Back to the minister: These are the facts. Schools in our riding are facing cuts, because the Conservatives are refusing to properly fund our public school system. We have 15 parents from Kensington school today. Kensington is losing two teachers. They just learned their kids will be in a grade 4/5/6 class. That means a teacher will have to explain and teach three lesson plans each and every day. That is not a recipe for student success, that is a recipe for kids being left behind.

My question is to the minister: Will you commit to more school funding so students in this province, including the kids of these parents who are here today, can succeed in school?

I’d like to welcome parents from Kensington junior public school here today: Pouya Hamidi, Anna Gutkowska, Ricardo Junco Reinosa, Diana Laura Pech Mis, Julia Dorfman, Christopher McElhone, Nate Kreiswirth, Angie Gammage, Rebecca Osolen, Sepideh Shahi, Robyn Armstrong and Pete Wen. Thank you so much for joining us here today.

Thank you, Speaker. I’m the member for University–Rosedale.

I have a question for the member for Thornhill. In the budget, when we’re looking at how much funding is going to elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, we have a lot of concerns. With the TDSB, there is an over $60-million funding shortfall. The TDSB is looking at removing 522 staffing positions at a time when we know kids need as much help as they can get to catch up to the learning standard they need to be at for math and STEM and writing and reading. Do you think the amount of money in the budget for schools is enough? Because I personally don’t think so.

I am proud to be here today, standing up in support of our motion to ask the Ontario government to fund school boards for pandemic-related COVID expenses. It is extremely important.

Our kids and parents have just gone through an incredibly hard three years. The impact of those three years is being felt today. I see this. I am a parent of two children who go to the Toronto District School Board system. I regularly communicate with parents, principals, teachers and students about their experience at schools and what they’re seeing and experiencing. What is very clear is that learning outcomes for math, STEM, reading, writing—we’re behind. When it comes to mental health, behavioural issues, violence, we are also falling behind. Our kids are struggling.

That is especially true for children with special needs. We regularly work with parents who have kids with autism who are in the school board system, and they are having huge difficulties getting access to school, being able to stay in school for the entire school day and have the additional supports they need—the educational assistants they need—to ensure their kid can be the best that they can be.

It has been a very, very hard few years, and it’s been good to hear my colleagues remind me and other parents that compared to every other school system in North America, our schools were closed the longest. It’s hard to think back at that time, raising two children during the pandemic and thinking about how many days my partner and I got up in the morning and thought: How are we going to get through today and work full-time and teach our kids?—knowing that there are over a million families in Ontario who are experiencing what we were experiencing, and many of them are not as lucky as us. It’s been a hard few years.

And so you would expect this government at this time to acknowledge and recognize that parents and teachers and students have had a hard time and invest in our schools. But that is not what we saw in this budget. What we saw in this budget is cuts. There are a lot of fancy numbers when you look at it, but when you actually look at what the school boards are showing us right now—because I’ve gone through the Toronto District School Board’s estimates for next year and they’ve been very clear about what they’re seeing. What they are projecting is a loss of 522 staffing positions. That is what they are projecting will be cut: lunchroom supervisors, elementary schoolteachers, secondary schoolteachers, social workers, child and youth workers, caretakers. That is what is going to be cut.

The TDSB is early in its budgeting process compared to other school boards, but now we are also seeing other school boards come out with their numbers as well, and they are seeing the same thing. The Toronto Catholic District School Board is looking at cuts: 122 staffing positions. The Ottawa-Carleton school board is also looking at cuts. And we will be seeing that again and again and again as school boards get closer to finalizing their budgeting process. This is not the direction that we should be going when we’re talking about school boards and the fundamental human rights that our kids have to a good education. This is not the direction that we will be going.

What I fear—and this has been mentioned earlier—is that the government is looking at doing what they did with health care and they’re looking at doing the same thing with education, where they create a crisis, where they cut, and as a result, people are motivated to go to the private system because they want a better alternative, when a better solution is to invest in the education system that we have. That is what we are calling on you to do today, starting with this very pragmatic motion, which is to cover pandemic-related expenses that school boards experienced in the past, that they had to cover, and the pandemic-related experiences that they are looking at continuing to deal with this year.

I support this motion; I urge you to vote for it. I will also be working with parents, with educators and with the school systems to ensure that this government treats school boards and students and teachers with the respect that they deserve, and that will translate into funding so that our kids can get the education they deserve.

Education workers make our public schools great. They clean our yards. They maintain our buildings. They supervise our kids at lunch time. They clean our classrooms. They help our youngest kids and our kids with disabilities. We know them by their first names. They are part of our school community.

Education workers earn an average of $39,000 a year. Many work two jobs to make ends meet. Some have to go to food banks because their pay doesn’t go far enough, especially in this inflationary crisis we have. Many are leaving the profession.

I want our kids in class. Everyone wants our kids in class. No one wants a strike. That is why our schools need to receive the funding that they need so our kids can get an excellent education. That is why this government needs to stop violating the charter-protected rights of all workers, stop this bullying behaviour and get back to the negotiating table. That’s why this government needs to use the surplus that they have in their budget to negotiate a fair contract with workers, because that is the right thing to do for our kids, it’s the right thing to do for workers, and it’s the right thing to do for the people of Ontario.

Thank you to the member for Sudbury for your excellent presentation.

This government this morning talked about how they were doing this for the kids. I would love to hear your summary of how this government has hurt kids in schools over the last four years.