I’m glad to see that my students from Scarborough Southwest are here today.

My question is to the Minister of Education.

Schools in Scarborough Southwest are literally falling apart, and it is unacceptable that, despite the urgent facility needs identified by schools and school boards, our children are forced to learn in poorly equipped classrooms.

Speaker, this government claims to be making historic investments while simultaneously committing less than inflation and underspending their education budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.

My question is, how will this government address the backlog of repairs that we have across the province and ensure that our children are in safe and well-equipped classrooms?

Speaker, not only are our schools crumbling, but the government’s continued underfunding of our education system is leading to cuts in teachers and education workers. These cuts have resulted in oversized classrooms, inadequate specialized learning programs, and a lack of mental health support. This has a direct and detrimental impact on our children’s education.

So my question is, again, will this government provide our children with the support that they need, instead of putting pressure on our already underfunded education system?

This government had the worst record in the country and across the world when it came to dealing with COVID in our school system, in education. For 27 weeks our schools were closed. They did not have proper instructions for health care. That’s what happened under this ministry and this government, and they have the audacity to talk about bringing back students to classrooms.

Do we have anybody on strike right now? No, we don’t. You are pre-emptively introducing legislation that tramples on the rights of workers across this province. And this legislation, make no mistake—everyone knows this, including unions that have supported you. They know this because they’re on the side of workers today. You know why? Because this kind of legislation makes a precedent for the future, for all workers.

I stand in solidarity with the teacher who taught for 30 years. I stand with all these parents. I stand with the students who suffered and right now are suffering through so many mental health issues. They need educational workers—

I want to ask the member—she was a trustee; she has come from the education system—if special education, as she mentioned, is so important and it harms the most vulnerable students to not have these educators in our classrooms, why are you harming vulnerable students by forcing their support system out of the workforce? You’re forcing these education workers, who are paid so poorly that they’re driven out of the province or they’re driven to other jobs, to find enough to make a good living.

I actually got a message this morning from one worker who told me that she slept in her car between shifts at school and her other job because they cannot make enough and do the jobs that they need to do.

These are the people you’re hurting. These are the people you’re driving out of their jobs. And as a result, what happens? The vulnerable students are the ones who are getting harmed. How do you justify that?