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?

Minister of Education.

Supplementary question?

The next question.

I thank the member opposite for the question. I am very proud to confirm that the budget increases funding in the public education school system by $2.3 billion, of which $1.3 billion specifically in baseline education funding is up from the year prior, Mr. Speaker. This year, compared to last year, it’s up $671 million. Every single year, we’ve increased funding.

In fact, under the Premier’s leadership, funding is up, compared to the former Liberals, by 27% in the Ministry of Education. That is an investment in children.

We’ve hired 8,000 more staff. We have 200 more principals. We have another 800 more teachers.

Mr. Speaker, we just announced a $15-billion investment to build new schools after the systematic closure of schools under the former Liberals. We’re going to con-tinue to invest and ensure these kids get back on track.

Mr. Speaker, the special education budget this year is up to $3.2 billion. That is the highest level it has ever been in our province’s history. I assure the member opposite that for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities, we are working together across the ministry to ensure they have the supports, the resources and the staff in place to succeed in our schools.

I’m pleased to rise today to present this petition to stop the cuts and invest in our schools, which our students deserve. I’d particularly like to thank the parents and community of Jack Miner Senior Public School, which was just one of many schools where these signatures were collected.

The petition reads:

“Whereas the Ford government cut funding to our schools by $800 per student during the pandemic period, and plans to cut an additional $6 billion to our schools over the next six years;

“Whereas these massive cuts have resulted in larger class sizes, reduced special education and mental health supports and resources for our students, and neglected and unsafe buildings;

“Whereas the Financial Accountability Office reported a $2.1-billion surplus in 2021-22, and surpluses growing to $8.5 billion in 2027-28, demonstrating there is more than enough money to fund a robust public education system;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

“—immediately reverse the cuts to our schools;

“—fix the inadequate education funding formula;

“—provide schools the funding to ensure the supports necessary to address the impacts of the pandemic on our students;

“—make the needed investments to provide smaller class sizes, increased levels of staffing to support our students’ special education, mental health, English language learner and wraparound supports needs, and safe and healthy buildings and classrooms.”

I wholeheartedly endorse this petition, Speaker, will add my name it to and send it to the table with page Paul.

It’s my honour to present this stack of following petitions which are to stop the cuts and invest in the schools our students deserve. It reads:

“Whereas the Ford government cut funding to our schools by $800 dollars per student during the pandemic period, and plans to cut an additional $6 billion to our schools over the next six years;

“Whereas these massive cuts have resulted in larger class sizes, reduced special education and mental health supports and resources for our students, and neglected and unsafe buildings;

“Whereas the Financial Accountability Office reported a $2.1-billion surplus in 2021-22, and surpluses growing to $8.5 billion in 2027-28, demonstrating there is more than enough money to fund a robust public education system;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

“—immediately reverse the cuts to our schools;

“—fix the inadequate education funding formula;

“—provide schools the funding to ensure the supports necessary to address the impacts of the pandemic on our students;

“—make the needed investments to provide smaller class sizes, increased levels of staffing to support our students’ special education, mental health, English language learner and wraparound supports needs, and safe and healthy buildings and classrooms.”

I fully support this petition, will affix my signature to it and deliver it with page Jonas to the Clerks.

I’d like to begin my remarks by thanking Ontario’s educators, school staff and parents for their incredible efforts to make the 2022-23 academic year a normal one for Ontario’s students.

I’d also like to thank the Leader of the Opposition for her remarks opening up the debate today. I’d also like to thank the education union representation that was here for the first three minutes of the leader’s speech, but I guess they’re off. But it was a really good speech; we should make sure that they get a transcript or a Hansard of it.

Thanks in part to our investments of over $3.2 billion, the kids are back in school, there have been no disruptions to learning this year, and students are enjoying the full school experience of sports, band, field trips and after-school clubs and activities.

Speaker, I mention our government’s incredible and nation-leading investments in school safety to provide some necessary context for today’s debate. Our government made these record investments because we know there’s a shortage of skilled labour in the economy, and we believe in the power of public education to prepare Ontario’s young people for the jobs of tomorrow.

As we pivot from a failed discovery math program and introduce evidence-based learning in math and STEM curriculum, training will need to be provided to teachers to make sure their pedagogy is meeting the highest standards. To achieve this, Ontario is providing $30 million to double the number of school math coaches beginning this September, as well as providing additional staffing support in grade 9 math classrooms to ensure students are supported in their learning.

Ontario students are being well-positioned by having coding and financial literacy embedded in the curriculum that is in line with real-world needs, to ensure our students succeed in and outside of the classroom. Previous Liberal inaction for over a decade developed a disconnect with what math was being taught in the classroom and good-paying careers. These supports build upon the landmark math curriculum changes for grades 1 to 9 to help support continuity and better prepare students for more advanced math, to allow students to pursue any post-secondary, skilled trade, and STEM pathway that they choose.

Continued curriculum updates will focus on life and job skills by revising curriculum in language; science, technology, engineering and mathematics; and the skilled trades. This includes a new computer studies and revised technological education curriculum, beginning with the implementation of a new grade 10 computer studies course in September 2023 and revised grade 9 and grade 10 tech ed courses to be offered in September 2024.

Similarly, after a decade when the previous Liberal government, supported by members of the NDP, closed over 600 schools across the province, our government is investing $14 billion over a 10-year time frame to build new schools, improve existing facilities, and create new child care spaces. That includes $1.4 billion in capital funding for the 2022-23 academic year.

Since 2019, our government has invested over $2 billion in education capital projects, including 100 new schools, 88 school additions, and over 6,400 new licensed child care spaces.

Again, our government is investing in education infrastructure because we’re listening to the concerns of hard-working parents across the province and because we believe in the power of public education to prepare our young people for the job market of the future.

So when I hear my honourable colleagues from the opposition falsely accusing our government of making cuts and shortchanging school boards—

With all due respect, I would humbly suggest to my NDP friends that, while they’re entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.

Speaker, here are the facts—the real facts: Our government has increased education funding every year since we took office in 2018. That includes an increase of $683.9 million to $26.6 billion for the 2022-23 school year. On a—

Interjections.

On a per pupil basis, we’re investing over $13,000 per student. That’s almost a $1,000 increase per student from 2017-18.

I wish I could cite the new education funding numbers for the 2023-24 academic year. Honestly, this debate feels a little bit like discussing Hamlet without actually mentioning the prince of Denmark. But rest assured, the new Grants for Student Needs and priorities and partnerships funding will be released soon, and I’m fairly certain they will once again reflect a steady increase in funding for public education.

Clearly, we are making record investments in public education, and we are delivering more funding to school boards than the previous Liberal government.

Let’s go back a minute and review a few more funding numbers from the 2022-23 academic year. You might be wondering, has our increased funding to school boards led to more front-line support for students? The answer is yes. Across the province, staffing by school boards has increased by nearly 8,000 individuals since 2017-18. That includes over 200 principals and vice-principals, over 900 teachers. and nearly 7,000 education workers.

Let’s talk about special education for a minute. This year, our government provided a $92.9-million increase to the GSN, for total special education funding of over $3.25 billion. That’s the highest amount ever provided in special education funding. And guess what? It’s nearly $386 million higher than what the previous government invested in 2017-18.

There is no question that the past few years under the pandemic have been an unsettling time for young people. Our government understood that from the very beginning, which is why we made sure to provide necessary mental health supports. We’re delivering $90 million in student mental health supports this academic year. To put that into context, that’s a 420% increase in funding since 2017-18, under the previous Liberal government. Let’s be clear: Mental health is health, and our government is serious about supporting Ontario’s young people.

Unfortunately, many students feel they have been set back by the pandemic, and they are unsure about their next steps in life. I’m proud to say that our government is meeting this challenge, with Ontario’s Plan to Catch Up, which includes the largest tutoring program in Ontario’s history. We invested $176 million to expand access to free school-based tutoring so that thousands of Ontario students are able to utilize learning resources in their communities, to help them succeed. Some of our other key investments in the plan to catch up include math action teams that have been deployed to underperforming school boards; new digital resources to support parents, students and educators; new universal screening for reading for all students in junior kindergarten to grade 2; and an extension of the historic tutoring support program, the only one of its kind in the nation.

Many parents have invested in their own tutoring supports for their children, which is one reason we announced the availability of catch-up payments for families last year. Our government was elected to make life more affordable for Ontario families, and we’re delivering on that promise. During the pandemic, we provided over $1.6 billion in direct payments to parents through three dedicated support programs to help families cover the costs of child care and at-home learning created by the pandemic. Well, we are going further by investing $365 million in direct financial relief to parents who could use some support in uncertain times to help their kids catch up. Through this program, parents with school-age children up to 18 years old will receive $200 per child. That’s $200 per child going back into parents’ pockets so they can use that for their families. And parents with school-age children with special education needs up to 21 years old will receive $250 per child.

Applications for catch-up payments will remain open until March 31, which, of course, is a few short days from now. If any eligible parents watching at home have not yet signed up for catch-up payments, I strongly encourage them to do so before this Friday.

Time and time again, our party, our government, has supported parents in affording school supplies and tutoring supports to best position their children to catch up on their learning. As life returns to normal, we remain focused on helping students catch up in their studies, and we will continue to put money back into the pockets of hard-working parents, where it belongs.

I know I’m going to sound like a broken vinyl record, but I’ll say it anyway: Our government made these investments because we believe in public education and we believe in the power of public education to prepare Ontario’s young people for the labour market.

I believe the facts that I have provided offer a strong defence of our government’s record on education funding, but I’m going to provide my NDP friends and my PC Party friends with a few more numbers.

It’s an honour to stand up today and speak to this motion and stand up for our public education system, stand up for the students, the families and the educators who make that system work, because we know that a high-quality public education system is vital to our quality of life. It’s vital to our economic prosperity. And it’s vital to democratic and civic participation.

It’s essential that we invest in our schools, in the staff and educators who teach and support students. Speaker, we all know that the pandemic had a tremendous negative impact on everyone in our society. But students bore the brunt of that impact. Due to the lack of investments and the fact that we had larger class sizes and repair backlogs in our buildings with inadequate ventilation, we had more days with our students out of school than any other jurisdiction in North America.

So we know that our students paid the price, and they’ve struggled. They’ve struggled with mental health challenges. They’ve struggled with learning gaps. They’ve struggled to maintain those social connections that are so vital to their quality of life.

I know the member from Brampton North, our friend over here, threw out some statistics and numbers in his talk, but here’s the bottom line: School boards were forced to dig into their reserve funds, funds that are set aside for capital improvements to invest in improving and upgrading their schools, because the government funded less than half of the COVID-related expenses the school boards faced. Quite frankly, the government failed to allocate $600 million to support COVID-related expenses. No wonder so many school boards across the province now are struggling to fund the things that our students need.

Speaker, I want to just say that the people who have been filling those needs and covering those gaps and managing the shortfalls are the educators and the support staff in our schools. But they’ve had to do it under tremendous pressure, without the kinds of supports they need, and so I want to thank those teachers and education staff.

I also want to remind everybody here that those teachers and support staff have gone above and beyond the call of duty, pre-pandemic and post-pandemic. I think we can all be grateful, prior to the pandemic, when we were having educational days of action in our schools, that it was teachers and educators and support staff who were walking the picket lines, saying no to larger class sizes and no to mandatory online learning. I think the pandemic highlighted for us that—I don’t think anyone wants mandatory online learning, so thank goodness educators stood up and said no to that prior to the pandemic. And I think the pandemic has highlighted the need for smaller class sizes, not larger class sizes. Sometimes when people attack education unions and say, “Hey, why are you disrupting our schools?”—it’s oftentimes, most of the time, because they’re fighting to improve our quality of education, and thank goodness, prior to the pandemic, that’s exactly what happened.

Now that we’ve made it through the pandemic, we need the government to step up and actually flow the money that our schools need. We need to make sure that we make the investments in smaller class sizes, that we have enough educational assistants and mental health supports, because the inadequacy of those has real-world consequences.

I just want to tell a few stories, because I think parents’ and students’ stories need to be told, Speaker. I can tell you, I did a round table with a group of parents who have children with special needs. Each and every one of them talked about how many times they’re called to the school to take their child home because the school does not have the adequate staff to serve their child’s needs, and then sometimes the lack of staff actually leads to danger for their students’ safety. And then the disruptions that are caused from that lack of teachers, educational assistants and adequate staff creates disruption that affects the learning of all the students in that classroom. The struggles that those parents and those students go through, the increased violence that it leads to, the fact that we have educational assistants now wearing Kevlar in our schools to protect themselves—I don’t think enough people in the public understand what’s happening in our schools due to lack of staffing, resources and the real-world consequences it has on people. So to me, I just don’t understand how the government failed to spend $435 million that they allocated for education that didn’t actually get spent given the clear needs in our schools.

And I don’t understand how the budget failed to actually address the $16.8-billion repair backlog that exists right now across the province in our public education system. Students are hot in the summer, cold in the winter. The ventilation systems are inadequate. There’s nothing in the budget to address those needs.

The least the government could do in order to make sure that our students receive the quality of education they need and deserve is to pay the pandemic-related costs those schools experienced, Speaker. That’s why I’ll be voting for this motion.

Withdrawn, Speaker.

For the sake of clarity, the lack of accurate information that was shared in my constituency by members of other political parties unfortunately led to a great deal of confusion when I would be speaking with our hard-working education workers at the doors. So I’m going to speak a little bit about the substantial investments that have been made in our education system, to clear the air and make sure that the cold, hard facts are on the table and that we see all the people in this chamber and those watching understand the substantial amounts of funding that have been allocated, the historic investments, and the rapid increases in that funding for the people of Ontario.

Thanks to the investments, which included major improvements to air quality and ventilation in schools all over the province, we’ve seen that Ontario’s classrooms are truly safe for in-person learning. I think that the Premier and the minister’s goal of ensuring that students stay in class all year we’re seeing has been a reality. We’ve seen students able to learn safely and with the supports that they need.

Now I can’t stress enough, Speaker, that it always is frustrating when I see people from other political parties sometimes mischaracterize or accuse us of an action that may not have actually occurred, but during my time, Speaker, I want to walk through some of our government’s investments in education and why we’re making them.

I want to say, Speaker, I was a little bit baffled when I first read this motion, because I know for a fact that our government has a great track record when it comes to education funding. I know that the Leader of the Opposition previously served as her party’s education critic, so I can only assume that she has some unfinished business on that file or perhaps she’s looking to try to get back at the minister for all the times that he responded to her questions with the facts about what was happening in our funding of the education system.

Now here’s a key fact, Speaker: Our government has increased the Ministry of Education’s investments every single year since we came to office. This includes a $2.3-billion increase in this year’s education funding, to a total of $34.7 billion for 2023-24. I can actually remember when I first became the parliamentary assistant for the education ministry. I remember the then Minister of Education announced when the threshold crossed $30 billion. I remember when we saw for the first time an education funding allocation that crossed $30 billion. I remember that we were commenting about how historic that was, the first government to ever allocate $30 billion, and now we’re at $34.7 billion. I don’t know about you, Speaker, but that sounds like a lot of money ensuring that we’re representing the single largest investment in Ontario’s history in the education system.

This massive investment actually stands for a 27% increase from the education year prior to our government forming office, a 27% increase over the past five years. I’d like to thank this entire House for supporting those investments, especially the members on this side. Unfortunately, we saw members of the opposition vote against those investments in the past. But I’m confident that with the historic amounts being brought onto the table in this 2023 budget, we should see the opposition perhaps come to their senses and support these investments in our local schools.

A 27% increase in education base funding in a five-year period, and yet we still hear from the opposition about cuts—I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a by-product of the discovery math days, but I don’t know where they’re coming to this conclusion, because the facts speak for themselves. We spent billions and billions of new dollars in education to ensure that each and every student is receiving a world-class education system here in the province of Ontario.

And we could look at this a different way. We could look at it on a per-pupil funding basis. Speaker, our government is providing over $13,000 per student, $1,000 more per student than when the previous government was here in this House. Yes, the money we provided to school boards has been going to front-line funding positions. Since 2017-18, we’ve seen that front-line education staffing has increased by roughly 8,000 positions since our government came to office. That includes hundreds of principals and vice-principals, over 900 teachers and 7,000 education workers.

Interjections.

Additionally, it’s not just about the staffing, as much as we know that staffing is very, very important. We saw for many years the former Liberal government—when the NDP held the balance of power, we saw a government that closed hundreds of schools—

Interjection: What?

But our government now is investing $14 billion over 10 years in building new schools. I have to say, this is one of the aspects that I always really enjoyed in my time working with the Minister of Education, visiting different communities across this riding. I remember going to an eastern Ontario visit. I think we announced 11 schools in the space of a week, just going through communities who hadn’t seen meaningful investments in their local education systems under previous governments—and the gratitude and the thankfulness that I saw on the faces of the children and also expressed by those hard-working education workers, who saw that our government was taking infrastructure renewal seriously and building the new schools that were needed in every corner of this riding.

And it’s not just new schools. It’s building new child care spaces for hardworking families. Since 2019, we’ve invested over $2 billion into 100 new schools, 88 additions and 6,410 new licensed child care spaces. These are pretty significant investments, Speaker, and yet we seem to see once again this opposition motion claiming that our government is providing school boards with a so-called inadequate amount of funding—again, billions of dollars in new funding. But of course it’s never enough for the opposition.

The opposition motion also irresponsibly calls upon the Ontario government to provide an undisclosed amount of money to school boards to cover their budget shortfalls. They don’t say how much. They just say, “Give it all. Give the money away. Give it away.” But the amount of money is undisclosed, Speaker, because you can bet the farm that it would be an astronomically high number if we went down that road.

Incentives do matter. If our government was foolish enough to take the NDP’s advice and bail out school boards facing deficits, we would see that frankly, the boards had no reason to act responsibly. Every school board in the province would clamour for more funding, trying to make sure that they spent every red cent to get more funding from the provincial government. But we know that incentives matter, and we are taking a responsible approach.

In a nutshell, the NDP motion completely misdiagnoses the state of education funding in Ontario. It proposes a so-called solution that would, frankly, do more harm than good.

Now, just as an aside, Speaker, I am amazed that the NDP can so completely mischaracterize our government’s record on education funding with this incredibly accusatory tone and then turn around and attempt to take zero accountability for their time in government. Ontario’s first and only NDP government froze salaries for public sector workers; meanwhile, under our education deal, we see workers receiving a cumulative 15.8% raise, after this NDP, when they were in government, froze workers’ salaries. And we’ve seen that they ripped up signed contracts. They not only didn’t act in good faith when they were in negotiations; they ripped up signed contracts and ordered teachers, doctors, nurses and other public servants to work 12 days a year for free. It doesn’t sound like the NDP have a record to stand on, and not surprisingly, we did see that this resulted in some of the worst labour unrest in Ontario’s history.

When I read the motion we’re debating, it reminded me: It’s easy. I remember being in opposition, and it’s easy for the opposition members to criticize. Perhaps some of them haven’t been here that long, but I know others who have been in opposition for a great deal of time and have spent, I think, their entire political careers in opposition—and I think that is more than likely where they will stay. But it’s easy for them in opposition to demand our government hand over undisclosed amounts of additional funding to school boards.

The reality is this governing is far more difficult, because we know that governing entails accountability; it entails responsibility; it entails being good stewards. And when they were given the opportunity to govern, unfortunately, we saw that the NDP made some terrible decisions. Of course, I wish they hadn’t—I’m sure they wish they hadn’t—and I know the people of this province wish that they had not made those decisions. But unfortunately, it seems to be they haven’t learned their lesson. We often hear the opposition members smugly try to tell us, “Well, Bob Rae is a Liberal,” and pretend none of it ever happened. Well, Speaker, it’s the NDP record, and I think they have to stand behind their record.

I would now like to take a little bit of time in the time that I have left—and I know we’re running a little bit close, but I do want to walk through a little bit of this government’s achievements so far on the education file, because I think they’re substantial and important for education workers to understand. Our government strongly supports public education here in the province of Ontario. We know that it has a critically important role to play in the years to come. Ontario is facing the largest shortage of skilled labour in generations.

The Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development recently said it best: “Our government is taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to attract and train the next generation of skilled trades workers for better jobs and bigger paycheques for themselves and their families.” There are currently over 100,000 unfilled skilled trades jobs across the province, and it’s projected that by 2026 approximately one in five job openings in Ontario will be in a skilled-trades-related field.

Ever since our government was first elected, we have taken action to update the province’s curriculum and ensure that it does a better job of reflecting the changing needs of the labour market. For over a decade, we saw previous generations of students lacking math, financial literacy and numeracy skills.

I’m proud to tell this chamber that the government made some incredible progress over the last five years. We have new curriculums that emphasize relevance in today’s job market, with an emphasis on practical life skills, learning more about interest, debt, savings, personal budgeting and price comparisons—things that really matter to people when they’re living in the real world—as well as helping students prepare for the jobs of tomorrow by introducing students to how to apply coding skills, to better understand complex mathematics and how to make predictions.

As we pivot from a failed discovery math program and introduce evidence-based learning and math and STEM curriculum, training will need to be provided to ensure that teachers have the pedagogical training to meet the highest standards. To achieve this, Ontario is providing $30 million to double the number of school math coaches, beginning this September, as well as providing additional staff support—

Interjections.

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.

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 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 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’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.

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.

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.