindergarten-to-grade 3 educators—around 30,000 different educators in this province—training in the science of reading, representing a significant shifts from the discovery math reading program that we saw under the former Liberal government.

Our government has been clear: We are committed to investing in access to all learning recovery resources, to ensure success for all students. Our government is strongly committed to supporting public education in the province of Ontario, and it shows that we are providing students with the resources that they need.

We’re on the right track. We’re reforming the curriculum to address the shortage of skilled labour here in the province, and we’re investing more than ever before to get students on track—learning, growing and thriving in classrooms, with a greater focus on reading, writing, math and technical education, to prepare our students for the jobs not just of today but of tomorrow.

The bottom line is this: Despite the mischaracterizations of our government’s funding, we strongly believe in our public education system, have demonstrated that with the real dollars to back up that commitment, and our funding to school boards has gone up, not down.

The Conservative government has been gaslighting our school boards. They’re denying to admit—

Interjections.

I would first like to thank every student, every teacher, every education worker and staff in St. Paul’s, and our school board trustees, who have been doing the best they can on a shoestring budget for years—not to mention the last few years. The government has heard their voices; they have heard their cries for help to make our schools safer, to sustain the mental health of our students and the caring adults who take care of them. And the government has refused to act on those cries for help.

Throughout the pandemic, Ontario students were victims of school closures lasting longer than anywhere else in North America. That was on this Conservative government. And this was not without consequences; we’re seeing them play out today, as a mental health crisis is gripping our public education system.

Our provincial goals towards equity and inclusion and a sustainable future for this province are more and more at risk every day this Conservative government fails to invest in the next generation of learners and leaders. Students and children cannot be made pawns by this Conservative government’s endless austerity narrative, but that’s exactly what is happening.

The TDSB, one of the boards that oversees schools in my riding of St. Paul’s, is facing a deficit of more than $61 million in the upcoming year. This is the result of this government downloading responsibility onto boards to keep children safe through the pandemic without the funding to help them do so; without the funding to help them keep class sizes lower; without the funding to ensure that every school had the cleanest air possible to keep our kids safe, to help stop the spread of COVID; without the funding—in one of our schools—to provide our schools with hand sanitizer. I remember the parents who were fundraising for hand sanitizer. The TDSB was forced to dip into their limited resources, incurring approximately $70.1 million in pandemic-related costs that were not covered by this Conservative government. And please make no mistake, Speaker: Those pandemic-related costs are still here today because we’re still dealing with COVID and our schools still need support.

According to a letter written to the Minister of Education by the chair, Rachel Chernos Lin, and director, Colleen Russell-Rawlins, of the TDSB, asking for what we’re echoing today—to reimburse the school boards across Ontario for stepping up and doing what it takes to keep students safe. Without this reimbursement from the Conservative government, the $61-million deficit means the TDSB is projecting the elimination of 522 staff positions, including 65 teachers, 35 special education workers, 35 child and youth workers, and 40 school-based safety monitors. What that means is less than the quality of education that we know as Ontarians we should be providing within our public education system.

This is at a time when 91% of school principals across this province have said they need more support for students’ mental health and well-being, according to a report from People for Education, a non-profit located in my riding. The same report showed that just 9% of schools have regularly scheduled access to a mental health and addictions specialist or nurse, and 46% have no access at all.

Let me say, Speaker, it simply isn’t fair to have one social worker or one psychologist flying across the city in five, 10 or more schools. We need school-based supports.

The rise in violence in Toronto schools has this school year on track to be the worst since the Toronto District School Board began collecting data in 2000. And make no mistake, Speaker: Police in schools is not the answer. The answer is having trained mental health care professionals to help end the violence.

Please reimburse our schools so they can get back on track, helping to keep our students safe.

Further debate?

I ask the member to withdraw her comment.

Further debate?

It’s a pleasure to rise today to speak to this opposition day motion.

The pandemic hit all of our communities hard, and it’s not news to any of us that students and school staff were among those hit the hardest. And while the pandemic seems to be mostly behind us, its impacts are definitely not.

Teachers and education workers deserve our continued gratitude for their service to our kids, but instead, once again, they feel like they’re grovelling to this government to get the supports they need.

Time and again, we’ve seen the government shortchange students. This government received significant COVID funding from the federal Liberal government, and as the opposition day motion mentions, they underspent that money by $600 million and underspent on education by $432 million. Let’s be clear, Speaker: That is money that school boards are now trying to make up for as they work to develop a balanced 2023-24 budget.

Let me remind the Premier and the education minister that Toronto and Peel were two of the areas hardest hit by the pandemic. When this government did not give them the money they needed to keep their staff and students safe—to lower class sizes—school boards like the TDSB did what they needed to do to respond. They were told to tap into their reserves to take the actions necessary to minimize risk to children, instead of getting the money they needed from this government. So they did. They dipped into their reserves to make class sizes smaller, to support our kids as well as the teachers and education workers who worked so hard to support and educate our kids during the toughest times of the pandemic.

According to TDSB’s letter from Chair Rachel Chernos Lin and ED Colleen Russell-Rawlins written to the Minister of Education on March 22, “The government and TPH’s health and safety directions were critical to maintaining the confidence of everyone we served during the health emergency. In following those directions, the TDSB incurred approximately $70.1 million in pandemic-related costs that were not covered by the Ministry of Education.”

Now, because of that, the TDSB faces a funding shortfall that could result in them cutting 485 positions. Those positions are for people who supported kids through the pandemic, who support them now, who are supporting them as they deal with the impacts of the pandemic on learning, which are not over.

Cutting positions for youth and social workers, counsellors and special education workers will hurt kids and families in Ontario, in Toronto, and in my riding of Don Valley West—especially those who are refugees and new immigrants to Canada, whose first language is not English, and many who have special needs.

Teachers, educators, researchers and families are telling this government that our children need more support to catch up from the learning loss they experienced. They need more support for mental health. Cutting that albeit temporary funding now that provides these supports is “reckless” according to the TDSB. Ontario school principals know this too and are calling for these additional supports to remain in place.

In a recent piece in the Toronto Star, Karen Littlewood, president of the OSSTF, quoted a People for Education report stating that more than 90% of Ontario school principals reported their students need greater access to mental health supports and services. And now this government is cutting it.

Our kids need the support of the education workers, and this government needs to step up and make sure teachers and education workers don’t leave our schools.

Balancing a budget by not spending on our kids’ education and mental health needs is not balanced. The potential cuts to 485 workers in TDSB when we’re still trying to recover and rebuild after the devastation that was COVID is not fiscally responsible. Students, parents, teachers and education workers had to weather the storm with insufficient support from their provincial government, and now that government continues to tell families who need their support that they’re going to pull it away.

Speaker, I’m proud to support this motion, and I thank the opposition for proposing it.

It’s my honour to rise today to speak in support of this motion. This motion would make school boards whole for the costs that were incurred as a result of COVID. It’s money that the government has—money that was allocated to the government for the relief of COVID—and yet this government is making a choice not to spend it. This official opposition day motion would make school boards whole, and I think it makes a great deal of sense, because that cost and that money would be invested into the education of students.

I want to start by thanking all the hard-working educators, all of the support staff and the administration.

Also, I’d like to thank all of the parents who, through their hard work and their dedication, have kept the education system together and kept their kids together.

As I look back, it did not have to be this way in Ontario. It should not have had to be this way in Ontario. The official opposition brought forward ideas and initiatives time and again for this Conservative government, to invest in smaller, safer classrooms, but this government claimed that there was nothing to worry about. They said that they were following the science—and, news flash, they weren’t, and children suffered as a result, because this government mishandled the pandemic.

Ontario had the longest school closures in North America, and it’s because this government refused to budge on their ideological adherence to larger class sizes. Had they followed the science, there would have been more supports for students; there would have been smaller, safer classrooms—and worse yet, they had the money to make sure that was possible, and they chose not to.

Now we see the impacts of Conservative short-sightedness. School boards were forced to do the heavy lifting that the Conservatives couldn’t do. Mental health needs are staggering, and violence is at an all-time high.

Education is an investment. It is not a cost. Children are worth the time, they’re worth the care, and they are a fiscally prudent investment.

It’s time for this government to stop failing our kids.

What concerns me most, as a former educator, is the funding for special education. Funding for special ed is arbitrary—and it’s very convenient for governments. It has been convenient for Liberals, and it has been convenient for Conservatives, because it lets them off the hook. It lets them spend less. It shows the level of care that this government has for students.

So I urge this government to do the right thing: to make sure that they are spending this money to alleviate the burden on school boards, so that this money can go to the kids who need it most.

Further debate?

It’s an honour to rise in the House, as always, to speak on behalf of the good people of Toronto Centre. I’m here to speak in favour of this motion for school board funding.

I want to start by recognizing the hard-working, exceptional teachers that we have in Ontario. They’re simply the very best. I’ve had the benefit myself of being educated here, and I hope that the next generation can have the same opportunities that I’ve had.

By Toronto Centre standards, Speaker, my story is not uncommon. I learned to speak English at Sprucecourt Public School. Public education was taught to me, as well as life skills. Public education built my confidence. It actually gave me the opportunities that I have today, and I’m so grateful for it.

But decades of education cuts mean our youngest will not have the same opportunities. We can see those opportunities eroding and slipping away as we speak. At the core of this debate, which is so painfully hard for me to understand, is, why can’t the government understand what they are doing? It’s a very simple question that has to be answered. Does this government want the young people of Ontario to have the same chances today that we did to make it into this House?

This motion is important, Speaker, because I don’t see this government answering “yes” to that question. They’re not delivering real, sustainable solutions in last week’s budget. Worse, this government’s recent budget is cutting COVID learning recovery funds. The Toronto District School Board has requested $150 million from this government to ensure that students are properly supported, a request that last week’s budget has completely ignored.

At the Toronto District School Board, 522 staffing positions will be lost, including 65 teachers, out of which 45 fewer elementary teachers will be helping our youngest learners succeed and adjust to school. This also means 200 fewer lunchroom supervisors to help keep our kids safe from bullying during lunchtime. This also means 35 fewer child and youth workers supporting our students. This is all happening while violence is on the rise, and this also means that we have 40 fewer school-based safety monitors. This is entirely going in the wrong direction.

I specifically want to touch upon safety issues. It is an issue that has been dominating conversations I’ve had with many of the parents in my community. Lunchroom supervisors and safety monitors protect students at risk of bullying. We all know that. We’ve been there. Our students are there. Our children are there. Safety monitors prevent students from joining gangs. They actually touch base with them while they’re in the school. They develop supports. They allow them to have alternative conversations and they help them respond to violence in different manners. Losing those preventive supports would embody the expression of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

These supports keep kids in school. They ensure our youngest community members feel safe to go to school. They keep young people out of the criminal justice system. They prevent extraordinary expense in the future. In all my conversations with the parents, the education workers, the teachers as well as the students in Toronto Centre, I’ve never heard them once say—never once have they ever said—that there is enough support at their school.

But what exactly is this government proposing? Well, my community is doubtful that the government has any solutions for them. At a recent Church Street public school meeting, I met with parents as well as students as well as TDSB leadership. They were asking for support around having more education workers and special needs workers. They recognized that the classroom sizes were too big; TDSB leadership admitted to that. But they also agreed with the parents that although education workers were needed, they couldn’t provide them. They could not provide the supports that their students as well as the children of those families needed to be successful. Everyone walked away from that meeting demoralized, knowing that they were stuck.

Speaker, after hearing from Church Street public school parents and students, I then spoke to Nelson Mandela Public School as well as Lord Dufferin public school parents. I spent so many hours at Tim Hortons, pouring over the coffee cups, listening to their stories about what they were struggling with and experiencing. It was heartbreaking. They told me stories about violence in their communities in Regent Park that is coming back over and over again. They know the solutions are there, but they’re not getting any support or help. They’ve identified violence in the classrooms, violence in the hallways, violence in the lunchrooms, violence in the schoolyards. They want help. They’re begging, asking, pleading. They can’t get a response. And all we get from this government is just an excuse: “We’ve done enough. You should be grateful. You’re mismanaging the funds. You’re running a deficit. You should not be in charge of your school budget.” All of that is setting the ground for what is yet to come, which is going to be worse.

This government has school boards facing record deficits. They blame those boards. They blame those school boards for bloated classrooms. They blame those school boards for crumbling schools. They blame those school boards for not having adequate supports in the classrooms to provide high-quality education so that students can be successful.

This government likes to talk about facts. These are the facts: This government has cut funding to our schools by $800 per student. This government is planning to cut $6 billion to our schools over the next six years. The Financial Accountability Office has caught this government underspending $2.1 billion in the 2021-22 budget. Those are the facts. If we’re going to talk about facts, then you might as well lay them all on the table.

Ontario students, parents and education workers just survived a historic global health emergency. They cannot get through to the other end without additional supports, and by them asking for supports, what they desperately need and deserve—no response is coming from this government.

Now is not the time to forget these essential workers, these heroes. Now is the time to build back better, as the government likes to say. Now is the time for you to vote in favour of this motion.

I’m very happy to be rising for this motion this afternoon. I would like to believe, when I hear the government members talk and talk about themselves being friends of education, that they know what a friend actually does. We on this side of the House don’t judge our friends by what they say; we judge our friends by what they do.

Let me tell you something that’s happening in our community at home right now in Ottawa Centre, Speaker, because I want to believe that some of the great kids in our high schools right now will go on one day to post-secondary education, and some of those kids might choose Carleton University. But guess what? Carleton University is on strike today. And do you know why Carleton University is on strike today? They’re not on strike against that university administration; they’re on strike against Bill 124, legislated by this government, which arbitrarily capped wages at 1% for the last three years. Did they cap their own salaries? Did they? Did they cap the salaries of their deputy ministers, who they pay handsomely to drive their policy? Do they cap any special interest group favouring the Conservative Party at any single point? Do they cap them?

Interjection: No.

Further debate?

I am proud to be here today, standing up in support of our motion to ask the Ontario government to fund school boards for pandemic-related COVID expenses. It is extremely important.

Our kids and parents have just gone through an incredibly hard three years. The impact of those three years is being felt today. I see this. I am a parent of two children who go to the Toronto District School Board system. I regularly communicate with parents, principals, teachers and students about their experience at schools and what they’re seeing and experiencing. What is very clear is that learning outcomes for math, STEM, reading, writing—we’re behind. When it comes to mental health, behavioural issues, violence, we are also falling behind. Our kids are struggling.

That is especially true for children with special needs. We regularly work with parents who have kids with autism who are in the school board system, and they are having huge difficulties getting access to school, being able to stay in school for the entire school day and have the additional supports they need—the educational assistants they need—to ensure their kid can be the best that they can be.

It has been a very, very hard few years, and it’s been good to hear my colleagues remind me and other parents that compared to every other school system in North America, our schools were closed the longest. It’s hard to think back at that time, raising two children during the pandemic and thinking about how many days my partner and I got up in the morning and thought: How are we going to get through today and work full-time and teach our kids?—knowing that there are over a million families in Ontario who are experiencing what we were experiencing, and many of them are not as lucky as us. It’s been a hard few years.

And so you would expect this government at this time to acknowledge and recognize that parents and teachers and students have had a hard time and invest in our schools. But that is not what we saw in this budget. What we saw in this budget is cuts. There are a lot of fancy numbers when you look at it, but when you actually look at what the school boards are showing us right now—because I’ve gone through the Toronto District School Board’s estimates for next year and they’ve been very clear about what they’re seeing. What they are projecting is a loss of 522 staffing positions. That is what they are projecting will be cut: lunchroom supervisors, elementary schoolteachers, secondary schoolteachers, social workers, child and youth workers, caretakers. That is what is going to be cut.

The TDSB is early in its budgeting process compared to other school boards, but now we are also seeing other school boards come out with their numbers as well, and they are seeing the same thing. The Toronto Catholic District School Board is looking at cuts: 122 staffing positions. The Ottawa-Carleton school board is also looking at cuts. And we will be seeing that again and again and again as school boards get closer to finalizing their budgeting process. This is not the direction that we should be going when we’re talking about school boards and the fundamental human rights that our kids have to a good education. This is not the direction that we will be going.

What I fear—and this has been mentioned earlier—is that the government is looking at doing what they did with health care and they’re looking at doing the same thing with education, where they create a crisis, where they cut, and as a result, people are motivated to go to the private system because they want a better alternative, when a better solution is to invest in the education system that we have. That is what we are calling on you to do today, starting with this very pragmatic motion, which is to cover pandemic-related expenses that school boards experienced in the past, that they had to cover, and the pandemic-related experiences that they are looking at continuing to deal with this year.

I support this motion; I urge you to vote for it. I will also be working with parents, with educators and with the school systems to ensure that this government treats school boards and students and teachers with the respect that they deserve, and that will translate into funding so that our kids can get the education they deserve.

No, but they capped the hard workers at Carleton University who are on strike right now against this government. Let’s be very clear: That’s not what a friend does.

But I tell you what an actual friend does, Speaker. An actual friend goes to someone in crisis and lifts them up. That’s what I saw in this great province last November. I saw a purple tide of custodians, ECEs and EAs and library techs and receptionists that had enough of this government’s spin. There are some days when I’m in this cham-ber and I hear the education minister talk, and I think that member is going to spin so hard, he’s going to leave the ceiling of this building and end up somewhere on the Gardiner Expressway. It’s unbelievable.

If you believe the minister, Speaker, you would think that our education system is properly funded. But here’s what the member for Ottawa West–Nepean just told us earlier in this debate: We are losing 21 critical positions in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. So when they say, “We’re a friend of public education; we’re coming to help,” I think about the health care debates we’ve been having in this place. Friend to nurses: Have we heard that before? We know that in 2022, there were 158 emergency rooms that had to close because of the cuts of this government.

We have to reckon reality with rhetoric. We have to reckon the espoused friendship with that person’s actions in this place. Speaker, I want to tell this government through you, you are no friend of the education system if you stand in this place, talk about people wanting bailouts while you make their schools harder to work in and harder to study in. You are no friend.

I also want to say this, Speaker. I’ve had occasion to work with a dad of an autistic child back home. His son goes to high school. In the pandemic, the school that this young adult went to accommodated this son and was helping him figure out a way to explore that classroom, because there was a lot more space in the school because so many kids were at home learning virtually. There was a lot of hard work put into accommodating that child. Moreover, that dad, Steve, reached out to our children’s hospital to bring in specialized autism expertise to make that successful.

Guess where we’re at with Steve’s son now, Speaker? Last I heard, the school has said that because of interactions, now that everybody is back, now that there’s a lot of stimulus, now that it’s tougher for Steve’s son to get by in the school, that he is only entitled to two hours of high school a day—two hours. This minister talks about all the great work they’re doing for students with special needs, but for Steve’s son—two hours of education in the province of Ontario. You are no friend to that family. You are no friend to that son. Nor are you a friend to the thousands of kids in the legacy autism program who need as good an opportunity as everybody else.

Speaker, I don’t call them students with disabilities; I call them students with superpowers who have so much to offer and give. But you are not helping them. You are no friend to them. You are no friend to the staff if you make their workplaces hard to live in.

I encourage the folks watching this debate at home: Judge this government by how they vote. You’re not a friend to public education if you make education worse.

I do appreciate this opportunity to rise and speak about our government’s record with respect to publicly funded schools—and I recall so vividly at the time the former critic, now the Leader of the Opposition, speaking and using rhetoric, posing the question rhetorically, “Where are all of these staff? Where are all these investments? Where are all these public health nurses? Where are all these EAs and educators and custodians and ventilation upgrades and HEPA filters we invested in?” That’s in the transcript from just six and 12 months ago, and yet here we are today.

For the members opposite, who spent the last two years suggesting the investments don’t exist, the people don’t exist in schools, the ventilation hasn’t been improved, only today to have the chutzpah to come in this House and urge us to reinstate the funding they never believed was in place in our school system—only the NDP could do that with a straight face. Only New Democrats could sit here and actually believe they have the credibility in this Parliament to communicate to the government, who increased the very funding in every single measurement—and now to proclaim the great saviours of public education, when their record is consistent, systematic opposition to the hiring of 8,000 net new staff. That is the NDP record, and a regrettable one, because maybe we disagree with the rate of increase—perhaps the opposition suggests going even further—but to have opposed every single investment, even incrementally, seems to defy the principle of more investment, more staffing, more resources.

Let’s reflect on where we started in 2018 in mental health, as a case study—an issue that I believe every member in this House cares about. The provincial Liberals, under Premier Wynne, were investing, in their election budget, the peak of spending, $18 million in mental health funding for schools. The funding today is at $90 million. It has been increased by 400%. I appreciate and am the first to acknowledge that we have to keep going, because the needs are rising, especially in a post-pandemic world—but the funding has been increased by 400%. It is the highest rate of increase we’ve seen in the federation, including when compared to New Democrats in BC.

Madam Speaker, when we look at areas like capital renewal, we are cognizant of the challenges in many schools in Ontario. There’s a reason why, in the first budget of this government, and reconfirmed in the Minister of Finance’s budget, there is nearly $15 billion in capital investments, so that all of your communities, from the most rural and remote parts of Ontario to the most urban here in Toronto—every one of us and our children—has access to a modern school. That’s an investment in building schools that meet the needs of Ontario, both for the current population and for future immigrant populations, which will come to this province at a quantum of 300,000 per year, every year. We’re going to be ready for that. We are investing in a modern school system. There are a hundred schools under construction today and 200 in the pipeline in this province, because we’re investing, because we recognize there is more need, because we recognize the former Liberals, for all the spending—that itself isn’t a virtue; it’s the outcomes, the measurements. It’s the benchmark of success with taxpayer dollars. They spent a lot and delivered so little for the people of Ontario—600 schools closed, failing outcomes in math and literacy. That isn’t a metric of success.

While I know the member from Waterloo and others feel that the most superior metric is just spending more money—we are doing that, but we also expect accountability from school boards, from unions, from all of us, to step up in the interest of children. The metric of success is our kids’ graduation rates—which, by the way, has been increased from 85% to 89% under our Progressive Conservative government. That’s a metric of success.

Youth employment—connecting young people from the classroom into the labour market—is a critical benchmark. We’re seeing more young people work in the private economy—making better jobs—with the recognition that we have to do more to help ensure they’ve got a high wage that leads them to an affordable home.

When it comes to investment in this budget—this item before the House is germane to the most recent budget, introduced by the Minister of Finance—the overall funding has been increased, yes, by $2.3 billion, but even when you look at baseline funding in education, it’s still up $1.3 billion from last year. I’m sorry; this is not a matter of debate, interpretation or ideological dispositions of left or right. It’s a matter of fact. The funding is up $1.3 billion.

We are following the money—to the member from Waterloo—and it’s going into classrooms in Waterloo region to a higher level than ever before in Ontario history. That’s a good outcome for families in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and, frankly, across Ontario.

Madam Speaker, look at the staffing. We have a relatively flat enrolment rate in Ontario. It has gone up and it has gone a bit down over the past four or five years in Ontario, but it has fundamentally been flat—roughly two million kids in the publicly funded school system. Yet when you look at the amount of staff, net staff—not through attrition; no cutesy interpretation. The amount of people working today when compared to 2017—the number is north of 7,000, for education workers.

One of the members from Ottawa spoke passionately about the needs of children with special education needs, those with exceptionalities in our schools. There are 7,000 additional education workers—EAs, custodians, social workers, or child and youth workers. All of these have been hired and funded—not somehow absent provincial investment; not in spite of, but because of our government’s investment.

There are 200 more principals and vice-principals working in our schools. There are roughly 800 front-line educators working within our schools. That is an investment in publicly funded schools. That is an investment to meet the challenge to ensure the next generation of young people are set up for success in our economy, so that they can succeed and dream and be ambitious and be able to own a home and achieve the full partnership of being a Canadian in this country.

Madam Speaker, just on ventilation alone—there is no province in Canada, during the pandemic, that put more investment in ventilation. We have more HEPA filtration in this province—if you aggregate every province and add it up, we still have more: 100,000 HEPA filters. We put $600 million in ventilation upgrades in every single one of your schools—not an exception to the rule. Every school was assessed. Every school was upgraded—the highest standards of MERV 13, which the science said, two years ago, was the best. We didn’t wait until September 2023. Folks, we did this in September 2021 and 2022 and kept it in place in 2023—$600 million in mechanical ventilation. We set a new standard in this country. If a school does not have mechanical ventilation—roughly 20% to 30% of Ontario schools in our respective ridings do not. We set a standard that no one has in this country—I’m not aware of it on the continent—where every classroom, every learning space, every gym, every cafeteria, every place where a child works, congregates, studies would have fitted-for-the-room HEPA filtration. Every kindergarten class, where kids were too young to wear masks, of course—we put two HEPA filters in it, sized to the room, to reduce the risk for those children. We stepped up.

I understand in this House—and the nature of our political system and of our democracy—it’s healthy to oppose. It is also healthy to acknowledge even incremental action that makes a difference in the lives of those we represent. I would expect, when we put 100,000 HEPA filters; $600 million in ventilation; when we hire staff; when we launch a new math strategy to literally, in budget 2023, double the amount of math coaches to emphasize numeracy, to strengthen training of our staff and get in there in those classrooms that need more intervention; when we are the only province in Canada to have a reading assessment strategy recommended by the Ontario Human Rights Commission—I would hope the NDP would be an advocate for us following the advice of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Here was one of the recommendations in the Right to Read report. It suggested the former Liberal curriculum did not follow the science of reading. They suggested that children with disabilities—to the member from Ottawa—are disproportionately left behind from the old language curriculum under former Premiers Wynne and McGuinty. The OHRC put out a damning report of that curriculum, saying you need to reform the curriculum and come up with a meaningful, wholesale reading-screening strategy for every child, from kindergarten to grade 2. That is what we did on the day the report was tabled.

Perhaps something counterintuitive: The Ontario Human Rights Commission put out the report on the Right to Read—the government moved immediately to adopt a new language curriculum, which will be in place this coming September. For those who have a face of a perplexed nature—Google. In addition, we also announced $25 million, then, to provide a screening tool. There’s only one province in Canada that’s going to screen every child—kindergarten, senior kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2—at least once but up to two times a year with a common screening tool, with teacher training, which we’re providing. Over 400,000 kids are going to get this. There’s just no jurisdiction in the nation that’s doing it in nearly as expansive a fashion as Ontario. We’re not doing this to boast. We’re doing this because we recognize, after the pandemic, that literacy rates for young kids have regressed. I acknowledge the challenge. No one is suggesting that Ontario is some island in and of itself, when the entire Western world—the industrialized nations, east and west—have seen regression in fundamental math and reading skills. We’re not immune to that reality. We’re certainly not the worst in the federation, according to EQAO data. But we recognize there’s a problem, so we stepped up with a solution, with the full support of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Even when we did that, something that perhaps is more ideologically inclusive to other members in the House—even then, we didn’t have a peep of support from any member, any critic. Education, disability—it didn’t matter. Silence. We can’t even recognize when we do the right things, even in a mere narrow or targeted fashion.

I am standing up in this House today with a simple message: The funding is there. The supports are there. The staffing is there. In a most granular way, we are stepping up—from literacy to numeracy to mental health to special education and to staffing.

We’ve heard this line before: “Where are the staff?” I have so many quotes from the member from Davenport—and with a great level of gratitude to a sparring partner for many years. But what I will simply say is, they’re there. Let’s not pretend that we didn’t double the amount of public health nurses. Let’s not pretend that we didn’t hire 7,000 more people. Those are not open to interpretation, colleagues. You can make the argument that you need more, but to hear the rhetoric—

Interjections.

Further debate?

It’s an honour to rise today. The NDP have got a motion today, and all we’re asking the government to do is to cover the pandemic costs that were absorbed by school boards across the province. This will help to reduce the number of cuts that this government is going to be making to our schools and our staff over the next year. It’s very simple.

The Minister of Education was just boasting about the investment in HEPA filters and other things, and that was good, except there were two issues I take with what the government did in that area. The first was that the pandemic started in March 2020, and our schools were closed. Our students in Ontario had the longest closure, missed the most school days of any jurisdiction in North America. In January 2022, this government was boasting about a new investment in HEPA filters in our schools, so they could open classrooms. It took them a year and a half to make that investment in those HEPA filters that the minister was just boasting about just a few minutes ago. We need a government that’s actually going to invest in our students today.

The minister also has continuously boasted in the House about a $680-million increase in education funding from last year to this year, but the Financial Accountability Office, which is an independent office of the provincial government, says that they didn’t spend $430 million in the education budget. When you look at inflation, inflation over the last year was 5.4%; if they had increased education funding by the rate of inflation, it would have been a $1.5-billion increase, not a $680-million increase. So the amount that they increased did not account for inflation, and they didn’t actually spend the amount that they had been boasting about, that they budgeted for last year. The impact is that we have 8,000 more students in the province of Ontario—these are government figures—and 2,000 fewer education workers: 2,000 fewer teachers, education assistants, special-needs assistants and custodians.

I am deeply concerned about education. I was a high school teacher in the 1990s, and I continued teaching part-time after that. I was a school board trustee from 2010 to 2018. The reason that I am so passionate about our education system is that our publicly funded education systems are the foundation of our democracy and the foundation of our economic growth, and we need to support them.

And so when the government is putting out all these numbers and the numbers don’t actually equate with what’s happening in the classroom, then this is a problem, because spin is not going to educate our children. What’s going to educate our children are the teachers, the education assistants, the special needs assistants, the custodians, the secretaries and all of the staff, all of the workers, in our schools. That’s who is educating our children, and they are the ones who need to be supported.

But right now, the Toronto District School Board spent $70 million to ensure that their schools met the health guidelines provided by this government during the pandemic. That money was not reimbursed, and so they’re just asking the government to reimburse that $70 million in pandemic measures that the TDSB made. Instead, the TDSB is facing a $61-million shortfall in the next school year, 2023-24. The outcome of this will be—and this is the bottom line; this is where people will be able to judge whether the government is giving the full story or not. They are estimating that they’re going to have to cut 522 staff. And from what I’ve heard from the other side, from the government side during this debate, it sounds like they’re not going to support the motion to reimburse school boards for the pandemic measures. And the other thing that I’ve heard from them is they’re going to start attacking the school boards. Even though all of the funding is provided by this government to the school boards, they’re going to start attacking the school boards and saying, “Hey, you’ve got to manage your budgets better.” Well, the government insisted. They forced the TDSB to spend $70 million on pandemic measures and they didn’t reimburse them. That’s what this motion is about: reimbursing those pandemic measures.

At the TDSB, it will mean 65 teachers, 35 educational assistants, 35 child and youth workers, 40 school-based safety monitors. We are facing a crisis in our society coming out of this pandemic and this government is proposing to cut school-based safety monitors. The Toronto Catholic District School Board used $60 million in reserves during the pandemic, and next year they’re projecting a shortfall of somewhere around $35 million, and they are expecting to lay off at least 120 education workers. The impact of this is that we have larger classes; we have fewer resources; we have fewer staff to serve our students in our schools.

And the other thing—I don’t have much time left, but I just want to say, the government spins all these numbers out. Every time you ask them about something, they spin out the numbers. But my real concern is that their goal is to privatize our education system just like they’re privatizing our health care system. We spend $80 billion a year in Ontario on health care. We spend $34 billion a year in education. And there are a lot of corporations that look at that money and they think, “How can we possibly divert some of that into our pockets? How can we change these systems—these public, not-for-profit systems—into private, for-profit systems?” That’s what’s happening in our health care system, and it’s something that I think this government is doing in our education system as well. And I think it’s really, really unconscionable to be privatizing education when it is truly the foundation of our democracy and of our economic growth.

Literally making my point in real time, which is so brilliant.

To literally say, as I’m speaking about the personnel who have been hired—they’re now urging me to reinstate funding for something they opposed. Sorry; there’s no logical consistency here.

Let’s be intellectually honest all the time for a chance—and that requires us to continue to support investments when we make them in Ontario.

Our Premier speaks about this because he recognizes the linkage between education and the economy. He sees building the skill set of the next generation of young people not through an economic lens, exclusively. Let’s be clear. We’re not producing little economic robots. We’re trying to produce well-rounded, civically minded, emotionally intelligent, technologically savvy, kind, hard-working, disciplined, inclusive young people. But part of our task as Progressive Conservatives is not to decouple the economic imperative of giving young people a curriculum that leads them to a job—and we see both. We have to do both, which is why we updated the curriculum, another area where we don’t necessarily have to spend more. But we can get so much more out of our classroom experience if our math curriculum, for example, for the first time actually mandates financial literacy.

This budget presented by the Minister of Finance actually includes not just—it builds upon the government’s commitment to mandate financial literacy in every grade, starting in grade 1, all the way to grade 9. Because of the support of the Minister of Finance, we actually have an additional increased investment in financial literacy resources for teachers, for parents, and for the kids themselves to build a more personally responsible young citizenry in this province. That’s a good thing.

Madam Speaker, we updated the curriculum to realign it with labour market needs, because kids weren’t being taught how to code—in BC all the way to Nova Scotia, we had many provinces that were leading. And it is our objective, as Progressive Conservatives, to give this generation of young people a competitive advantage when they graduate so that no longer will they have to be unemployed or in a job not related to their skills or really not optimizing their potential. How many times have we heard, as parliamentarians, a person say, “I have a job disconnected to my skills,” or an employer say, “We have people without work or work without people”? Either way, that skills mismatch is a problem. So we’re actually emphasizing real life and job skills—yes, coding; yes, financial literacy, things that are actually going to help young people succeed.

In the most recent update in the new math curriculum, the new STEM curriculum, the new computer science curriculum, the new technology curriculum—all things avoided by the members opposite in this House today. Why? Why would we avoid referencing elements that give young people an advantage in our country? Why would we not recognize that the curriculum under the former Liberals—perhaps an area we can coalesce and agree on. They didn’t do a good job. They left so many people behind in the economy.

That’s the leadership that we’re providing to the people of Ontario—a new curriculum, modern schools, hiring of more staff, an increase of funding. That is an investment in publicly funded schools. That is going to make a difference in the life of a young person.

So we are stepping up. We are providing clarity and consistency. In every budget, we’ve been providing more funding. I think that’s important because for many of us—many of you are parents; some of you are uncles and aunts, as I am. We’re caregivers. We care about these kids. We all have a personal connection to young people in our civil society. We all want them to succeed. It’s very personal to us.

So when we are increasing the amount of staff and increasing the amount of funding and increasing the amount of resources, recognizing, full stop, that the demands are rising in our schools and our society—I want families who are watching to be assured that as the challenge arises, so will the province, to meet the challenge of this generation, to ensure they are supported and wrapped around with supports they need. It’s in addition to the funding in education—we’re also stepping it up in the community. Think of what we’re doing just in tutoring.

Madam Speaker, when the opposition had an opportunity to vote—$175 million tutoring program that didn’t—

Interjection.

But the people know this Premier could be counted on to deliver an effective and accountable education system that leads young people to a good-paying job—and we will continue to do that, in spite of the members opposite.

The ayes are 31; the nays are 58.

Further debate? Further debate?

I turn to the leader of the official opposition, please.