The only thing historic about this government’s education spending, Speaker, is their inability to get the funding out the door.

Under this government, kids with accessibility needs are already not getting the support they need. And now the government is forcing thousands of kids with autism into school with no transition plans and no additional resources for schools, which means already inadequate supports are going to have to be stretched even further.

How are we going to keep these kids safe? How are we going to help them succeed? Where is the plan? And where are the resources to make sure that every child can thrive in our schools?

I want to thank the member for bringing this motion forward, and I’m glad to support it.

Here’s what I’d like to say to the other side: In a few short months, thousands and thousands of children on the legacy autism program will be coming into our schools. And guess what? The schools don’t know they’re coming. Guess what else? There’s no money for them—no money, to add insult to injury.

The message that I’m hearing from this government is, “We’re making a historic investment,” which, by the way, happens every year in this province in every department—health, education, roads. We always spend more money, so it’s not historic. Next year will be history as well, by that count.

But their message in this budget, by what they’ve done with education, is that if you have a child with special needs that are not being met at school, you’re on your own. If your child is struggling with mental health, you’re on your own. If your child has somehow fallen behind, guess what, families? You’re on your own. They’re not making life easier for people; they’re making it harder.

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.