Good morning to my fellow members on this apocalyptic-feeling morning in Toronto. I know it’s much, much worse in Ottawa. I’ve been getting many panicked messages from the capital. I just want to take a moment before I begin to remind people to stay indoors as much as you can, wear a mask when you’re outdoors, and if you’re feeling symptoms of chest pain or difficulty breathing, please seek medical attention.

Yesterday, when we ran out of time, I was speaking about special education funding in Ontario, which we know is not even remotely close to actually meeting the needs of children with disabilities and accessibility needs. The Toronto District School Board is spending $67.6 million more on special education than what they are getting from the province. The Lambton Kent District School Board reported that they are only getting enough funding from the government to cover one quarter of the actual cost of special education. Most school boards are in that position, spending millions of dollars—many of them ten of millions of dollars—more on special education than what they are getting from the government, and yet we still don’t have the supports necessary to enable the participation of all students in Ontario. What we’re seeing as a result is the exclusion of children with disabilities from our system.

In 2018, ARCH disability law firm sent a survey to parents of children with disabilities; 45% of respondents confirmed that at one time or another they had to keep their child home from school as a result of a lack of accommodations or other services. More than half of the parents also reported that their children’s day had been shortened, in many cases not because of the student’s needs but because of the needs of the school system, such as staff shortages or transportation issues.

ARCH called on the ministry at that time to develop reporting requirements for all forms of exclusions: formal exclusions where children are permanently sent home until a safety plan is in place and informal exclusions where children are being excluded for all or part of the day, whether one time or ongoing, because the system doesn’t have the resources to meet students’ needs. This demand has been echoed by the Ontario Autism Coalition, who, like many parents of students with disabilities, are seeing an alarming rise in the number of exclusions taking place. For some parents, it’s weekly or multiple times a week.

Since the government has ignored the demands to track and publicly report on all exclusions, we did it for them with an online form for parents to fill out every time their child was excluded from school. Our survey covers only a small snapshot of the number of children excluded from our schools, and yet we know that in a two-week period in May this year, there were at least 78 children who missed out on over 550 hours of school in Ontario—one third of those exclusions were for the full day. The most commonly cited reasons for the exclusion was a lack of staffing or a lack of staff trained to deal with complex behaviours.

One parent shared that their son was only allowed at school until 10:45 a.m. every day. Another parent with a son in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board says that her son is only allowed at school for two hours every day. She has no idea how he’s ever going to accumulate enough credits to graduate when he only gets to go to school for two hours. A parent with the Toronto District School Board said his son is 100% asynchronous because the school can’t meet his child’s safety needs. He completes work at home and hands it in, but doesn’t get to attend school at all.

The Ontario Autism Coalition calls exclusions “the dirty little secret of the education system,” and as I’ve been speaking with parents in many different situations, this has become very apparent to me. Most parents have no idea that this is going on in our education system every single day. If your child is neurotypical and has no disability, you can send them off to school all day, every day, without a second thought, but when your child has a disability or autism, or needs support of any kind, suddenly this becomes your reality.

We need to address exclusions and make sure that children with accessibility needs are able to actually attend our schools. Every child has the right to a quality and substantive education, but you can only get that education if you can actually go to school. The minister has said that even children with disabilities will learn to read under the new curriculum, but you can only learn to read if you can actually be at school.

But this government isn’t providing the funding necessary to allow all of our children to be at school with the supports they need to keep them safe and allow them to learn. Their funding falls so far short of what the costs of special education actually are, and on top of that, their increases have not kept up with inflation, so every single year their funding falls further behind.

And what we’re seeing now is really unconscionable because the government’s funding for our education system overall is not keeping pace with inflation and school boards need to implement cuts, and because school boards are spending tens of millions of dollars more than what they’re getting from the government on special education, it makes special education and supports for children with accessibility needs a big target for cuts. So across the province we are seeing special class placements for children with disabilities being ended and children being put into mainstream classes, but without the supports that would allow them to succeed in that setting.

In Ottawa, as the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is looking to eliminate a $19-million deficit this year, they are looking at cutting a summer program for students with disabilities that allows these students to learn important life skills and prevent their learning loss over summer.

Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a sports day event in my riding at Sir Guy Carleton Secondary School, which brought together students from a number of special education programs at schools across the city for a day of games. I had a great time playing Moon Ball and boccia ball with the kids. At the end of my visit, one of the teachers collared me and asked me to bring a message back here, that if we are doing things right, we would invest in kids with special needs first and foremost, knowing that if we are looking after their needs, we would have built a system that looks after the needs of all children. But, instead, what we have in the province is the inverse, a situation where these students are treated as an afterthought.

We had an opportunity to change that with Bill 98, but the government voted against every single amendment that would have required the full inclusion of students with disabilities. What the committee meetings made clear was that, on every issue, this bill was a lost opportunity to listen to the voices of people in this sector and actually address the challenges that this sector is facing. The government’s refusal to consult with trustees, teachers and education workers was deeply disrespectful, but it also means that we have a bill that doesn’t take into account the realities of our education system on the ground.

As the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association pointed out, along with school boards from around the province who sent in their own submissions, a one-size-fits-all model where everything can be dictated from Toronto does not reflect the different circumstances of communities around the province and ignores what local communities are identifying as priorities to their locally elected trustees. School boards need flexibility to be able to meet the needs of the population they serve.

We see this in Ottawa all the time, when the government even remembers that we exist: assumptions that Ottawa is just like a mini-Toronto. But we have our own unique culture and very different needs, including the fact that Ottawa is far more bilingual than Toronto, that we have a very large urban Indigenous population and that our physical territory is incredibly large and includes rural areas.

The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board is another example of how diverse circumstances can be. They are the only school board to have signed three education service agreements with local First Nations. Each of those service agreements is different because they reflect the unique circumstances of the First Nations. What happens now if Toronto is dictating one-size-fits-all requirements to Kawartha Pine Ridge?

Trustees also asked some good questions about accountability, because everyone gets to vote for their local school board trustee but only the Premier gets to select the Minister of Education. But this bill gives the Minister of Education the power to micromanage school boards without ever giving them the resources that are necessary for success. In fact, there’s a real concern that Bill 98 could be setting up school boards to fail.

We also heard from teachers at the committee who expressed serious frustration at the government’s repeated unwillingness to listen to the people who are actually working in our schools, in our classrooms every single day, about what is happening in our classrooms and what is needed to support our children. In fact, none of the teachers’ unions were consulted on this legislation. It takes a lot of hubris to put forward legislation to provide better student outcomes and not even talk to the people in the province who have the most experience in pedagogy and are working with our children every single day.

What we heard from teachers at committee mirrors what I hear every day from teachers and education workers across the province. This government is refusing to acknowledge, let alone address, what the real challenges in our education system are.

As OSSTF said in their brief to the committee, “This government has overseen our public education system for five years. They have had the responsibility to focus on student success and achievement, on preparing students for life and work. How have they discharged that critical responsibility? By seeking to drastically increase class sizes, by forcing students to earn credits online away from classmates, teachers and other supports.”

We know what the solutions are, Speaker. We have known for a long time. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association and the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens all reminded us of these solutions yet again in committee.

We need to invest in lower class sizes in elementary and secondary schools to provide more supports and more one-on-one student-teacher interaction.

We need to provide the immediate and real funding necessary to truly provide extra math and literacy supports for students and address the teacher shortage and the fact that 40,000 teachers in Ontario are currently certified but don’t want to work in the system under this government.

We need a real, sustained investment into mental health resources and services, including making sure that every single school has regularly scheduled and sufficient access to at least one qualified mental health professional.

We need to stop underfunding special education.

We need to stop the expansion of online learning, which fails the overwhelming majority of students.

We need to address the epidemic of violence in our schools with mental health resources, additional staff and training on intervention and de-escalation.

And we need the government to start working collaboratively and respectfully with teachers and education workers instead of consistently undermining and disrespecting them, to listen to them and respect educators experience and expertise.

One of the things that we should listen to them about is that Right to Read has to be accompanied by necessary funding, by the necessary professional development, or it will not succeed. A ministerial priority is not like a magic wand that the minister can wave and suddenly it happens in schools across the province. The funding needs to be there. The supports need to be there. The teachers and education workers need the time to spend with children if we are really going to ensure that every child in Ontario learns to read.

The final concern that I want to highlight this morning is the changes this bill makes around technical apprenticeships. I don’t think there’s anyone here who disputes the importance of technical learning and of creating hands-on learning opportunities for students. But we have to get it right, Speaker, to make sure that it doesn’t end up putting the safety or the futures of students at risk. What we have here is a policy proposal with no details attached. The government is asking us to rubber-stamp a high-level concept with no idea of how it will actually be put into practice, how it will impact students and who will be consulted in its development. Once again, the government is saying, “Just trust us.”

But the safety and education of students is too important to rubber-stamp a legislative proposal on the basis of “just trust us.” We can only support the idea if we know that the details are right for students. And here is what we know so far:

The government didn’t consult with a single union—not the teachers unions or the trades unions.

We don’t know what fields will be included and how students will select a field and what measures there will be to make sure that students will actually be able to advance in their chosen career if they choose this apprenticeship.

We don’t know what oversight there will be for safety, which should be paramount.

We don’t know whether these apprenticeships will be overseen by a teacher, which is necessary for a credit in Ontario.

And we don’t know whether the apprenticeship will count towards an Ontario secondary school diploma or if students will be expected to apply on their own for a GED as adult learners.

We know it makes a significant difference to futures whether or not people have an Ontario secondary school diploma. This could end up closing the door on many future employment opportunities. In fact, I’ve heard concerns from many stakeholders and the committee heard from parents of Black children that if we don’t do this carefully, it will end up being a reintroduction of streaming, taking away opportunities from Black and racialized children and closing doors for them instead of opening them. Francophone stakeholders have asked where the apprenticeship opportunities will be for French-language students or if this is only going to be available to English students in Ontario.

The government has not done their homework here, Speaker. They need to go away, do the work, have the consultations, put the meat on the bones and develop a real policy with safeguards in place to protect students before they ask for legislative approval. This is putting the cart before the horse and asking us to approve a policy that could end up being incredibly detrimental to students and their safety. We just can’t do that. That would be a dereliction of our duty as legislators.

Imagine if one of my voters in Ottawa West–Nepean asks me to explain why we have this program in place that is putting student safety at risk a year or two from now, and my answer is that I voted for it not knowing the details because it sounded like a good idea. I’m sure they would be asking themselves—and they would be right to—why they are even sending me here if I’m voting in favour of something without even knowing what the details will be. They didn’t elect a rubber stamp. They elected someone who would stand up for them and look out for their interests.

I would encourage members on the other side to be asking themselves if their constituents elected a rubber stamp and if they are prepared to be a rubber stamp on a proposal that could put student safety at risk, that tramples on the constitutional rights of Franco-Ontarians and that fails to respect the rights of students with disabilities in Ontario. Or if they were elected to actually listen to people, to listen to different perspectives, to work with people and to try to identify solutions that would ensure that we are putting student safety and student outcomes first and supporting the teachers, education workers, principals and administrators who are working with our children every single day, supporting the local school board trustees who fight hard every day to make sure that our children have the resources that they need, and whether they are prepared to listen to Ontarians, vote no to a proposal that will not support students, and actually stand up and support better funding, better resources and better outcomes for students in Ontario.

Last week, a letter from a teacher warned that students and staff at Tomken Road Middle School do not feel safe going to school. Tomken Road is far from alone. Violence in our schools is reaching a crisis level, but instead of investing in mental health supports and additional staff, this government offers nothing but platitudes. In fact, school boards are being forced to cut safety monitors and child and youth workers.

What will it take for the Premier to finally make the investments needed to keep students and workers in our schools safe?

Every day, students with autism and disabilities are being excluded from our schools, because the supports are not there to keep them safe at school. We did a survey of parents which shows only a small snapshot of the problem, and shows that at least 78 kids with special needs missed out on more than 555 hours of school in just the past two weeks.

Knowing the extent of the problem is the first step to fixing it. Will the government finally listen to parents, like the parents from the Ontario Autism Coalition, and finally track and publicly report on all exclusions in our schools?

Speaker, 12 days ago, an ice storm knocked out power in parts of Ottawa once again, including large parts of Ottawa West–Nepean. For the second time in less than a year, the power was out for multiple days, with some residents waiting up to four days to have power restored. And once again, residents in apartments and condo buildings were trapped in their own homes for multiple days with no access to food, water or medical care.

Lynn Ashdown, who uses a wheelchair and has now been trapped three times in her home for multiple days, was so struck by the trauma of the situation that she threw up as soon as the power went out.

Residents of apartment buildings like the Minto-owned building at 1343 Meadowlands were once again reaching out to my office to plead for help as they were trapped without water and elevators.

These residents cannot fathom why the government would not support legislation that could easily prevent situations like this from happening.

It is absolutely shameful that the government is siding with big real estate investment trusts against people with disabilities, seniors, parents of small children, and others with mobility issues who are experiencing extreme hardship and trauma every time the power goes out.

We need legislation to protect the safety and human rights of every Ontarian in an emergency.

Shame on this government for making people like Lynn and the residents of 1343 Meadowlands suffer repeatedly.

During pre-budget hearings in Ottawa, we heard from the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board about the resources they need for a strong education system that meets the needs of Ontario students. In particular, we heard that schools are unlikely to meet the 2025 deadline for full accessibility set out by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act because funding for building repairs and retrofits has fallen short over the last 25 years.

Making sure that every student has equal access to education is a priority for Ontarians. Will this government provide the necessary funding to make schools accessible in this year’s budget?

The finance committee also heard about the importance of ensuring that children can access mental health programming through their schools. Unfortunately, a new report has shown that less than one in 10 schools have access to a regularly scheduled mental health specialist or nurse.

Ensuring that children have the support they need to succeed in the classroom and that teachers and education workers have the support they need to do their jobs is a priority for the people of Ontario. Is it a priority for this government? Will they include funding for mental health supports in schools in this budget?

When the Minister of Education promised a normal, stable and enjoyable school year, he forgot to mention the asterisk that said, “kids with accessibility needs not included.” Every day, children with disabilities are being sent home because there is no EA available to support them—kids like Desmond, whose mom has to keep picking him up from Cootes Paradise Elementary School in Hamilton because of an EA shortage.

Why is the Minister of Education refusing to provide the supports children need to be at school?