This question is for the Premier. Yesterday, we gave the government an opportunity to put children, to put kids, first, an opportunity that this government passed on. We asked the government a simple question on behalf of our children: Will you fix our schools? The failure of this government to take inflation into its budget calculations is resulting in more crowded classrooms, more growing incidents of violence and more school programs that are disappearing day by day by day.

So I want to ask the Premier again: Will the Premier explain to the children of this province why he doesn’t like funding their schools?

Why is this government so determined to leave our education system worse than when they found it?

Interjections.

When the government cuts education funding it is parents who have to make up the difference—parents who are right now struggling already with the cost of living and are increasingly having to pay out of pocket for education supports, for activities and, yes, even for mental health supports. This government is cutting education funding for our schools to the tune of $1,500 per student. That’s a fact.

I want to know what the Premier thinks our children should do without. Is it breakfast programs? Is it counsellors? Is it music and sports—the things that bring joy in your life? What is it that this government expects our schools to cut and our children to do without?

Interjections.

The Minister of Health said that recruitment and retention of family doctors was “not a major concern.” I want to say that again: “not a major concern.” A quarter of patients in the Soo are without a family doctor. That’s not a major concern for this minister? Some 30,000 patients in Kingston are without access to primary care—not a major concern?

These comments are insensitive considering there are 2.3 million to 2.4 million people in this province without a family physician, but they are also dangerous. So I want to ask this government again, to the Premier: Does he really think it’s not a concern that millions of people are going without primary care?

This question is for the Premier.

After five years of Conservative rule, our schools and our students are struggling more than ever—overcrowded classrooms, fewer in-school supports, and a school repair backlog that gets bigger and bigger every year.

Now, after three years of start-and-stop learning disruptions, this government has tabled a funding package that fails Ontario kids yet again. It won’t stop pending layoffs, and it won’t give students the extra support they need to graduate as skilled and engaged citizens.

To the Premier: Why should families believe this government’s promises on education when they’ve continually shown just how out of touch they are?

Again to the Premier: When will this government stop shortchanging students, restore funding, and get kids the support they need to succeed?

Teachers, education workers, parents do not have faith that this government will fix the crisis in our education system, because they all know that there are four fewer high school teachers per 1,000 students now than there were five years ago, even with their additions. I’d like to encourage this government to do the math. That is a net reduction in the teacher-student ratio—not to mention the planned upcoming layoffs of thousands of education workers.

To the Premier: Is this the legacy you want to leave Ontario?

Interjections.

Our students are struggling. Underfunding of our education system is impacting our kids directly with oversized classrooms, with fewer in-school supports, and anxiety levels are at an all-time high. None of this is normal.

Would the Premier explain how a measly $66 per student is going to address the massive problems their chronic underfunding has created?

So if they’re not investing in our students and their future, what are they doing? They’re micromanaging school boards, they’re labelling community schools as real estate assets, and they’re introducing new fees. That’s what they’re doing.

Back to the Premier: If he isn’t going to invest in schools, will he at least not stick them with the bill for ministry responsibilities?

I don’t know a parent or a teacher in this province who trusts this government to deliver quality education to our children. Just look at the state of education in this province right now.

Interjections.

Back to the Premier: His plan is going to force the layoffs of teachers and education workers across this province. Will he reverse course and invest in the supports that students need to thrive?

Interjections.

So my question is very simple: What does the Premier plan to do to act on the important recommendations of the Ombudsman?

Misty went missing seven times while she was in the care of Johnson Children’s Services. At one point, the staff waited to report Misty missing to the police for more than four hours, and that resulted in her disappearance for 19 days—19 days, Speaker. I want everyone in this House to imagine a child going missing for 19 days.

What’s worse, Johnson was being paid to provide her with one-on-one support. The Ombudsman found they failed to provide this level of care. He also found significant gaps in documentation, record-keeping and training practices.

Speaker, Johnson Children’s Services failed Misty.

To the Premier: Why are private providers with documented negligence still allowed to operate in Ontario?

I move that:

Whereas the independent Financial Accountability Office found that the government failed to allocate $600 million in COVID-19 response funds and underspent its education budget by $432 million in the 2022-2023 fiscal year; and

Whereas the funding provided to school boards has been inadequate to cover pandemic-related expenses; and

Whereas this has resulted in an estimated budget shortfall of at least $100 million for school boards across the province; and

Whereas school boards are proposing hundreds of staff layoffs due to this budget shortfall;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to cover all pandemic-related expenditures for school boards, including the programs and infrastructure needed to support students following three years of learning disruption.

Speaker, on Thursday, this government failed students. Their budget failed education workers, and it failed parents. The Premier and members opposite failed Ontario’s public education system, and with that, they snatched away a bright and prosperous future from thousands, indeed, millions of kids across this province. This government gave us a budget with nothing meaningful for the public education system, its workers or its students.

It has been a really tough few years for schools. I think we all know that. The pandemic caused serious disruptions in learning. So many students across this province face learning difficulties and mental health challenges. But where was this government? They were missing in action—missing in action just when our kids needed them most. I was the education critic during the pandemic, so I know that school boards had to dip into their own reserves to meet expenses. The Premier and the education minister sat on $600 million in COVID-19 response funds. They underspent the education budget by $432 million in 2022-23.

And now that kids are finally back in school, we needed this government to ramp up those supports, not cut them down. But do you know what they did, Speaker? They took an axe to them. In fact, I’m going to quote Press Progress here. They say that the Premier made “a sneaky move to quietly cut education,” leaving school boards with a gaping hole of millions of dollars.

This government would have us believe that they’ve increased funding for schools. They’d really like us to believe that, but the truth is, they’ve shortchanged students, shortchanged teachers, shortchanged parents by $47 million.

Thanks to this government, more school boards are looking at funding shortfalls again this year. According to the independent Financial Accountability Office, this year alone there is a $400-million shortfall, and over the next six years that gap is going to grow by $6 billion. That’s $6 billion less for students, less for schools and for the workers who keep them running. This government is leaving kids without the supports they need to get back on track, and we all know what that means: It means cuts to staff, the education workers and teachers and educational assistants, the admin support our students and staff so desperately need. The repair backlog is going to continue to grow. It grew so much—a billion dollars under this government—poor ventilation, classrooms sweltering hot in warmer months and cold as ice in the winter, crumbling schools. It means no financial or human resource support to address the growing issue of violence in schools, no new investments in early childhood educators or mental health professionals. They say they plan to recruit more math coaches in schools, but they’re struggling to hire any educators whatsoever because they can’t compete when it comes to wages. And this means no new funding for base investments in education supports.

Without proper funding, schools are going to be forced to make really tough decisions, and they’re looking down the barrel right now of staff cuts and layoffs.

Here in Toronto, the Toronto District School Board is projecting the elimination of 522 staff positions, including 65 teachers, 35 special education workers, 35 child and youth workers, and 40 school-based safety monitors. I’ve got to tell you, Speaker, if I go to the doorstep and talk to parents in my community about that, they’re going to say, “What are they thinking?”

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is looking at cuts next year of between $9 million and $39 million.

Last year, school boards were already forced to make cuts due to underfunding. The Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board cut 65 support workers, including educational assistants. The Trillium Lakelands District School Board cut 77 educational workers, including EAs.

I’m going to say it again: All these cuts are resulting and will result in bad and worse, and worse still, outcomes for our kids and for the future of Ontario.

This government seems to have no issue finding public money when it comes to their insider friends, but when it comes to students in our province, they always seem to come up short.

School boards need the government’s support to give our kids a good education. It really is that simple. It’s a cliché for a reason that today’s youth are the future of tomorrow. What Ontario are we heading towards when we aren’t investing our highest dollars in students right now?

This government talks a lot, and they did in their budget, about the need to attract and recruit new workers, newcomers into Ontario. But how are we going to convince families to come to Ontario and to stay here if they see that we have a public education system in crisis? We talk a lot on both sides of this House about the situation in health care right now. The health care situation is absolutely a staffing crisis; it is a human resources crisis. But that’s what we’re seeing in education, as well.

I’m hearing from boards in the north who are saying that they can’t—small boards, and they’ve got 40-plus positions opened up for educational assistants. That means that our kids are not getting that support that they need—the kids who are struggling the most. We have kids in our public school system across this province still struggling with the challenges that they faced during the pandemic. We know that they’re having trouble, in many cases, catching up. We know that education workers are really struggling with the stress of the day-to-day work, because they face those struggles of those kids every day when they can’t help them. How heartbreaking is that? We’re hearing increasingly about boards going out and hiring unqualified staff because they can’t find qualified staff who will work for these wages in this situation.

There’s only one solution: You have to stop squirrelling away those dollars for a rainy day. The rainy day is here right now.

Speaker, this is why we put forward this motion today. I want to also acknowledge our amazing education critic, the member from Ottawa–Nepean, for her incredible work on this. That’s why we put this motion forward—to help our kids get back on track, to help all those families out there who are struggling.

I want to say to those families who are watching this today: We have got your back. We’re not going to let this government get away with this.

Do you know what they want to do, Speaker? Do you know where they want this to go? This government wants to do the same thing they’ve done with health care. They want to manufacture a crisis, where things get so bad that—what’s the solution? “Oh, yes, I’ve got this buddy over here. He’s got this plan. He’s got this private company that can come in and ride in and save the day.” They’re going to come up with some kind of voucher system. We’ve called it; I know it’s coming. That is not the answer. Look at the research. Look at what has happened around the world.

We have a public education system in this province that we are proud of. I moved to this province 30 years ago from Newfoundland. I stayed here and I raised my family here because we had a public education system that my kids could believe in, that I could believe in, that would be there when my kids were struggling, that would help lift them up when they fell down. We cannot afford to lose that system. We will be the laughingstock of the world.

This government needs to and should absolutely cover all pandemic-related costs for school boards. Parents across this province are looking at the Premier and they’re looking at the Minister of Education to step up; our children sure need them to.

I heard the minister opposite tie himself in knots trying to explain away why this government needs to legislate workers back to work who have not left work. Classrooms in this province were closed for 27 weeks—the worst record during the pandemic of any province, and pretty much anywhere in the world—

Interjections.

Interjections.

Good morning, Speaker. My question is to the Premier. After two long years of interruption and remote learning, parents sent their kids off to school this week. They’re looking for peace and stability and supports in the classroom so their kids can finally get back to some sort of normal. Yet, day after day, this Minister of Education is ratcheting up the rhetoric against the people who make our schools work.

Why does this government seem so determined to create conflict in our classrooms?

Parents and teachers remember the PC record of cuts and conflict: mandatory online learning, 10,000 planned layoffs, freezing wages with Bill 124, working with the Liberals to freeze wages with Bill 115.

Does the minister understand that attacking the very people who make our schools work is what puts the school year at risk?

They have clear ideas on how to improve our schools: smaller class sizes, mental health supports, fixing the decades of backlogged capital repairs. Will the minister start implementing these ideas to improve our schools and stop creating conflict in our classrooms?

I’d like to know where these phantom staff are. Where are these mystery public health nurses who are supposed to be in our schools? You show me one of those. They sure as hell aren’t in our schools.

Speaker, this minister oversaw the longest school closures of any province or territory in this country—in North America. It’s a terrible track record. Instead of correcting that with the investments in our students, this government has shortchanged them at every opportunity.

The Premier can ensure a strong start to the new school year by investing and hiring more staff, bringing in more mental health supports and funding smaller classrooms. Will he do it?