We’re here for this late show debate tonight because this government just won’t take seriously the conditions in our provincial schools. Students, parents, alumni, teachers and advocates have been raising concerns for years. They’ve been trying to get meetings with the minister or the deputy minister but have been stonewalled. Journalists have reached out to get answers and have gotten the blow-off from the ministry.

So earlier this week, I asked the minister what it’s going to take for him to act. Sadly, Speaker, the students, the families, the teachers who are waiting for answers still did not get any. These schools serve children who are deaf, blind, visually impaired and deaf-blind. These are some of our most vulnerable students in Ontario. They deserve more attention and care, not less. But these kids are being forced to learn in horrendous conditions, conditions that no parent in Ontario would find acceptable for their children, and these schools are under the direct control of the Minister of Education. He could change things today if he wanted to.

The minister said he needed to introduce Bill 98 because school boards weren’t doing a good enough job so he needed to have more say on how schools are run in Ontario. Well, here are the schools that he oversees personally, and look what kind of shape they’re in: serious allegations of abuse, discrimination and neglect; severe teacher shortages—in fact, 17% of the teaching workforce—crumbling and unsafe buildings and children not getting access to the facilities and services they need to learn life skills safely; safety plans that are so absurd that when I tell people about them they think I’m joking because they can’t believe that any serious school in Ontario would do this. That’s the minister’s record.

Let’s look more closely at what’s happening in these schools on the minister’s watch. Students are travelling up to an hour and a half to school by bus, but because supervision doesn’t begin until the school day starts, they’re left waiting outside for half an hour when they arrive. They don’t have access to a bathroom, so some students have had to resort to urinating outside. Because they communicate with their hands, they have no option but to take their gloves off even when it’s minus 15 outside. Once they’re allowed in the building, students are being forced into large classes that exceed safety regulations because the teaching workforce has been reduced by 25% over recent years and there are not enough occasional teachers to fill gaps when teachers are sick or on leave. In fact, there are so many staff shortages that students are frequently arriving at their classroom to find a note on the door stating there is no teacher for the day and they’re to go to the library instead. Teachers who provide specific support, such as the special education resource teacher or the oral language teacher, are being pulled from their assignments to cover classrooms instead. If there’s an emergency during the day, a hearing teacher needs to be alerted because there is no way for a non-hearing teacher to call for help, and many of these teachers are non-hearing teachers.

At Ernest C. Drury, such emergencies were initially dealt with by requiring the classroom teacher to leave the room in the middle of an emergency and find another teacher or student to hand a card to. After this system was criticized as ineffective by an inspector from the Ministry of Labour, the school implemented a new system which requires classroom teachers to ring a cowbell, which obviously no deaf or hard-of-hearing student or teacher can hear.

Following a violent incident at one of the schools in December 2022, the Ministry of Labour flagged that student safety plans had not been updated for years. One of the reasons they weren’t being updated was because the special education resource teacher was being called upon repeatedly to fill in for classroom teachers.

Students are also not getting assessments. When the chief psychologist resigned in 2022, he stated in his resignation letter that senior management had removed all of his clinical duties and prevented him from explaining to parents why their children weren’t getting assessments. He further said he was forced by senior management to prioritize care to children whose parents had hired a lawyer or complained to their MPP.

I could go on, Speaker, with another five minutes of disturbing stories about what’s happening in these schools. But let me just conclude with a question. Why, if the minister thinks things are so great in these schools, is the government facing three new lawsuits only a couple of years after the province paid out $23 million to settle two class action lawsuits? Does the minister think that a lawsuit is a sign of success?

Students at Ontario’s provincial schools are some of the most vulnerable students in our province, yet they are being forced to learn in horrific conditions. There are allegations of abuse, discrimination and neglect; a serious teacher shortage; crumbling school buildings; and absurd emergency response plans.

These schools are the direct responsibility of the Minister of Education. He could change things today if he wanted to. Students, parents, alumni, teachers and advocates have been begging him for years to act.

Will the minister finally take action and do something to protect these children?

—a school with deaf students and deaf staff using a cowbell as the emergency alert system;

—students having class in the bathroom because it’s the only place warm enough to take off their mittens, and they need to use their hands to communicate;

—students only getting assessments if their parents hire a lawyer or complain to their MPP;

—two class action lawsuits in the past 10 years, with the province paying $23 million in settlements, and yet there are currently no less than three new lawsuits filed or pending.

Is this a record that the minister is proud of? What is it going to take for him to finally act?