Our schools are experiencing a violence crisis and it is taking a serious toll on teachers. Some 80% of ETFO members have either personally experienced or witnessed violence. Some of these are life-changing injuries, yet the minister’s plan to address violence is to spend 14 cents per day per child on student safety. That’s just not enough when teachers are already going to school in Kevlar and classes are being evacuated daily.

When will we see a serious plan from the Minister of Education to protect children and workers in our schools?

A quarter of elementary schools and a third of secondary schools have daily staff shortages. There are more resignations than retirements in the education system. High-quality education requires a qualified educator, but this minister is doing everything he can to drive them away.

Parents know that teachers and education workers are the backbone of our education system. Why doesn’t the minister think they deserve respect?

When teachers have to go to school in Kevlar, it’s clear that the government’s approach is not working.

More than two in five ETFO members have suffered a physical or psychological injury because of the increased workplace violence, and this problem will only worsen if we continue down this path.

Our kids need supports. They need EAs. They need access to mental health professionals. And they need a government that actually cares.

Why is this government continuing to dodge responsibility for the structural issues causing violence in our schools?

Violence in our schools is reaching deeply concerning levels. Yesterday, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario reported that 77% of their members have personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against another staff person. Crowded classrooms, lack of supports, and underfunding on mental health are all contributing to this crisis. But instead of addressing this problem, the Premier is busy musing about parents hitting kids at home.

The tools to address this crisis are in the Premier’s hands. When will he invest in schools to protect our kids and create a safe working environment for teachers and education workers?

Thank you very much to my colleague from Ottawa Centre for his very thoughtful remarks this morning, which I hope the government will take to heart.

I have some concerns about the government’s larger approach to the issue of violence in society, particularly as it affects the youngest members of society, who are seeing a very concerning increase in violence in our schools. We’re seeing the same tactics from the government of empty words that aren’t being matched by action. Parents, educators, education workers are all calling for an increase in mental health funding for our students, yet the government is giving less than a quarter per child per day, after a three-year pandemic.

Last week, when the member for London North Centre asked the Minister of Education why he’s not responding to these requests for increased funding, the minister responded by speaking about bail reform, when we are talking about young kids who are experiencing violence in their schools, who just need supports with their mental health.

Does the member from Ottawa Centre not agree that it would be much wiser to address the root causes of violence in our schools with increased funding for mental health and more supports and workers around our kids?

Today marks the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. On December 6, 1989, 14 young women were killed at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. The shooter entered a mechanical engineering classroom, separated the men from the women, and opened fire on the women. These 14 promising young students were murdered in an act of violent misogyny.

Today, as we pause and remember 33 years later, violence against women and girls remains the most widespread and pervasive human rights violation in Canada and worldwide, affecting an estimated one in three women.

In Ottawa this year, six women and one 15-year-old girl have been murdered. All of these murders involved allegations of intimate partner violence, stalking or obsession. This is consistent with a Statistics Canada report that revealed seven out of 10 female homicide victims last year were killed by spouses, partners or family members.

The report from the Renfrew county inquest into femicides that took place in 2015 included a recommendation to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. Sadly, the government has yet to follow through on this and the other recommendations in the report.

We have a problem. We need to act now. We cannot lose any more of our mothers and sisters and daughters and friends. The Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women and similar organizations across this province are all working towards the same goal: eliminating gender-based violence. But they can’t do this work alone. We all need to work together to end violence against women so that no more women in this country need to die simply for being women.

Thanks to the member for London West for that excellent question. Western University was one of the deputations that appeared before committee last week, and they shared that work that has been done and the training that they’ve undertaken, which I have to say I find incredibly important and impressive.

But Western University also called on the government to make amendments to this legislation, to include mandatory prevention education. We heard it from all stakeholders, from students, administrators, faculty, staff, gender-based violence experts: The number one thing we need to actually prevent and not just respond to incidents of sexual violence is education, training on consent, making sure that everybody knows what their rights are, how to intervene safely when they see an incident. This was absolutely a lost opportunity to listen to stakeholders like Western University and mandate that kind of education on campuses across Ontario.

When the member for Nickel Belt asked the government to say who is asking for the term “sexual misconduct” to be used, the government could not answer. Making up a stakeholder after the fact who might have preferred the term “sexual misconduct” doesn’t actually help with the situation of making sure that students who are at universities and colleges now actually know what their rights are and can claim their rights.

But I do also recognize that it is only one small step, and there is a lot of work still to be done on reconciliation. We have a situation in Ontario today where there are people who don’t have access to clean drinking water or safe housing or safe roads or fire protection services, for no other reason than because they are Indigenous. I think that’s absolutely unacceptable, and a government that was truly committed to reconciliation would be taking urgent action on all of those issues.

I think Toronto Metropolitan University had a really great process to actually listen to community members, to identify that harm and to recommend multiple steps that could be taken. I’m glad that this bill formalizes that name change so that we no longer honour the legacy of somebody who caused that kind of harm in Ontario.