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?

This is a petition to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from the Elementary Teachers of Toronto Stop the Cuts campaign.

“Whereas the ... government cut funding to our schools by $800 per student during the pandemic period, and plans to cut an additional $6 billion to our schools over the next six years;

“Whereas these massive cuts have resulted in larger class sizes, reduced special education and mental health supports and resources for our students, and neglected and unsafe buildings;

“Whereas the Financial Accountability Office reported a $2.1-billion surplus in 2021-22, and surpluses growing to $8.5 billion in 2027-28, demonstrating there is more than enough money to fund a robust public education system;

“We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to:

“—immediately reverse the cuts to our schools;

“—fix the inadequate education funding formula;

“—provide schools the funding to ensure the supports necessary to address the impacts of the pandemic on our students” which continues to this day; and

“—make the needed investments to provide smaller class sizes, increased levels of staffing to support our students’ special education, mental health, English language learner and wraparound supports needs, and safe and healthy buildings and classrooms.”

Thank you for this petition. I will be giving it to page Sarah.

Yes. And there’s inflation too. Your budget went up. Your global budget went up, didn’t it? It’s inflation too.

Interjection.

There were 522 staffing positions that were cut. I get calls from parents, from vice-principals, from principals, from education workers about what these cuts actually mean on the ground. We’re hearing from schools like Palmerston, Clinton, Lord Lansdowne and da Vinci, and they’re losing vice-principals; they’re losing teachers who are specifically dedicated to do one-on-one reading help with kids who are falling behind in grades 1 and 2 and 3—those critical years when you need kids to catch up. We are also hearing from parents whose kids have special needs—kids who have autism; kids who need an extra educational assistant in the classroom to ensure that they can focus, that they can learn, that their behaviour is managed so that they’re not a big disruption in the classroom, so that every child can learn. What they’re also finding is that there are not enough educational assistants available in schools to provide that one-on-one support, that extra support in a classroom so that a teacher can do their job, kids can learn and the classroom functions well. They’re not there.

The Ontario Autism Coalition just did a survey which asked parents, “How many times is your kid denied access to school because there’s no educational assistant or extra support available to help your kid in the classroom?” The unfortunate reality today is that there are parents who wake up in the morning at 8 o’clock and they get a call from their school saying, “There’s not enough staffing supports in the school for your kid to go to school today, so you’re going to have to rearrange your schedule, because there’s no school available for your kid.” That’s what’s happening in Ontario in 2023, and it’s a direct result of funding cuts that have been brought on by the Conservative government. I think that’s a real shame.

If I had to describe this bill, I would call it meek. It is really smoke and mirrors. It doesn’t address the urgent needs in our educational system. It really doubles down on the Conservatives’ chronic underinvestment in our education system. It does nothing to address the overcrowded classrooms, the lack of specialized learning programs and the mental health needs of our students. It does nothing to address that, which I think is a real shame.

And what it does seem be very interested in, this bill, is taking power away from school boards to control properties and putting it in the hands of the Conservative government, specific ministries, who can then sell off lands to whoever they wish. Sure, there is a process; it must go to another school board first or be offered to them, but then it’s really opaque what the rules are, essentially, after that, and this is happening at a time when the Conservatives are selling off public land to the highest bidder in secret deals where there’s no requirement for that land to be developed in a way that would help the public. There’s no requirement to build affordable housing. There’s no community benefit. There’s no requirement to have good union jobs on-site so we can provide good jobs to people in Ontario. There’s no requirement for that.

And when I read Bill 98, what makes me worried is the Conservatives are potentially opening the door to allow the sale of school board properties to for-profit developers to build housing. And who’s going to be impacted by that, and who’s going to be neglected by that decision is our future students. The reason why our future students are going to be negatively impacted by that is because all school boards, including the Toronto District School Board, have been sounding the alarm right now and they’re saying very clearly, “We’re worried about our school board’s capacity to provide the classroom space that is needed to meet the growing enrolment projections—we’re worried about it.” The TDSB is worried about it. Other school boards are worried about it, and they fear, understandably, that school properties are going to be sold off without adequate consideration about what is needed to meet our school capacity in our future.

The reason why I say this is because our province is expected to grow. Ontario is expected to build 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years; that’s the target. In Toronto, we have a target of building 285,000 new homes, which will lead to a projected increase of 30,000 new kids into the school board system, and the TDSB already has an issue right now with overcrowding.

The member for Eglinton–Lawrence should know that around the area of Eglinton and Yonge, there are schools that don’t have the capacity to meet enrolment right now, and unfortunately, that’s largely to do with the Conservatives having a very Wild West approach to development, where development occurs based on where developers want to build and where they can get approvals. There’s no serious thought given into what kind of services current and new residents need in order to meet the needs and grow our city and make it a livable city. So what we’re seeing is highly concentrated growth in some areas and no schools, or inadequate schools, available to accommodate the new kids that are coming in. This is happening in my riding of University–Rosedale. It’s happening in Toronto–St. Paul’s. It’s happening in Parkdale–High Park, and it’s happening in a very acute way in the member for Spadina–Fort York’s riding where his riding has 140,000 people, one of the largest ridings in Ontario, and it’s growing extremely rapidly, yet the riding only has three schools—only three schools, for 140,000 people. It’s unregulated, it’s the Wild West, it’s disorganized, and I fear that Bill 98 is going to make it even easier for the Conservatives to say, “Oh, we’re under capacity over here. We’re just going to sell off those schools, build big on them and not think about what we need around future capacity.” I have some concerns about that.

I also have a lot of concerns around the failure of the Conservatives to address some of the biggest issues that we are experiencing in our schools today. One of the biggest issues that we’re hearing about is the pervasiveness of violence in our school system. A recent report came out from the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. It was disturbing to read, and it showed that "an alarming ... 77%" of members, 77% of teachers who filled in this survey, “say they have personally experienced violence or witnessed violence against another staff member.”

I’m going to quote: “Learning is being disrupted and violence is being normalized in schools because the” Conservatives refuse “to adequately invest in public education.” I see nothing in Bill 98 that is going to deal with this issue—nothing in it. “The system is suffering from chronic underfunding, under-resourcing, and understaffing, creating environments where student needs are going unmet.” That’s the reality of it, and I’m not seeing much in Bill 98 that addresses those fundamental issues.

When a kid is dropped off by their parents in the morning, they go in through the front door and they go into their classroom, there’s really not a lot in Bill 98 that is going to ensure they have a good day, a safe day, where they’re not going to be bullied or harassed; where the teacher and the educational assistant have time for them; where they meet their learning outcomes; where they have a good day where they’re safe, loved, well cared for and they can reach their full potential. I’m not seeing a lot in Bill 98 that’s going to allow us to achieve those goals and help the million-plus kids in Ontario have a good day at school. I’m just not.

I’m going to go back to what ETFO said, because this is really about what’s happening in the classroom. What this survey found is that:

“—Educators working with younger students are more likely to experience violence.

“—Eighty-six per cent of ETFO members who work in special education have personally experienced violence or witnessed it against another staff person.”

The reason why I bring up that issue is because it really gets to the failure of this government to address the huge staffing shortages we are experiencing in classrooms that need extra educational assistants, that need extra support workers, because they’re dealing with kids who have mental health challenges, who have a tough time, who have learning needs and need that extra support. They’re not setting teachers or a classroom up for success.

From the survey:

“—More than 80 per cent agree that violence in schools is making working with students more difficult and that it interferes with classroom management”—also not addressed with Bill 98.

“—Administrators know that violence is a problem, but do not always act on reports of violence.

“—Forty-two per cent of members have suffered a physical injury, illness or psychological injury/illness as a result of workplace violence against them this school year.”

These are really troubling statistics—very troubling statistics.

I want to look at what the TDSB had to say about Bill 98. The member for Ottawa West–Nepean reached out to unions, stakeholders, education workers to find out who the Conservatives consulted before introducing this bill. They didn’t consult with teachers. They didn’t consult with parents. They just came out with a bill; no consultation in advance.

This is what the Toronto school board had to say: “With regard to the ministry’s move to gain greater control over TDSB property through the ability to direct the sale, lease or disposal of school sites”—

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.