The Minister of Education would rather talk about anything but what’s happening in our schools right now, because the situation is pretty grim thanks to this government. Schools are turning down the heat to save money, telling teachers to bring in their own supplies. Kids with special needs are being sent home because there’s no one left to look after them. Teens asking for mental health support are waiting over a year to see a social worker.

In the face of all this, the Premier is once again proposing education funding for next year that doesn’t keep pace with inflation or enrolment growth. This is another cut, Speaker.

Why does the Premier not believe that children in Ontario deserve a high-quality education and safe, supportive, fully resourced classrooms?

Mr. Speaker, we’re increasing funding by over $745 million for the coming school year because we believe in restoring focus, discipline and some common sense back in Ontario schools. And that’s why we’ve increased the funding for the coming school year to the highest levels ever.

We’ve also committed and we have hired 9,000 more education workers, 3,000 additional front-line educators. We have 900 additional teachers being hired for literacy and for math. Mr. Speaker, this is a historic investment, underpinned by a reform to the curriculum that infuses life and job skills, that actually ensures financial literacy and coding and phonics has returned to the norm in Ontario schools.

We know there’s more work to do, but I would hope members opposite would join our government and our Premier in increasing the funding and the staffing and the expectations in Ontario’s publicly funded schools.

If we want to listen to the people we represent, then the overwhelming majority of parents will say, “Go back to basics. Remove the distractions and the nonsense, and make sure my kids are proficient in literacy and in math,” and that’s exactly what we’re doing. The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act repatriates that power back to the people, puts parents in the driver’s seat, ensures transparency on school boards and benchmarks their performance according to academic achievement, which is what education is supposed to be about.

We have increased the funding, we’re increasing the expectations and we’re adding more staff to make sure that students are set up for long-term success.

You know, it’s pretty hard to support something that is very limiting. Well, they can go the full scope of implementing Indigenous anti-racism at these schools.

I outlined everything that I hoped to see. I just don’t—I spoke 20 minutes focusing on Indigenous things. I think for far too long we’ve been in the background, listening. When we look at post-secondary education—we’re not supposed to have post-secondary education. We’re not supposed to be here. And I think it’s important that you go further than that.

It’s pretty hard for me to be able to support this bill, the way it is right now.

Reconciliation is more than just putting up woodland art in these facilities. Reconciliation is more than just putting woodland art in your offices. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, and I think having Indigenous-led processes on how you’re going to engage with Indigenous communities towards reconciliation to make sure that they’re part of the decision-making processes within universities is really important.

I think I spoke about Lakehead and I speak about Con College here in Thunder Bay. I think it’s very important that some universities reach out to them.

Going back to mental health, there’s a lot of mental health issues happening in the north. To say things about mental health—I do support it—but I think what really speaks out is to start putting resources behind those announcements. It’s important that there’s resources for the colleges, that there’s mental health resources for the universities, as well, again to make sure that the students who are there are safe and to make sure that their well-being is considered.