Thank you for the opportunity to rise in this House and speak to my honourable colleagues. As other members are aware, Speaker, I am a mother, and I was an advocate for improved mental health services before I was elected as the member of provincial Parliament for Burlington.

As the member for Burlington, one of my proudest moments was just over a year ago, when our government made mental health literacy courses mandatory for grade 10 students, to help them recognize signs of stress and anxiety and tell them how to seek out help. On that day, Speaker, we also announced new learning materials for grade 7 and 8 students that will help them manage stress, recognize the signs and symptoms of a mental health concern, understand the relationship between mental health and mental illness, and counteract mental health stigma.

Speaker, I would not and could not support this government if I believed that either the Minister of Education or the Premier was not serious about addressing the challenges of student mental health. Needless to say, both the minister and the Premier understand that mental health is health, and that it is essential for student achievement and success.

Our government strongly believes in mentally healthy classrooms and learning environments, and in effective and responsive school mental health supports. That’s why the Ontario government is investing $117.65 million in student mental health supports for this coming year. I know my colleagues have heard this number several times today, but I think it’s worth repeating: $117.65 million, amounting to an increase of 577% since 2017-18, when the Liberals were last in power. So it amazes me, Speaker, that the NDP would claim that our government is somehow underfunding student mental health, and it appalls me that they would make this claim for political benefit. Our government listens to parents. We are strongly committed to providing improved student mental health supports and ensuring our schools are safe and welcoming learning centres for all students.

Just last month, Speaker, Ontario introduced the most comprehensive plan in Canada to reduce distractions in classrooms and improve the health of children by strengthening the rules around students caught using or carrying vapes or cigarettes in school, and cracking down on cellphone usage during class time. Parents were loud and clear: They don’t want their kids exposed to cigarettes or vaping products, and they want cellphones to be put away during class time. The experts told us that excessive cellphone usage has a negative impact on student mental health, as it can lead to depression and anxiety, and it can put students of risk of abuse, cyberbullying or invasion of privacy. We listened, and we took action.

Our government didn’t just strengthen the rules, Speaker; we are also investing $17.5 million in new wraparound supports, including:

—$15 million to provide supports for students at risk of addictive behaviours;

—$1 million to partner with School Mental Health Ontario to help parents and students learn to talk about the adverse effects of vaping and excessive cellphone usage; and

—$1.5 million to parent-involvement committees and students to run local prevention campaigns to help deter vaping and cellphone distractions.

In addition, Speaker, Ontario is now the first province in Canada to have a province-wide social media ban on school networks and devices. Speaker, we made that announcement because students deserve a school environment that is safe from distractions and peer pressures so students can focus on learning.

All students deserve the opportunity to achieve lifelong success, and the investments we are making in student mental health supports will ensure that help is available when students need it.

Further debate?

Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to stand in this chamber and speak on the issue of great importance to Ontario families. During the last election, Speaker, I knocked on a lot of doors. Most of the residents I met were very supportive of our government, but sometimes I ran into people who accused us of making cuts to education. When I told them we were making record investments in public education and that our government has increased education funding every year since we were first elected in 2018, they said they simply hadn’t heard that before.

There’s lots of misinformation out there, but here’s the truth: We are making the largest investment in public education in our province’s history. Let me reiterate a few numbers cited by the minister.

For the 2024-25 school year, we are delivering $29 billion in total education funding. Core education funding includes an addition of $745 million over the 2023-24 school year, which is a 2.7% increase. Mental health funding is up by 577% since 2017-18. Special education funding is being increased to $3.5 billion. After a decade when the Liberals closed over 600 schools, we are doubling the funding to $1.3 billion for the single-largest one-year investment in school building in Ontario history.

These are record investments in public education, yet the NDP somehow believes we are making “cuts.” If we were to double that $29 billion to $58 billion, the NDP would still claim that we are underfunding education. The NDP’s approach is to throw money at problems and then raise taxes to throw even more money at problems.

When it comes to public policy analysis, the NDP and the Liberals focus entirely on inputs. Inputs are important, but you also have to focus on outputs or the overall job the education system is doing.

When our government took office in 2018, the education was failing to prepare young people for the workforce. Thanks to the Liberals’ discovery math introduced years ago, 52% of grade 6 students couldn’t meet the provincial standard in math according to the 2018-19 results from the EQAO.

For that reason, we overhauled the math curriculum, and we are going back to basics to really drill down on core reading, writing and math competencies. I believe we are on the right track, and we can see that in the fact that 89% of high school students graduate within five years. That’s up from 85% just a few years ago.

We still have some underperforming school boards, which is why our government passed the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023, better known as Bill 98. School boards oversee a $29-billion education system, so it’s critically important that they are accountable to parents and taxpayers. Our government passed Bill 98 to enhance the accountability and transparency of school boards, improve their governance and leadership, maximize the capital assets of school boards and ensure that school boards are focused on what matters most: student achievement and preparing young people for the jobs of tomorrow.

Passing Bill 98 was a key step toward getting Ontario’s education system back on track. Our province is in the midst of a historic skilled labour shortage. We are going to need at least 100,000 additional skilled trades workers over the next decade to build housing for a growing population. Our government understands that the public education system has a critical role to play in addressing this challenge. For that reason, we are providing school boards with record funding, while at the same time updating the curriculum and demanding greater accountability from school board leaders.

Inputs are important, Speaker, but so are outputs. You can’t simply throw more money at problems, just like the NDP seems to believe.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise and to speak on behalf of the great people of Toronto Centre.

As I was listening to the Minister of Education’s debate remarks, I couldn’t help but feel that if this chamber was actually filled with parents and students, what a tragedy it would be for them to come out to this House and to have the Minister of Education essentially vilify them. If you were a family, parents and students living in urban centres, that would hurt double as much, because he did take aim specifically at families and students living in urban centres, and specifically downtown Toronto.

As a parent from downtown Toronto, I can tell you that my worries are the same as every other parent in Ontario. I want to make sure that my kid and all children in Ontario have access to a high-quality public education. It’s absolutely critical for us to invest in education because that’s a great equalizer for every student, every child in this province.

It really goes to the heart of the values that this government believes in. Will you be investing in education to support our students? Will you be investing in the education system to ensure that teachers and administrators have the resources that they need in order for them to deliver the high-quality education that every student deserves?

The motion is actually very simple, Speaker. The motion is simply asking the government of Ontario to substantially increase the funding for public education in Ontario so that every child receives the high-quality education they deserve, regardless of their family’s income. What could be more Canadian in Ontario than that?

But the government is doing exactly the opposite. For six years they’ve had a chance to increase funding to ensure that education receives the resources to allow success in Ontario, and they’ve done exactly the opposite. They have been defunding education, less and less every single year. They’re leaning right in to shrinkflation, which means that your money is buying you less every year in households across Ontario, and the same thing is now happening in the government’s coffers. Classrooms are oversized—30, 31, 32, 34, 38 students in a classroom. Now put in five or six students with developmental delays, global delays, autism and you’ve got a recipe for disaster, which is why we are hearing from educators, principals, parents and students themselves that the rise of violence is across Ontario.

These are choices being made by the government, choices that can be reversed if the government prioritizes student education as they say they do. But we know they don’t, because if they did they would put their money where their mouths are. Otherwise, they’ll stand up and they will insult the opposition, they will vilify unions and teachers, as they have done so on and on again, because they’re scapegoating them for their failed government policies.

Speaker, I’m just going to end by sharing a story very quickly from Chelsea, who is a teacher of grade 8 students in my community. She wants the government to understand that teachers are drowning. They are not successful at this moment because they’ve been underfunded, and the burnout is high. As much as they love their job—and they do, Speaker—they can’t hold on forever. They’ll be forced to walk away if this government doesn’t reverse its course. The stakes are too high. I hope they consider.

I’m proud to rise today as someone who served on the Thames Valley District School Board as a trustee for 13 years. I was elected in 2000, at a time when public education was under attack by a former Conservative government, and today I am proud to be part of the official opposition caucus that is once again fighting for public education against a Conservative government that wants students to fail.

Speaker, this government does not understand the importance of a strong publicly funded education system. They don’t understand what happens to students and parents when education funding declines.

One of my favourite quotes about education is that it’s the great equalizer and the great escalator. It ensures that every child, regardless of their background, is able to participate and benefit from the education system, and it also ensures that kids get the support that they need to reach their full potential. But what we have seen under this government is a $1,500 decrease in per-student funding since 2018. OPSBA, the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, says in fact that this is the lowest per-student level of funding in 10 years.

What happens when education is underfunded, and especially at a time when community services are also being underfunded? It means that kids in our schools go without support. It means that kids with the highest needs, kids who are already marginalized, are hurt the most. It means violence is normalized in our schools. We’re seeing a spike in violent incidents that we haven’t seen before. It means teachers are leaving the profession. It means EA positions are not being filled, because the jobs don’t pay enough, the jobs are dangerous and the jobs are not respected by this government. It means shortages in administration.

Speaker, we need to see this government come forward with funding that is going to enable all of our kids to succeed. I call on this government: Support this motion. Invest in education, invest in our kids and invest in the future of our province.

Further debate?

It’s a pleasure—and an honour, actually—to be in this House fighting for public education today. Like my colleague, as a former trustee and former president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association, public education is always worth fighting for. I will tell you that it made a substantive difference in my life. I would not be here today if I did not have a strong public education system to help me reach my potential.

What the Minister of Education doesn’t seem to understand is that learning conditions and environments are working conditions. The fact that he doesn’t seem to understand what’s actually happening in our system is truly concerning, I would say. For instance, in Waterloo region, there are huge concerns around the use of non-teachers working in classrooms, which has skyrocketed because schools can’t find enough supply teachers.

Five years ago, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board reported that around a hundred times a month they used non-teachers in their classrooms. Today, that number is 899 times every month—this is Patrick Etmanski, who is the president of the Waterloo Catholic teachers. They have said that this trend is so alarming, because students are often left without a teacher in the classroom. I can tell you, the failure to fill in our schools is changing the culture of the school. These are facts for the Minister of Education.

On the public side: “The Waterloo Region District School Board has had as many 600 days a month over the winter, and about 200-300 days a month ... when no teacher was available.” This is coming from Nathan Core, who heads the Waterloo region occasional teachers.

The fact that the minister was talking about these downtown NDP schools—my husband teaches in a rural high school in Wilmot. These kids are still struggling with a student transportation model that fails every single day. Getting students safely to schools is kind of important, Madam Speaker, and it’s not something that you do on the back burner, if you will.

This is what we’re hearing from teachers who are in the classroom, who have the lived experience of what’s actually happening in our education system. I would encourage the Minister of Education to actually get into a public school, Madam Speaker. This is what they say: “The job has changed in such a way that teachers are leaving the profession in numbers that we’ve never seen before.” It has never been this bad in this province on the education file.

I mean, you’ve been very systematic about undermining health care. Now, the post-secondary education is undermined. Child care—what a mess on the child care file. But we’re actually reporting what’s happening in public education schools. This deserves the government’s attention. The fact that the minister refuses to acknowledge that qualified, trained staff keep students safe is also very alarming for us.

I want to say that we have seen past Conservative governments systematically undermine public education. We are still feeling the effects of the Mike Harris government removing shops and the industrial studies programs as we face a skilled worker shortage in Ontario.

So we know where we stand. These are targeted resources—targeted, trained staff that improve the quality of the education system in Ontario. You will never do it unless you have the confidence and the belief in the very people in the system and, clearly, this Minister of Education does not.

Further debate?

Actually, I want to stay on this and talk about something that the minister said: That basically, on this side of the House, we don’t care about education or our kids. I think that was a terrible comment, quite frankly.

I have three beautiful daughters. I have a lovely wife. My wife was a teacher for 30 years. My daughter Tara-Lynn works with special-needs kids in the Catholic school board—very, very challenging, particularly with the underfunding. EAs are understaffed. My daughter, who I just messaged just now, works at St. Nick’s in St. Catharines. It’s a very low—the parents make very little money; you know what I’m saying.

Interjection: Low-income.

And do you know what? That’s my daughters. So to stand up and say I don’t care about education is a lie, and you guys shouldn’t lie in this House like that. It is unbelievable that he said that today. I am extremely upset about it, because I know what my daughters and my wife do. Do you know what they—

But I’ll tell you what my wife and my daughters do when they go out on a Saturday night for a social. Do you know what they do? If you’re going to give them anything, they’re the most boring people to be married to, because all they do is talk about their kids, because they love little Johnny. They want it better for little Johnny. They want to make sure he gets an education. How many times have my wife or my daughters taken a sandwich to school, or an apple, because there are kids there that don’t have that opportunity to have a sandwich? We know, with our cuts to our nutrition programs. So when you stand up, it’s not accurate, and I’m really upset about that.

The last thing that I’m going to talk about, because my time probably ran out—I don’t get a lot of time to talk—is they talk about how on side of the House, we’re not standing up for bringing retirees back into schools. Why don’t you hire more teachers who are coming out, who need a job? The reason why they’re retiring—the reason my wife retired is she’s tired. She’s exhausted. For her, it was not easy going to school every day. She decided to retire to take care of her family—her mom and her dad.

You say, “Well, they only care about seniority.” Yes, you’re darn right we care about seniority. I support unions; he said he doesn’t. He thinks that they should be able to pick and choose who they want. The reason why you join a union is because you want to have seniority rights. So that was wrong.

The last thing I’ll talk about—that was supposed to be the last thing. This is the last thing. How many remember, two years ago, when they attacked the workers and the EAs with the “notwithstanding” clause? How many remember that?

It’s an honour to be able to stand today and talk about increasing the funding for education.

Last constituency week, I went to visit a public school. We all like to visit schools. I’m not going to mention where this school was; it certainly wasn’t in downtown Toronto. We had a half-hour discussion with the kids about them. It was a grade 5 and 6. They were talking about things like evacuations of classrooms when someone got violent. They were talking about how they didn’t feel safe in the washroom.

When they realized that I stood here and that I could talk to the Minister of Education, I asked the kids, “If there’s one thing that I could ask the Minister of Education, what would it be?” And one little girl put up her hand and she said, “A fan”—a fan, because there’s only one window, and she went and she showed the window—“and sometimes, like, it’s so hot in here that we can’t work.” A fan.

They’re trying to say that we’ve got adequate funding in our public school system and they’re down to the point of a grade 5 kid—her class needs a fan. There are serious problems. We need to fix them.

C’est important de comprendre que, dans les écoles francophones, le manque de ressources veut dire que si tu as un enfant avec des besoins spéciaux, on va te dire : « Inscris-le pas dans une école francophone. Envoie-le dans une école anglophone, parce qu’ils ont plus de chance d’avoir les ressources dont ils ont besoin pour s’occuper de tes enfants. »

Les enfants francophones ont droit à une éducation en français. Mais quand le gouvernement refuse de financer nos écoles de façon appropriée, ça veut dire que nos enfants, nos francophones, n’auront pas la chance d’aller dans une école française.

Ça, c’est sur vos épaules. On peut changer ça aujourd’hui en passant la motion que ma chef a mise de l’avant.

I would just like to highlight I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga–Malton, as well as the member for Oakville. Madam Speaker, I’m pleased to be here before you to discuss Bill 180, Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024.

Madam Speaker, our government is always keeping the needs of Ontarians firmly in sight. Every day across the province, people are headed to their place of work or the businesses they own. Patients are headed to their health clinic. Students are headed to their classrooms. Young families are headed to daycares or their play dates. Seniors are headed to meet their friends at the park for some exercise and some socializing. It is these people, Madam Speaker, who we keep in our sights and for whom we’ve prepared our 2024 budget and the measures found in Bill 180. That’s because they’re going about their lives despite the challenges of our times.

Despite a challenging global economic situation, our government is moving forward with our plan and building a better Ontario for them. People in governments around the world today are seeing and coping with high interest rates and global instability. Like people everywhere, governments have to make plans and decisions in light of these rates and this instability.

I stand before you today and say that, with this reality in mind, our government remains on a path to build for the long term while keeping costs down now for Ontarians. This is reflected in our budget with our proposal to extend the gas and fuel tax cuts to continue helping families and businesses when the cost of living is simply too high.

It is also reflected in our work to support our historic and vital investments in infrastructure across the province through the Building Ontario Fund. It is reflected in our changes to the Liquor Tax Act to help supply and support Ontario’s world-class winery sector.

It’s always a good thing to get up in the people’s House and talk about public education.

This is the question I want to ask in the three minutes I have this afternoon: I wonder how often the minister over there thinks about the people we are losing every day in our public schools. And I’m not just talking about the staff who may decide to leave. I’m talking about the kids who are excluded from class. I’m talking about the kids who feel like they don’t belong in our schools. And why? Because they need more support.

What’s on the chopping block right now back home? Special education.

Albert Einstein, high-school dropout—how many other wonderful minds, even if they aren’t geniuses of that calibre, are we prepared to lose because this minister can’t figure out what inflation means? This minister can’t figure out that the amount of money you spend in 2018 is not what you need to spend now to at least keep things moving. It’s a wilful refusal.

The question, again, I will ask rhetorically now is, who are we losing as this minister decides to throttle the funds of public education?

I will submit to you, Speaker, we are losing autistic kids, we’re losing dyslexic kids, we’re losing kids with anxiety disorders—kids who are brilliant, compassionate, wonderful people, who need help at that stage of their life. We stand at risk of losing them.

My friend from Thunder Bay–Superior North has the role now, but when I had the honour of being the disabilities critic in this province, the amount of disabled adults I talked to who had interacted with the corrections system, who had a hard time holding down work because they felt like they weren’t smart enough and they were told and they felt like they weren’t worth anything—the staff in our public school system stand ready and stand prepared to help those kids, but they can’t do it at a ratio of 24 to 1, or in JK, like 32 to 1, when half the class are on individual education programs. It’s an impossible task.

If one actually is a Conservative, I would like to say that an important thing you’re concerned about is waste. So how many kids and how many people in our system are we wasting wilfully because we refuse to invest in them?

We’ve got $600 million for a parking garage for a spa, or we have billions in potential money that we hand over to real estate speculators and real estate investment trusts, but we do not have money for disabled kids, and we do not have money for the staff who are prepared to help them.

Who are we losing? That’s my question this afternoon.

If we vote for this motion and we say as a House that public education requires investment kept up with inflation, then we are speaking the honest truth and putting our faith in the staff and the kids who deserve our help.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for putting this on the floor.

I will try to be brief.

We heard a lot of very audacious comments this morning, where we heard that funding has increased, when, in fact, it has decreased. And then, at some point, the minister said, ‘Well, actually, no, we do have less funding, but we’re expecting more, we want more for less,” which, of course, means that no, you did not increase funding; you’ve decreased funding. Did you increase staff? No, you have decreased staff.

There’s constant magic with numbers from this minister in particular. People need to look at actually how those numbers play out in the individual schools and individual classrooms, because teachers are suffering, kids are suffering. Everybody I hear from, whether it’s the board, administrators, teachers, parents, students, they’re all frustrated. Classroom sizes are too big.

I want to think about the great Cindy Blackstock, who always says you show what you care about by where you put your money. The money is not being put in public education. I would love to see the mandate letter for this minister because, again, the people I know working throughout the system—and I have taught in the system and I have taught in the faculty of education. I do know something about pedagogy, and I believe this minister has no idea. What’s in the mandate letter? I would really like to know what’s in the mandate letter.

I know I need to be very brief. The transportation funding: There’s a lot of magic with numbers there, because it says it’s increased, but actually something else was put into that portfolio, so it’s not comparable anymore. Students in my region are going to be walking very long distances on roads with no sidewalks, in 30-degree-below-zero weather, on streets that aren’t plowed, and when there are sidewalks, half the time they’re not plowed either. It is not safe. Children are having to cross the Trans-Canada Highway in order to walk to school. It is not acceptable.

It’s time for me to stop, so I will just say I completely support this motion. It’s time that the government acknowledge that they’ve been steadfastly cutting funding to education.

I remember.

I’m glad you remember.

I’m just going to sit down and say, “Support this motion,” because the most important thing is a publicly funded, publicly delivered education system in the province of Ontario. And stop trying to privatize it.

Je vais essayer de mettre le plus de points que je peux dans le temps que j’ai. C’est important que je parle aujourd’hui, parce que quand on pense que le ministère dit qu’ils ont, tu sais, des millions—lui, il parle de gros chiffres, mais la réalité des faits c’est qu’ils investissent moins de 1 500 $ par étudiant.

Moi, je peux parler par expérience, puisque j’ai mon épouse—et j’ai ma fille qui travaille dans le milieu de l’éducation comme aide-enseignante. Ma fille est qualifiée. Elle a été préparée pour être capable de protéger les enfants. Quand un enfant est en crise, c’est ma fille qui va aller traiter avec cet enfant-là en crise.

Mais je peux vous dire, madame la Présidente, que les temps sont difficiles, puisqu’elle pense même quitter son emploi—qu’elle aime. Elle est dans son milieu et elle veut continuer à travailler, mais à cause d’un manque de financement, de bonnes heures de travail—elle a un bon salaire, mais il n’y a pas d’heures. Elle a un bon salaire.

Mais ce qui est important de dire, par exemple, c’est qu’on a besoin d’un gouvernement qui reconnaît le travail qu’ils font, et qu’il devrait les rembourser.

Je vais laisser la parole à ma collègue qui vient d’arriver. Elle aussi veut parler en français sur le sujet.

Further debate?

I recognize the leader of the official opposition on her reply.

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? I heard a no.

All those in favour of the motion will please say “aye.”

All those opposed to the motion will please say “nay.”

In my opinion, the ayes have it.

Call in the members. This will be a 10-minute bell.

The division bells rang from 1452 to 1502.

All those in favour of the motion will please rise one at a time and be recognized by the Clerk.

Motion negatived.

Mr. Bethlenfalvy moved third reading of the following bill:

Bill 180, An Act to implement Budget measures and to enact and amend various statutes / Projet de loi 180, Loi visant à mettre en oeuvre les mesures budgétaires et à édicter et à modifier diverses lois.

Je voudrais remercier mes collègues.

I want to thank my colleagues for their comments this afternoon. I want to note in particular the experience that every one of the caucus members on this side brought, the care, the thought that went into their comments.

I will say that I found it very difficult to hear the Minister of Education stand up and wave away the many significant issues and concerns that we have raised here today. There is no denying the state of our schools today. There is no denying that our kids are studying and working in overcrowded classrooms. There is no denying that our education workers and our students are experiencing more violence in classrooms than ever before.

I heard some of the members opposite, when one of my colleagues mentioned Kevlar, scoff at that. This is a reality. This is a reality that education workers in this province are facing every day. I heard the members opposite in the government talk about the fact that they were so proud of all of the hiring they’re doing. My goodness, where are they?

We, I think, have made a very clear case for the fact that our students are suffering, that our parents suffering, that they are bearing the literal cost of these additional resources. Right now, parents cannot put up with anything else.

We, in the opposition, will not put up with this government’s creating of a crisis in our education system. We will fight tooth and nail to save that public education system. It is the cornerstone of our democracy. We will stand for it.

I really do hope that the members opposite, that the government, support this excellent motion. Why would we not throw everything we can to support our public education system in this province?