Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to stand in this chamber and speak on the issue of great importance to Ontario families. During the last election, Speaker, I knocked on a lot of doors. Most of the residents I met were very supportive of our government, but sometimes I ran into people who accused us of making cuts to education. When I told them we were making record investments in public education and that our government has increased education funding every year since we were first elected in 2018, they said they simply hadn’t heard that before.

There’s lots of misinformation out there, but here’s the truth: We are making the largest investment in public education in our province’s history. Let me reiterate a few numbers cited by the minister.

For the 2024-25 school year, we are delivering $29 billion in total education funding. Core education funding includes an addition of $745 million over the 2023-24 school year, which is a 2.7% increase. Mental health funding is up by 577% since 2017-18. Special education funding is being increased to $3.5 billion. After a decade when the Liberals closed over 600 schools, we are doubling the funding to $1.3 billion for the single-largest one-year investment in school building in Ontario history.

These are record investments in public education, yet the NDP somehow believes we are making “cuts.” If we were to double that $29 billion to $58 billion, the NDP would still claim that we are underfunding education. The NDP’s approach is to throw money at problems and then raise taxes to throw even more money at problems.

When it comes to public policy analysis, the NDP and the Liberals focus entirely on inputs. Inputs are important, but you also have to focus on outputs or the overall job the education system is doing.

When our government took office in 2018, the education was failing to prepare young people for the workforce. Thanks to the Liberals’ discovery math introduced years ago, 52% of grade 6 students couldn’t meet the provincial standard in math according to the 2018-19 results from the EQAO.

For that reason, we overhauled the math curriculum, and we are going back to basics to really drill down on core reading, writing and math competencies. I believe we are on the right track, and we can see that in the fact that 89% of high school students graduate within five years. That’s up from 85% just a few years ago.

We still have some underperforming school boards, which is why our government passed the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023, better known as Bill 98. School boards oversee a $29-billion education system, so it’s critically important that they are accountable to parents and taxpayers. Our government passed Bill 98 to enhance the accountability and transparency of school boards, improve their governance and leadership, maximize the capital assets of school boards and ensure that school boards are focused on what matters most: student achievement and preparing young people for the jobs of tomorrow.

Passing Bill 98 was a key step toward getting Ontario’s education system back on track. Our province is in the midst of a historic skilled labour shortage. We are going to need at least 100,000 additional skilled trades workers over the next decade to build housing for a growing population. Our government understands that the public education system has a critical role to play in addressing this challenge. For that reason, we are providing school boards with record funding, while at the same time updating the curriculum and demanding greater accountability from school board leaders.

Inputs are important, Speaker, but so are outputs. You can’t simply throw more money at problems, just like the NDP seems to believe.