Committee Transcript 2000-Jun-07 | Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Chair / Présidente
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)

Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex PC)
Mr Michael Bryant (St Paul's L)
Mr Carl DeFaria (Mississauga East / -Est PC)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Mr Garry J. Guzzo (Ottawa West-Nepean / Ottawa-Ouest-Nepean PC)
Mr Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre / -Centre ND)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan L)
Ms Marilyn Mushinski (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park L)
Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina ND)
Mr John O'Toole (Durham PC)
Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford PC)
Mr Bob Wood (London West / -Ouest PC)

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes
Mrs Margaret Marland (Mississauga South / -Sud PC)

Clerk / Greffière
Ms Susan Sourial

Staff / Personnel
Ms Elaine Campbell, research officer,
Research and Information Services

The committee met at 1000 in the Holiday Inn, Barrie.

EDUCATION ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, 2000 / LOI DE 2000 SUR LA RESPONSABILITÉ EN ÉDUCATION

Consideration of Bill 74, An Act to amend the Education Act to increase education quality, to improve the accountability of school boards to students, parents and taxpayers and to enhance students' school experience / Projet de loi 74, Loi modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation pour rehausser la qualité de l'éducation, accroître la responsabilité des conseils scolaires devant les élèves, les parents et les contribuables et enrichir l'expérience scolaire des élèves.

The Chair (Ms Marilyn Mushinski): I call the meeting to order. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is the standing committee on justice and social policy. We are considering Bill 74, An Act to amend the Education Act to increase education quality, to improve the accountability of school boards to students, parents and taxpayers and to enhance students' school experience.

Individual deputants this morning will have 10 minutes to speak and groups will have 15 minutes to speak. I know there are some members here who have cell phones. They can be quite disruptive to both delegates and committee members, so I would ask that you please turn your cell phones off.

TIM CRAWFORD

The Chair: The first speaker this morning is Mr Tim Crawford.

Interruption.

The Chair: No, this is strictly to hear from deputants. You can certainly hand in written submissions right up until Friday. Any written submissions that are forwarded to the committee clerk most certainly will be read by the committee.

Applause.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to ask, please-we have two hours to hear from delegations this morning. I do not want any demonstrations of any kind. It is disruptive to the speakers and to committee. To afford everyone a fair chance to address this committee, I'm asking that the rules that apply in the House also apply in this committee. So I don't want any applause; I don't want any demonstrations of any kind.

Mr Crawford.

Mr Tim Crawford: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. It's certainly a privilege to come and talk to such a group about such an important topic; that is, education. As a general overview of what I'm about to say, I think, unfortunately, we've got to finish the job, and I think this bill is one more step in finishing the job that the government has undertaken over this past six or seven or eight years.

I want to go back to what I consider to be-and this might sound a little off-topic but it will come to the point-the Dark Ages of education in the 1970s and early 1980s, in which the system-and I'm going to talk about the system, not individual teachers-was extremely weak. There was very little curriculum, there were very few program guides as to what should be covered, particularly in elementary school; not in secondary school so much. We had Hall-Dennis, we had all kinds of initiatives out there, "Go at your own rate" and so on. It's absolutely remarkable that this current government has changed the very culture of elementary school education, because at one time the notion was that as long as the teacher was in the classroom and doing something, that was good education.

Now there are standards, there's a program, there are benchmarks. I think the public in general-and I, certainly, as an educator-are absolutely delighted with that. I, as a secondary school teacher, received from the elementary panel students who were unable to write paragraphs, who were unable to do simple percentages. The government has changed the very culture. Superintendents of education said at one time that this "Do your own thing" was just perfect. Now superintendents of education have turned right around and said, "Oh, yes, we've got to get down benchmarks; we've got to get standards and so on."

The government has done a remarkable thing. Bill 160-or is it 106? I've forgotten now-in which a lot of housekeeping was done and a lot of things were cleaned up was important. There are still, apparently, gaps in this. Unfortunately-and I say unfortunately-we've come to this Bill 74. As a professional educator, I feel badly that it had to occur. I think a professional will walk into that school and do the job in the classroom and extracurricularly, as they should. It's really sad that we have to put something in writing in this Bill 74. I think it's unfortunate that this has occurred, but I think it's now necessary based on what I've heard, that students in some school systems are not able to have band practice, extracurricular activities, phys ed and so on. This creates an inequity throughout the province. If teachers are not going to voluntarily do that, then I guess we have to put it in a more formal way.

Notice I said "more formal." I think it's already in the teacher's contract and in the Education Act, in which the teacher will do anything pertaining to the school and the education of the child as directed by the principal. I think that's already there. It's unfortunate, therefore, that this has to be more formalized and put in legal text.

I think it's necessary. I used to be a school board trustee and we used to be frustrated in that we didn't have clear tools to get things accomplished with respect to reform and change in the educational system. But the educational system is changing, and changing dramatically. It's exciting. It's sound. If this is one more tool necessary, then we should proceed with it. Again, I say with regret that we have to come this far, but apparently this is part of our current culture of conflict and disagreement and all kinds of other things that I certainly disapprove of.

I have one concern with the bill itself, and it's perhaps through my ignorance. I am concerned about part 3, subsection 2.2(b), in which, if I read this correctly-and again, I don't have all the background on this-it seems to imply that a teacher will, on any day of the week-Saturday or Sunday or a school holiday or a civic holiday-be required to perform some task in school. I think I understand why that's in there, but I'm wondering if the wording should be changed.

If I were writing it-and I'm not a lawyer and I'm not in the Ministry of Education right now-I would have tried wording such as the following. I don't have this written out, but it would be along this line: A teacher "will assist in any school function as authorized by the principal or as authorized by the school board." I would replace part (b) with something along that line. If the students are away on a week's trip to Europe or to Ottawa or out west or whatever, certainly the teacher is "on duty" on Saturday and is on duty on Sunday. There's no doubt about that. I think this is what the goal is. But just on its bare face, it's very unfortunate wording. Therefore, if it could be worded-it might not be able to be-along the line that the teacher will perform those duties at any time as long as it is an authorized school function, then it gets back to the school council, it gets back to the principal, it gets back to the board and ultimately the minister who has approved all the school functions to determine whether the function is valid or not.

That's my only concern. But again, I have to commend the current government for the guts it's had to change the very culture of our educational system, particularly in the elementary panel, and the excellent initiative it's had in revising secondary school education-a very tough task. I think it has done an admirable job with a couple of slight flaws. But we're making good headway. I'll stop at that point and entertain any questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Crawford. Actually, your 10 minutes is up so we don't have time for questions, but we thank you.

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TORONTO EDUCATION ASSEMBLY

The Chair: The next speaker is Shelley Carroll from the Toronto Education Assembly. You have 15 minutes, Ms Carroll.

Ms Shelley Carroll: Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. I'm Shelley Carroll. I'm a parent from the former North York and I'm chair of the Toronto Education Assembly. We talk to teachers; we talk to education workers; we talk to parents; we talk to grandparents; we talk to students. We don't meet very often, especially this year. We have found that people are just too busy. So we write. We have a regular newsletter. I contribute 3,500 words a month to it myself to do a blow-by-blow of school boards' actions in Toronto. I complain. I complain about the school board big, large, and on a monthly basis. I even sometimes work in some complaints about you at the end of the paragraph. I'm supposed to complain. I'm Canadian. That's what Canadians do. They complain about the system. But it doesn't mean we want it to go away. We don't want it to go away.

What Bill 74 does in a very subtle way-I don't think the media have picked up on it yet, but it is going to make school boards go away. That's really all I want to talk about today with the generous amount of time allotted me. I wish some of my time had been allotted to secondary teachers. They have a lot to say about this bill. But I trust they will get their message across. I'm in favour of organized federations, organized labour. I live in the western world and I know they are at the heart of why the western world has the standard it does, and I know they will find a way to get their message to you.

I'm not going to talk to you about extracurriculars because I know that students will talk to you. The students who talked to the Toronto Education Assembly would like you all to mind your business. They would like you to leave things as they are because many of them are enjoying exactly the way extracurriculars are handled right now.

What concerns us most is the heart of this bill. While it hasn't been covered, we think the heart of this bill is the measures against the school board trustees to muzzle them, to take away their freedom of speech, to take away their ability to make decisions that will really impact the children in our system. It's really going to be so far-reaching that it overrides all of the other measures in this bill. Their ability to do anything about those, to mitigate the effects that will come about because of the other measures, will be gone. That's important to me on a personal level as well, and the TEA is happy to let me talk about my personal situation today.

I am the mother of a disabled child. She is autistic. She will always be autistic, long after I'm gone. She needs to live in a city and in a society that is inclusive, that is loving and that is able to nurture her when her parents aren't here to do it any more. That's not going to exist without publicly funded education. Citizens who make up a society like ours come from an inclusive, publicly funded education, and that comes from taxes. I have to pay my taxes. I don't pay them because I need a road, because I need a hospital. I pay them because I want that whole society, and I'm willing to keep on doing it to make sure there is a publicly funded education system there. And what I want in it is local control, because I need a representative I can call on to be my ombudsman, to be my advocate, regardless of what political party is in fashion. That's what Egerton Ryerson was getting at and that's what I need. I need to know that I can call on my education representative because there's something wrong right now, and I need to know that he's sitting at the table where decisions are made and that he can actually do something about it.

Now, I know trustees don't always get their way, but they're a lot closer to getting their way if they are sitting around a non-partisan table and they are able to lobby their colleagues and to make something happen.

I don't believe that these measures are necessary because trustees were fiscally irresponsible. In fact, before this system that exists today, I was complaining then. In my area, I thought they were already being too fiscally responsible. There were things I wanted that I couldn't have, and I think that what was happening when I entered the education system with my first child in 1990 was that parents were just beginning to realize that it's our job to make sure that happens. We need locally controlled education, and we had begun to realize, in the 1980s and in the early 1990s, that it was our job.

I'm willing to take the blame. If anybody was at fault, it was parents. I'm a tail-end-of-the-baby-boom person. When I came to schools, they were there; they were built. There was plenty of staff. They were all in place for my older sister, who was there eight years ahead of me, so there wasn't anything to fight about. If you ask my mother, she probably will tell you that at the time I was in school, she wasn't aware of school board trustees, wasn't aware of their role, never had to access them. She didn't go to the PTA because she was perfectly happy with what was going on. I think that went on for a long time.

In 1990, I entered the school system with my oldest daughter, Susan, in a very affluent neighbourhood. I went to my first PTA and I thought, "This is an experience my mother never had." Parents had just begun to come back three years before, that principal told me, and they were very much a part of their school. They were very much in contact with their trustee.

At the end of that year, I moved out to the community I live in now in North York. The revolution hadn't started there yet. There was no PTA. As I stood on the pavement where the real PTA exists to this day-I call it the "pavement talk association"-those people didn't know they had a trustee in our area. They didn't know that her name was Kim Scott. They didn't know that it was her they should phone because they saw a child with a behavioural disorder sitting on a bench in the principal's office day after day and they were worried that he just wasn't getting an education because he was in the wrong place. They didn't know that was whom they should phone. It was only my experience downtown for that brief time that told me that that's what we should do.

That very year they began their first parent organization. A couple of years later, school councils came along. We're only now beginning to understand how they work. We're only now beginning to understand that our role in locally controlled, democratic education is the most important role of all of them. I think, and all of my members believe, that we're doing well with it. We're getting there, but it takes a long time. I assure you that we will monitor school trustees. We will make sure that they are making responsible decisions. Like it or not, when we think that they should complain to you, we think that they should and we know that they will.

If you are doing what is truly right, what is truly sound, what is truly best for my children and best for the 300,000 students in the Toronto board, where the TEA exists, then you should be ready to suffer the slings and arrows of complaints that trustees might make.

We have, in each of our communities, ward councils. They surround the trustee and they tell her what is needed, and the trustee does her best to see if that fits within the confines of the system we have right now. That system is just beginning, and it's beginning to work well. To derail it is going to have a disastrous effect on our community, on our schools and, in the long run, on this province, because that system is being modelled throughout Ontario and is going to make our locally controlled school boards most effective-more effective than they have ever been before. The measures against trustees in Bill 74 will destroy all of that groundwork, and I fear for my children's future if that's the case.

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The Chair: Thank you, Ms Carroll. We have time for about one question from each party.

Mr Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park): What is the time available, Madam Chair?

The Chair: We have about four minutes available.

Mr Kennedy: Madam Chair, I just want to say that I hope we will accord each witness all of their time, because these are sham hearings. These hearings exist at the largesse of this government and I will not-

Interruption.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry, but I will not tolerate any kind of outburst.

Mr Kennedy: We understand the tolerances of this government only too well. We are here participating in sham hearings because no others have been offered and because it's too important a bill to be quiet about.

I want to congratulate you and I won't deduct more from your time, Shelley. I just want to ask you more specifically, because there are people who don't understand, what is it in Bill 74 that will stop the local trustees-who you have learned are necessary for a well-functioning system, a connection to parents-in future from performing that role?

Ms Carroll: Our trustees at the moment are making decisions, balancing the books, but they are able to sit around that table and admit when they are confined by the funding formula. So they are able to interact with their community and able to make them understand that certain decisions are being made for certain confines.

Their understanding of the bill is that they should be afraid even to have an interaction with parents where they can explain the funding model's confines, because they are afraid that they will be seen to be intending to stir up the community to be negative against this government. It's a real Orwellian wording and they fear that they will not ever be able to do anything but say: "This is what is going to happen. I have to hang up now."

Mr Kennedy: In case the minister has concerns.

Ms Carroll: Yes.

Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina): Two quick questions because there is no time for any detailed questions: First of all, we've got two hours here today-and we thank you for coming from Toronto-and one whole day in Ottawa. What do you think about that?

Ms Carroll: A much-admired former Toronto trustee, Fiona Nelson, said to me two nights ago: "Symbolically we get the message. You might as well have had one two-hour hearing in St James Bay." There are so many people in Toronto who are so upset about this bill. I'm talking about young people and I'm talking about elderly people whose children aren't in the system, and they can't come to Barrie. They had no way of getting on this very short list, and I am overwhelmed by the task of trying to speak on their behalf.

Mr Marchese: What's your message for this government, so we can take it back when we get into the Legislature?

Ms Carroll: We're struggling hard enough with the punitive measures that trustees already have to worry about. To add to the bill is simply the end of publicly controlled, locally controlled education, and we haven't missed that message. It is not subtle enough to escape parents in the system.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham): Thank you very much, Shelley, for appearing here today. It's important to hear from all Ontario, really, and there is certainly a lot of opportunity for voices to be heard, both in the media and other ways, in Toronto.

I want to draw a little bit of a comparison here to what is actually being achieved. I think the previous speaker made some reference. If you look to history you're bound to learn about the future, and if you look to what has transpired in the reference time that you pointed out-I'll just go for that period-in the period 1990-95 there were approximately three important observations made in education by, I might respectfully say, Mr Marchese's government. They had the start, if you will, of testing, the new curriculum development was well underway, and the Royal Commission on Learning was an important benchmark in saying, "Things have to improve." I suspect you would have to look at the governance model, on which you've spent some time, which was the Sweeney commission, saying that we had to look at the amount of governance in education in Ontario. You would have to say that reform was well underway in the period you're addressing. An important recommendation, of course, was the engagement of the parent in the process of education. To say there wasn't a need for change is completely missing the absolute.

I would say that the other part to this is, do you believe that extracurricular activities are an important part of the learning environment?

Ms Carroll: As I said, that's not something I am going to talk about.

But you brought up the Sweeney commission, and if I may say, they asked for adjustment to the governance system. They asked for adjustments to the role of trustees. They didn't ask to remove them and replace them with volunteers. They suggested a salary cap of $20,000. They did not ask to turn them into volunteers working part-time on an honorarium.

Mr Kennedy: On a point of order, Madam Chair: I would ask that the time for questions, when it arises, be fairly divided by time, because we are on incredibly short time here, thanks to the government. It is important that that fairness be seen to exist, so existing time should be divided. I hope that can be pursued.

The Chair: Yes, that will be pursued, as it has been.

Thank you very much, Ms Carroll.

Mrs Lyn McLeod (Thunder Bay-Atikokan): On a point, while you call up the next delegation, Madam Chair.

The Chair: If you keep calling points of order, then you're going to-

Mrs McLeod: It's not a point of order.

The Chair: -interfere with the time for the delegates to speak.

Mrs McLeod: It's not, Madam Chair. I was suggesting that I just want to put something on the record of the committee while you call up the next delegation, so I'm not going to interfere with the time at all.

The Chair: Let me call up the next delegation and then we'll hear your point of order, Mrs McLeod.

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS' FEDERATION OF ONTARIO

The Chair: Phyllis Benedict, president, and Ann Hoggarth, president, Simcoe county, of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. Good morning.

Mrs McLeod: Madam Chair, I will do this periodically and it's not a point of order, it's simply a point of wanting to ensure that the public record records any written presentations that are tabled with the committee. In this case, one written presentation that's before us is from Concerned Parents and Teachers of York Mills Collegiate Institute. I believe it's important for Hansard to note that those who provide written submissions have that in the public record.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs McLeod.

Ms Benedict, Ms Hoggarth and Mr-

Mr Gene Lewis: Gene Lewis.

The Chair: Please proceed.

Ms Phyllis Benedict: My name is Phyllis Benedict and I am president of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario. We represent 70,000 teachers and educational workers in the elementary public schools across the province. Our members work in 37,000 classrooms in over 2,500 schools. They teach, support and inspire more than 920,000 children ranging in age from four to 14.

I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak on behalf of my members. It is unfortunate that so few Ontarians have an opportunity to speak on behalf of their organizations or bring concerns of the citizens to this committee. It is of great concern that the government has allocated so little time for the consideration of such a horrendous piece of legislation. The bill has significant ramifications not just for teachers but for students and the future viability of school boards in Ontario. Once again, the Harris government has drafted legislation that will bring about major changes to education and is attempting to do so quickly and without the public fully understanding the implications.

Bill 74 and its draconian changes continue in the tradition of Bill 26, the Savings and Restructuring Act; Bill 103, the Toronto megacity legislation; and Bill 160, the misnamed Education Quality Improvement Act. These bills are but key examples of the Harris government massively restructuring Ontario society and assuming extraordinary, unprecedented powers centrally.

The government has consistently centralized political control since taking office in 1995 and has the gall to tell the public that it is not the government, but elected to change the government, to reduce the government in Ontario, and this is certainly not the case for education in this province.

This bill is not about enhancing accountability in education; it's about power. It's about using the heavy hand of government authority to make professionals feel like indentured servants, to reduce teachers' collective bargaining rights and to further undermine and erode school board authority and local accountability.

The government is overreacting to a labour dispute in one corner of the province. Those teachers had to react to a government policy by withdrawing their voluntary services, and for that this provincial government is punishing every single teacher with the spectre of mandatory extracurricular activities and removing the collective bargaining protection that teachers have from the abuse of such assignment of these activities.

There was no provincial data for this government that they could bring out and demonstrate that there was a problem of teachers failing to provide extracurricular activities. In our recent study that was conducted by ComQuest Research, in a typical week 70% of our membership spends time with extracurricular activities. The report further goes on that it translates into 3.6 hours among our teachers who participate in extracurricular activities outside of their responsibilities in the classroom.

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Bill 74 raises serious issues in relation to equity. Teachers, depending on what stage they are in their careers and in establishing their families, have different amounts of time available to spend on activities outside the classroom. The legislation threatens to create undue hardship for our members, many of whom are new teachers coping with the stress of starting their careers, and for teachers with young children. It will particularly affect our younger women teachers.

The definition and scope of co-instructional activities in Bill 74 are so broad and all-encompassing that it leaves the door open to teachers being assigned virtually any school-related activity, any time of the day, any day of the week during the school year. There is no restriction on the number of hours of co-instructional activities that teachers can be forced to work or the conditions under which the work is performed.

While the majority of principals may not abuse this new power under Bill 74, there is no protection for our teachers where this is not the case. The bill clearly stipulates that teachers cannot negotiate clauses in their collective agreements to protect them from the arbitrary and unreasonable assignment of extracurricular activities and the assignment of these activities cannot be dealt with through arbitration.

This is an incredible affront to free and collective bargaining rights and to the principles of fairness and justice in the workplace. If the government can abrogate teachers' collective bargaining rights with a stroke of the legislative pen, no unionized employee should feel safe from this rabidly anti-union government. It is clear from this legislation that the government is not interested in respecting the work that teachers do or in supporting them in meeting the ever-changing challenges of the needs of Ontario's children.

No other profession in Ontario has been so interfered with and so demoralized. We cannot, though we've tried to understand, why this government, while it is well-known that there is a pending teacher shortage, would create such an unwelcoming environment for incoming teachers. Earlier this week I learned that the British Columbia Teachers' Federation is running ads advising those teachers not to accept positions in Ontario because of Bill 74.

Public elementary teachers are being attacked, maligned and pushed around by this government, and Bill 74 is just the icing on the cake. We asked our members two questions: whether they believed that Bill 74 was an unwarranted intrusion into their professional affairs, and whether they believed it was a direct attack on their collective bargaining rights. Our members sent a loud and clear message to this government and that message was that 99% of them voted yes to both questions.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario strongly opposes sections in Bill 74 that dramatically expand the power of the education minister to take control over school boards. Section 7 gives the minister the power to assume control of the school board if he or she decides that the school board is not complying with provincial rules regarding class size, teacher instructional time, the implementation of extracurricular activities or the payments for trustees.

School boards have been struggling to meet the needs of their students within the confines of a very rigid funding formula. What little flexibility they had to respond to local needs will be seriously eroded by Bill 74. School boards like the Greater Essex County District School Board, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board and the Toronto District School Board have all passed motions to protest the impact of the government's funding formula on schools and local programs. Bill 74 is punishing school boards as well as teachers for speaking out against the effects of government policy and for attempting to find solutions to staffing that work for their communities. The assault on school boards' authority is an attack on local democracy and it threatens to leave school boards with no meaningful influence or say over the delivery of education in this province.

This government thrives on confrontation but we believe that this time it has seriously miscalculated. Last year the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario gave a commitment to ensure stability in the public elementary schools in Ontario. We did our part, but Bill 74 will not give a guarantee that that stability will be in our schools come September 2000.

Last night I received a phone call from a parent. She's not a parent of a public elementary school pupil, she's with the separate school system. She couldn't speak today but she asked me if I would give one message. She asks you to stop destroying her community, stop destroying her school, stop breaking apart the very basic relationship that is so vital for the education of her children.

In conclusion, before I ask my president locally to speak, ETFO urges the justice and social policy committee to recommend that this legislation be withdrawn. I draw you to the back three pages of our brief, which list the incredible number of activities that the elementary teachers in Ontario have given freely and with love to their students.

Ms Ann Hoggarth: Contrary to what this government may tell the public, my members tell me what to say, not the other way around. Very clearly the elementary teachers of Simcoe County told me, in an all-member vote, that they overwhelmingly believe Bill 74 is an unwarranted intrusion on their professional roles as elementary teachers. They also told me emphatically that Bill 74 is a direct attack on the collective bargaining rights of teachers.

The main concern, though, that my members have with the bill has to do with freedom. Teachers throughout the history of civilization have been the defenders of liberty. Dictators know that to keep power they must silence educators. This bill does just that and it's very scary. Bill 74 gives the government the power to punish the trustees elected in democratic elections by the citizens of Simcoe County, by the parents from our school.

Bill 74 lets the government take over. Any board employee is subject to dismissal by the Minister of Education. Parents, students and local communities risk losing their direct voice in educational matters that determine the unique nature of each school community. Bill 74 continues this government's erosion of democracy. It's the stakeholders in the education system now. Who will it be next?

The clear objective of this bill is to silence any critic of the dismantling of the education system in Ontario. The elementary teachers of Simcoe County ask this committee to recommend to Mr Harris and the Conservatives that he withdraw this bill in full. This bill has nothing to do with accountability. It has everything to do with forced control. Democracy is at risk today. As the English proverb says, "None so deaf as those who will not listen." Please listen.

Mr Gene Lewis: To support the comments of my colleagues, it's clear that this is not only an attack on elementary and secondary school board employees and trustees, but it's an attack on all of organized labour. It's in particular an attack on elementary teachers in this province. The minister herself said there was no problem anywhere in the province with elementary teachers providing extracurricular services, yet she couldn't legislate differentially. We find that rather an unusual statement, since when it comes to class size, per pupil funding, preparation time and square feet per pupil for accommodation, there used to be no difficulty in legislating differentially.

We thank you for the opportunity to bring that message to you on behalf of the elementary students of the province.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Lewis. We have about two minutes, members of committee, so I will allow three quick questions.

Mr Marchese: Meaning we'll take the two minutes and then we rotate?

The Chair: We have two minutes in total.

Mrs McLeod: Your time's over, Rosario.

Mr Marchese: That's it. You know what this is all about. The hearings are clearly inadequate for our purpose.

Just as a quick question, usually they say in the Legislature that their problem is with the union bosses, not with the teachers. They like teachers, they say; it's you people who are the problem. What is it you do that is so evil?

Ms. Benedict: I get up in the morning. What do I do? I have been an elementary teacher from kindergarten to grade 8, with many years in special education. I was a vice-principal until they removed vice-principals from the union. I have two children who went through he system. At the end of July, I'm going to be a grandmother for the first time. Public education is so important to me. I want to protect it at all costs. If that means I'm their target, let me be their target, but let my teachers go and do the incredible job in their classrooms that they have done for years, day in and day out. Leave them alone. If they want to pick on me, fine. I'm a big girl, I can look after myself, but leave my teachers alone.

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Mr O'Toole: For the record, Ms Benedict, I want to compliment you on the compliments you made earlier on when the curriculum was being reviewed. It took a lot of courage on your part to stand up and compliment the improved curriculum and I thank you for that.

The part I want to ask you is, do you believe that extracurricular activities should be used as a bargaining chip in a school environment where children's lives and futures are at risk? How should we deal with it? That is really the plain way to ask that. How can we ensure that children have a complete education, or is this list in your reference unimportant? If it's important, how should it be manipulated?

Ms Benedict: Thank you, Mr O'Toole.

Mr Marchese: Or dealt with.

Ms Benedict: Or dealt with.

Mr O'Toole: That's what I'm trying to find here. It's very important.

Ms Benedict: If I could answer your question, I've been at these hearings before and usually the question goes on and there's no chance to answer.

In regard to the improved curriculum, I believe that if you went on with the statement, you found out that the problems were with the implementation and resources in the school, but that's another discussion.

In regard to the importance of extracurricular activities, given that there were four pages, and that's not an exhaustive list by any means of what goes on, and also given the history of the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and the two predecessor organizations, we will continue to use what is allowed to us under labour law as far as dealing with collective bargaining is concerned until you choose to take that away.

When we have withdrawn extracurricular activities in the past, we have done so only when we have been in a legal strike position and it has been a form of that legal strike action. It is something that we would employ to cause minimal disruption to the school system, to the education of our students, and only when boards have pushed the limits of what is reasonable at the bargaining table would we move to a full withdrawal of services. If you look at the lesser of evils, to quote one of my vice-presidents, she said it was very important for her son in his OAC year, and she didn't mind that the extracurriculars were withdrawn because he still got the academic qualifications he needed to go on to university.

Mr O'Toole: Dalton McGuinty's position is that he would outlaw strikes.

The Chair: Mr O'Toole, no more questions, please. Mr Kennedy.

Mr Kennedy: Thank you for your presentation. I understand it's a difficult circumstance, the whole nonsensical nature of elementary even being talked about in this context, but it's nonsensical for everybody so at least there's that consistency.

I want your point of view. Normally these hearings are for accountability for the government for a proposed law. This law proposes to create a problem, a shortage of time on the part of at least secondary panel teachers, and then a law to solve the problem they've created. If a minister is going to be that audacious, and also discourage and attack and take away from the respect for teachers around the province, what is your view of the minister being afraid to show up here this morning with any of her staff to defend this bill?

Ms Benedict: I'm sure, given all the various pieces of legislation this government has tried to put through in this session, the minister has her hands full trying to figure out how to implement all of them so they truly are in the best interests of the students and the teachers of Ontario.

Mr Kennedy: That's a much kinder answer than she would have given in the reverse.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford): On a point of order, Madam Chair: The minister is represented by staff here today and by her parliamentary assistant. I don't think you should jump to those types of comments in a public hearing like this. You know better.

Mr Kennedy: I will not allow that to be used as argumentative because the Minister of Education, any minister proposing a bill, normally appears in that chair and answers questions and doesn't hide behind officials. So instead there's-

The Chair: Members of committee, we are here to hear public delegations this morning and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from this criss-cross debate.

Thank you very much for coming this morning.

Mr Marchese: On the point of order, Madam Chair, just as you call the next person.

The Chair: You're just cutting into other people's time.

Mr Marchese: Absolutely, but we in the subcommittee agreed that we didn't want the minister here because in the time they allocated, we didn't have time and we wanted to hear the deputations, as opposed to hearing the minister.

BONNIE AINSWORTH

The Chair: The next speaker is Bonnie Ainsworth. Good morning, Ms Ainsworth.

Ms Bonnie Ainsworth: Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very grateful that I woke early this morning and committed more specifically to paper what I wanted to communicate to you this morning. I really was arrogant enough to think I could just come in and have a conversation. Now that I'm in the venue, I'm very grateful I have a prepared statement.

I would like to thank you for this opportunity to appear before your good selves, the standing committee on justice and social policy, in regard to Bill 74, An Act to amend the Education Act to increase education quality, to improve the accountability of school boards to students, parents and taxpayers and to enhance students' school experience.

Watching TV last night, and at the same time wondering what I was going to say to you this morning, I really wondered why I even wanted to bother myself doing this. As a municipal politician, I have become acclimatized to hearing only from those in objection. For the most part, I would expect that is what you will hear today. I suppose that's the answer. I suppose that's why I wanted to come because I support Minister Ecker, I support Bill 74 and I am truly concerned.

I am not against teachers. I admire teachers and feel they perform one of the most important functions in our society. These men and women have a great responsibility. We all know what it is and we all appreciate their efforts. Please do not take or misunderstand from anything I might say this morning that I harbour any negative thoughts against teachers, because that is simply not true. However, we all know that something is wrong and that something needs to be done.

I'll go back to the top to begin: Bill 74, An Act to amend the Education Act to increase education quality.... How did we wind up with such huge classes, with kids sitting in groups at little tables in such a noisy environment that, to me, it appears almost impossible to think, let alone concentrate, comprehend and learn? How did we wind up with kids getting to high school, grade 9, and they don't even know how to read?

How can anyone disagree with fair student-focused funding, more resources in classrooms, new and rigorous curricula, regular tests to show students' progress, standard report cards, a code of conduct and a teacher testing program? I don't see a problem with this. It's too bad that the government needed to become so closely involved in the school system, but I also thank God that they are and they did. Students have to come first. I totally support these quality initiatives and would encourage serious consideration of any further changes that focus on improving the quality of education.

Second, and to continue, Bill 74, An Act ... to improve the accountability of school boards to students, parents and taxpayers ... . Is there any reason not to expect accountability from publicly funded school boards? Why is there such concern that the Minister of Education seeks this control? Should there be no concern about compliance, or the lack of, with the boards' legal and educational responsibilities? If not to the minister, then to whom should publicly funded school boards be accountable?

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I have read that the minister intends the Education Accountability Act to provide the right to order an investigation and the right to direct the board to comply, if a school board is not following provincial standards or laws respecting co-instructional activities, instructional time, class sizes, payment of trustees' remuneration and expenses, funding allocations and curriculum. I say, bravo. I don't have any problem with this at all.

On behalf of the students coming first in education, I say thank you, Minister, for your willingness to take this on. Frankly, were I a member of a school board, I would say thank you, Minister, for your interest and support.

Finally, Bill 74, An Act ... to enhance students' school experience: It is my understanding that principals already assign different course loads to individual teachers. Why is it then considered such a big stretch to require principals to provide a plan and schedule co-instructional activities? These activities have always been, in my memory at least, part of school life-sports, arts and cultural activities, parent-teacher interviews, staff meetings and school functions. I believe requiring school boards to develop a plan for these activities is excellent, and having principals, using this guide, develop a school plan and, if required, assigning teachers to these activities, is only logical.

I don't see anything new here. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but these activities in my view have always been part of school experience. Students and teachers interested in sports have always done sports, just as students and teachers interested in drama have always provided this opportunity.

In closing, I submit that I think we said it loud and clear in the just-past provincial election. We will not have our children denied important school-related activities because of labour disputes. We will not have our children used as a political weapon. Labour disputes must not be carried into the classroom and our children must absolutely not be encouraged to participate on any side. We have begun to feel that our children and our children's education have become hostage, and that our children and our children's education is now being used as a bargaining chip in labour disputes between school boards and teachers' unions, federations, whatever you want to call them. This is not acceptable. This has to stop.

I thank this ministry and I thank you for your time this morning.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Ainsworth. We don't have any time for questions, unfortunately.

METRO PARENT NETWORK

The Chair: The next speaker is Kathleen Wynne, Metro Parent Network.

Ms Kathleen Wynne: My colleague Donna Preston from the Metro Parent Network was not able to come this morning. There were two of us who were going to speak. Kathryn Blackett is with People for Education and I'm going to share my time with her.

The Metro Parent Network is a loose coalition of parents from across the city of Toronto. We are all people who are involved in our children's school council and some of us are involved in city-wide groups as well.

I feel badly today that the hearings are so short that there are a number of us from Toronto speaking. I wish there was an opportunity for my sister from Bradford to speak, for example. I have nieces and nephews in the Simcoe board. However, I am a citizen of the province and I hope that what I say carries weight and resonates with people around the province.

I'm the parent of three children. I have a son who is at the University of Waterloo in mechanical engineering, I have a daughter who is going to the University of Victoria next year and I have a daughter who is in grade 10. So I'm at the end of my time as a parent in the public school system, but that system has served my children very well and I hope it will be in place for my grandchildren.

My frustration, when I wake up in the middle of the night before these events, is, what can I possibly say that would make this government listen and understand our situation as parents? I've been involved in the education of my children for 16 years as a parent volunteer and I've watched the level of discourse on education deteriorate exponentially in the last five years. As a citizen, I think this is the most distressing aspect of what's happening around us. There's a shrill, destructive and adversarial tone that's come into the discourse around education that should never be there. The discussion about education should be a creative one. It should focus on little children. Dr Ursula Franklin talks about the discussion about high-quality publicly funded education as being inextricably entwined with the discussion of civil harmony and tolerance.

This discussion should never be a mean, partisan, narrow one. All of us, citizens and politicians, should regard the health of publicly funded education as a trust and ourselves as stewards. Politicians particularly do hold the future of our society in their hands. I believe that the current education and funding reforms are abusing that trust.

The assumptions underlying Bill 74 are mean and narrow but, I think more significantly from a practical point of view, they contradict what parents already know about their children's schools. Parents know that it is teachers who already willingly run track meets, coach teams, rehearse and conduct bands and orchestras, organize graduations, direct plays and join their students in hundreds of hours of unpaid activities joyfully.

Parents know that good teachers-and most of our teachers are good-are working at capacity teaching a new curriculum, evaluating and monitoring over 100 students at the secondary level. We should be celebrating these things because we know they are what's going on. One of my concerns with this bill and what's happening in the province is that we're not going to have young people who will apply to teacher's college. We're not going to have enough teachers over the next 10 years.

We know that parents do not want to run their schools. The Education Improvement Commission knows this, they've written a report about it. They know that we don't want to be involved in assigning extracurricular activities to teachers. And yet, you have introduced legislation that assumes that teachers do not want to take part in extracurricular activities, that assumes that teachers are not working hard enough and that parent councils want to be the instrument of principals in approving plans for delivering extracurricular activities. In that way, it's a perverse and punitive piece of legislation, but it's insulting and degrading because there's been no transgression that would warrant that punishment.

What's really going on when a government introduces legislation to solve a problem that doesn't exist? The bill is about much more than extracurricular activities. We believe that at the core of this legislation is the further debilitation of local democratically elected school boards. Bill 74 sets up a situation where the employer, the school board, cannot negotiate the terms of employment with its employees.

Here's something else parents know: School boards are the most accessible level of local politician for a family looking for service for its child. They are far from perfect, as could be said of any elected body, but when it comes to our children we want and need access to people who have decision-making power. Bill 74 takes more control of schools out of the hands of our trustees and places it in the hands of an aloof provincial cabinet minister.

At the same time, this bill allows just about anyone from a school council or from the community to make a complaint and trigger an investigation of a board because the minister may have concerns that a board may not be complying. In other words, if Bill 74 passes, creative problem-solving at the local level, in the interests of local communities, will now be suspect.

Our deep concern is that schools in Ontario, if this bill passes, will lose one of their most distinctive and positive characteristics. Teachers will no longer have the time to take part willingly and completely in the activities that make school worthwhile at all for many of our children. Excellent life skills won't be learned and, furthermore, as a society, we stand to lose the base of skills that we've built over generations.

If students and teachers have to function in an atmosphere of coercion, without consideration for workload and demands confronting teachers already, goodwill will disappear and activities will be delivered to minimum standards. As a result of this legislation and so-called administrative cuts that have already been made, children will lose access to district track meets, to district competitions, and opportunities to associate and compare themselves across their schools and districts.

Children who take music lessons outside the school will continue to perform, but children who do not have that opportunity will lose the chance. Children who study drama or dance privately will bring those skills to school, but those who do not will not have the opportunity to learn them. Boys' football teams will survive and girls' volleyball teams may survive, but cross-country and badminton and swimming won't.

We call on the Minister Ecker to withdraw this legislation and allow boards to negotiate with their employees under the current rules. If the minister feels that there is a pressing need for further discussion of the role of school boards as employees or the role of teachers as extracurricular leaders or the delivery of programs and the number of teachers in the school system, we challenge her to set up a rational, considered public consultation on those issues. Such a process would encourage people who are actually working in schools, and parents and students who are benefiting from that work, to take part.

If Bill 74 passes as it is written, it will only further poison the atmosphere in our children's classrooms in Toronto and everywhere around the province.

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Ms Kathryn Blackett: My name is Kathryn Blackett. I have three children in three different schools in the Toronto District School Board. I am a member of People for Education, a group of parents from public and Catholic schools who are working together to fully support publicly funded education.

I would first like to protest the nature of these public consultations: the speed, the brevity, the venues, the 500 people who have had no opportunity to speak. For a government that stresses the importance of accountability to deliberately avoid the largest concentration of parents and voters in the province seems unaccountable. The only reason I am speaking here today is because Kathleen Wynne kindly offered to share her time so that more parents could be heard.

Bill 74 will directly and negatively affect my children's education. This government has paid so much attention to the code of conduct and safety in the schools and yet the teacher time regulations will mean that there will be fewer adults in the school buildings. The bill will also mean that teenagers have fewer options in their choice of high school courses and a less rich educational experience. In a time of unprecedented economic boom its purpose seems solely to save money, not improve education.

Bill 74's regulations will have a further affect on my children's education. They will serve to lower the morale of teachers and school staff. Parents involved in their children's schools know how dedicated and hardworking these people are. We entrust our children to them. The government says it cares about the quality of education, but in the last five years it has provoked and harassed the people who work in Ontario's schools and the education of Ontario children has suffered as a result.

Only three and a half years ago I spoke to a committee hearing on Bill 104. I had never done anything like that before, but I was moved to do so over my grave concern about how my local level of democratically elected representation was being diminished and power was being centralized in the hands of the cabinet. Here I am again. This act is a very big stick. It says to boards that the minister may investigate and eventually take over a board of education because he or she has concerns that the board has done something or is planning to do something which might result in the board contravening the bill's regulations.

My board, with which I do not always agree, is my local level of government which can respond to my concerns. Trustees give parents access to board policy and represent the needs of their constituents. The act says, "The minister may dismiss from office any officer or employee of a board who fails to carry out any order, direction or decision of the minister...."

Egerton Ryerson was very certain that the school boards be separate and distinct from government administration so that their decisions would not be politically motivated but driven by the requirements of their students and their schools. The province has not demonstrated to me that it knows what is best for my children's education; it does know what is cheapest.

I do not want my school board operating in an atmosphere of fear of takeover. That should not motivate or dictate its decisions. Decisions should be based on the needs of students and I do not want my school board to be punished for making these decisions.

The legislation threatens the last remnants of school board autonomy and ignores the recommendations of the government's own appointed Education Improvement Commission that more power, not less, be returned to the boards.

Ms Ecker, last week at the EIC conference, faced angry questions, many on Bill 74, from parents, students, teachers and board officials. She repeated constantly throughout her speech "parents have told us" they wanted this legislation. Here's a real parent, with a name and a face, who is telling you and the minister to please rescind this bill and give us legislation that actually does enhance the education of Ontario children, not erode it.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Wynne. Thank you, Ms Blackett. It has taken your full 15 minutes.

Mr Kennedy: Madam Chair, I would like to object. The presentation started at 10:52, and it is now, by my count, about 12 minutes later.

The Chair: You've taken the full 15 minutes.

Mr Kennedy: Then I will maintain that objection, Madam Chair, and I will continue to be vigilant, because it is simply unacceptable that we're shaving time off of deputations.

The Chair: You may-

Mr Kennedy: Madam Chair, I understand the difficult role that you're in and I'm not saying there's any malicious intent, but I would ask, perhaps with the help of the clerk and so forth, that we are vigilant about affording the time to people who are here and have made all this trouble to make their presentations.

The Chair: The Chair is vigilant.

ONTARIO FEDERATION OF LABOUR

The Chair: The next speaker is Mr Wayne Samuelson, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

Interjections.

The Chair: The more you bicker between yourselves, the less opportunity the delegates have to address you.

Mr Samuelson, good morning.

Mr Wayne Samuelson: Good morning. Thank you very much. We have provided you with copies of our brief.

I want to begin by saying that I've been appearing before parliamentary committees for almost 20 years. I have never treasured my time as much as I do today. Since the tragic events in Walkerton, in my mind, many things have changed when it comes to my government. I have questions about the role of government. I have fundamental questions about democracy, accountability and responsibility.

I sit before you today as president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, but I'm also a father, a son, a brother, I'm someone's neighbour. In every single one of those roles, I'm counting on you. I'm counting on you to make sure that my kids have an education system that's public and prepares them for a world that's changing every single day. I'm counting on you to make sure there's a health care system for my family when I need it, that there's protection for my family when I need it, to make sure that the water I drink is safe. All of it is based on democracy. Democracy is a heck of a lot more than an election every couple of years.

I can tell you that I am an elected union leader. I've been elected in leadership positions most of my adult life, sometimes as a municipal politician, as a representative on a board of governors at a community college, the United Way; like many of us, a whole range of responsibilities. I've always felt an incredible responsibility when I made decisions, whether it was bargaining decisions that impacted on people's lives, grievances; the time I spent as a member of a board of health. Many times I've had trouble sleeping, worrying about whether I was making the right decision.

This legislation, I know, must be important to you. Believe me, it is unprecedented and far-reaching. It impacts on me, not only as a union leader but on all my other roles in life. It's radical legislation, attacking a system that the governing party built. They've been in power for 50 of the last 60 years.

It's based on a reactionary and vindictive motive. This need to find someone to blame for everything-school boards, teachers, past governments, other levels of government-frankly, I'm getting sick and tired of it.

I've watched this government roll its agenda along in so many other areas, after warnings from so many people. You just discard all those warnings and you roll right along. It's a pattern, and it's disgusting.

Last week I watched this government blame previous governments, human error, local governments, for the crisis in Walkerton. In many regards, your approach to governing is no different when I look at the crisis you've created in education.

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We'll never have an independent judicial inquiry to find out the impact of your policies in education on my kids. We'll probably never have one to see the impact of a range of your policies. But let me say to you, you don't have all the knowledge. Surely everybody can't always be wrong. And frankly, as a citizen, I'm depending on you. I can't depend on Mike Harris or any of those others; cabinet ministers, you can hardly get near them. I'm depending on you.

The Chair: Mr Samuelson, I would appreciate it if you would address your comments through the Chair.

Mr Samuelson: I'm depending on you and every other Tory backbencher to stand up to the arrogance, to stand up to this attack on democracy. Please don't wait until the impact on our children is felt by them, I beg of you.

There are people who are appearing before you who work in the system every single day. You should listen to them. Don't make the same mistakes you made in the environment ministry and ignore the comments of the people who understand the system and work in it.

I said at the beginning that I treasured the time to speak to you. Partially, it's because I think this is an important issue-it's an issue of democracy-but also because I know there are so many people who can't get access to this committee. That also has been a pattern for this government. Teachers have made a big difference in my life, a big difference in the lives of my children. I've respected their opinions as my three kids have gone through the education system. I can tell you, I respect their opinions on this piece of legislation.

Last week, I was in Ottawa at a gathering of 5,000 teachers and I talked to them about what this means. I don't know how to make you understand that it isn't the people in the Premier's office, this brain trust of advisers who seem to write this legislation up, who understand what's going on in our education system.

You can go through our brief. I think it will be consistent with the input you're receiving from people right across the province, the people who are able to appear before you. But I just want to say this: This piece of legislation is not only about our kids, it's about democracy. It's about the way you deal with me as a citizen. I'm disappointed. I think you're wrong and I think you have a responsibility to listen to those people who appear before you.

In closing-I want to leave some time for questions-I just want to say that there probably won't be any lives lost because of the crisis that's been created in education, but a lot of kids are going to suffer for a long time because of the stupid decisions you are making today.

I just want to apologize for not introducing Sandra Clifford, who is the director of education at the Ontario Federation of Labour.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Samuelson. Does Ms Clifford wish to add anything? OK. So we have about four minutes for questions.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you very much, Mr Samuelson. I know you have appeared in your time as a lobbyist, in a general sense, I suppose, before many committees. To set the qualifications of your comments with respect to finding someone to blame-that's a fair statement; I suppose you're sick and tired of it-but you mentioned Walkerton several times and it would appear the implication is there. What I'm trying to say is, with your 20-some years of lobbying and trying to influence-you were an adviser to Premier Bob Rae of the NDP government-how much consultation did you have during the social contract, where you opened every single contract in this province?

Interjections.

Mr O'Toole: The point I'm making is the public consultation that you're advocating here, which we are doing, and you have the right to appear. What did you do during the social contract? That's question one.

Question two is, do you not feel that extracurricular activities should not be used as a manipulative tool to influence salaries and teaching time?

Interruption.

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, every member of this committee who has been democratically elected has the right to ask questions, and I would appreciate it if you would respect that right. Thank you.

Mr Samuelson: I should tell you, I agree. Unfortunately they don't have to be sensible questions.

Let me first of all respond to the social contract. The issue isn't so much about what the government does; it's their responsibility to listen to what people have to say, not to just throw it away. I can tell you, I've been here and I've been disgusted with the inability of people to listen to what is being said. I can guarantee you that there was more consultation on whatever I think of the social contract in one day than you will see in the next 10 years with the approach of this government.

Your second question is about using students as bargaining chips. You know something? I've never heard that said by anybody except the government. The arrogance to actually run ads with my money to raise those kinds of issues is unheard of.

Mr O'Toole, we may disagree on the issues, but surely we don't disagree on the fundamentals of democracy. If you can go to bed at night believing that you've given people a chance to have their say, and you've listened to them, fine, but I can guarantee you that if I were in that chair, I wouldn't be able to.

Mrs McLeod: I'm not going to ask you to engage in a discussion of the history of labour relations or labour negotiations in the province, Mr Samuelson, but I do want to draw on your knowledge of current labour legislation. I want to ask you whether you are aware of any other legislation in this jurisdiction, or for that matter any other Canadian jurisdictions, which would specifically exclude a particular group of employees from the rights they would hold under the laws of their province, whether it's under the Labour Relations Act or the Employment Standards Act, and whether this, in your opinion, is discriminatory legislation directed at one particular group of employees.

Mr Samuelson: I think it's a very good question, and it's actually a question I asked one of the leading labour lawyers last night, to try and tell me of another example anywhere in Canada where similar legislation has attacked a group of people in such a manner. His response was that he has never in his experience of over 30 years in law seen anything like this. This is by far the most unprecedented attack on a group of working people that he has ever seen. I can guarantee you, in my experience, I have never-and I can't imagine any employer trying to pass legislation that puts their employees completely at the whim of the employer, in this case the government, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It's nothing short of the most repressive legislation. "Draconian" would not even be strong enough to describe it.

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Mr Marchese: I just want to ask you, as union boss, as a lobbyist-I'm sure you have nothing good to say but I'm going to ask it anyway. This government constantly talks about accountability. Every bill has the word "accountability" attached to it. They hold squeegee kids accountable. They hold welfare recipients accountable. They're going to make judges accountable very soon. Teachers are being held accountable. Everything is accountable. My view is that there's an accountability deficit, that it's accountability the other way around in terms of holding everyone accountable to their agenda, but the reverse doesn't seem to work. In other words, they don't hold themselves accountable, and how do you hold yourself accountable except through hearings? How else can the citizens respond to you? They've only given us one day and two hours. What is your view of that?

Mr Samuelson: In normal times I'd be shocked, but having watched this government for the last five years, nothing surprises me. I've been involved in many issues-changes to the Employment Standards Act, which the government said were housekeeping-travelled right across the province early in their mandate. I think they decided-they found they get a lot of opposition-they'd just rather kind of hang out around Queen's Park in their offices and not listen to people.

But you actually talk about the fundamental issue here, and that's accountability, because each of you is accountable. The only way you can be truly accountable is if you listen to what people have to say and they feel at the very least that they're being heard. But more important, you take into account people who have far more experience in these issues than you ever will. The choice for you is whether you're accountable to the people who are in this room or to somebody in Mike Harris's office at Queen's Park. It's almost that simple.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Samuelson.

ONTARIO CATHOLIC SCHOOL TRUSTEES' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: The next speakers are Mr Patrick Slack, Ms Carol Devine, Mr Donald Petrozzi and Mr Peter Lauwers.

Mr Donald Petrozzi: Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. The Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association is very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you this morning on Bill 74. As you know, OCSTA represents all Catholic school boards and Catholic school authorities in Ontario. Our boards educate over 600,000 students.

The mission of the Catholic school system is to create a faith community where religious instruction, religious practice, value formation and faith development are integral to every area of the school's curriculum. Catholic educators believe in the common good of a society that protects the rights and well-being of individuals of every race, colour, sex, creed or station. Respect and care for every person, as created in God's image, is essential for school and for society.

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association is pleased to note the statement on the protection of denominational rights in the proposed legislation. We appreciate this acknowledgement of our constitutional rights. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to the government for the many aspects of education reform which have benefited students in Catholic schools. Equity in funding, curriculum renewal, the emphasis on student learning in the classroom, are examples of these positive reforms.

I would like to add our particular appreciation for the additional new dollars to develop a Catholic curriculum.

The proposed Education Accountability Act will have a significant impact on Catholic schools and their students and our Catholic school boards.

Bill 74 proposes to lower the class size in both elementary and secondary schools. OCSTA does not object to the reduction of class size where it is affordable and workable. Research, however, suggests that it is the quality of instruction and the teaching techniques which have the most important impact on student learning.

Some school boards in this province will have adequate space for the additional classes generated by a reduced class size. In other areas, however, where accommodation is already a problem, boards will have difficulty addressing this issue in the short term. We do not see more portables as the answer. We recommend that capital allocations be increased to permit the construction of new facilities and that temporary exemptions on class size requirements be granted as needed. It must also be noted that the cost of portables comes directly from the board's capital fund and therefore reduces the dollars available for permanent facilities. Buying portables is a waste of money that could be better used.

Bill 74 clarifies how the government plans to increase the amount of time each secondary school teacher spends instructing in the classroom. It requires boards to assign teachers to provide instruction for an average of at least 6.67 eligible courses on a regular timetable during the school year. For example, in a semestered system in any two-year span a secondary school teacher will be required to teach three out of four classes daily during three semesters and four out of four classes daily during one semester. The proposed legislation will reduce the number of teachers in each secondary school.

The bill will also reduce, by an average of 25%, the number of teachers available in each semester to carry out the on-call, supervision, remediation and other related curriculum functions during the school day, because 25% of teachers will be teaching four out of four classes during every semester. These aspects of secondary school operations are an important and necessary deployment of teacher time to support the totality of the students' educational experience.

The number of teachers available for extracurricular activities will also be affected by the proposed legislation. These factors will affect all secondary schools, but they will have a heavier impact on small secondary schools. A reduced availability of the school's teaching staff will negatively impact on the entire school program. The level of student need will remain despite the decline of availability of staff to meet those needs.

OCSTA urges that the impact of increased teacher workload on secondary school students and schools be fully studied before any legislated changes are made.

OCSTA objects strongly to legislation which would mandate teacher participation in extracurricular activities. Students in the Catholic system, like students in the other school systems of Ontario, benefit from the voluntary and generous commitment of our teachers. Thousands of hours are spent in organizing, officiating, supervising and coaching a wide spectrum of student activities which contribute significantly to the growth and learning of our young people. Many of the essential skills required in the workplace and in the world today, such as teamwork, self-discipline and problem-solving, have been learned as much on the playing fields, in the performance halls and club rooms of our schools as in the classrooms themselves.

We believe that the management of these programs is best addressed through a collaborative approach between school boards and teachers. Mandating these voluntary services will not work in the best interests of students. It is unrealistic to attempt to legislate goodwill.

OCSTA strongly recommends the removal of those sections of the proposed legislation which mandate extracurricular activities.

Catholic boards are concerned, however, about work-to-rule as a strike sanction. Work-to-rule unfairly affects a portion of the student body and often continues over an extended period of time. The provisions in Bill 74 require teachers to participate in extracurricular activities while a collective agreement is in force but do not remove work-to-rule as a form of sanction when the union is in a legal strike position.

Although we do not support mandating extracurricular activities as a standard practice in schools, we do recommend the elimination of work-to-rule as a sanction available to teacher unions in a legal strike position.

Bill 74 does not address the situation of boards that have signed agreements with their teachers that extend their first agreement beyond August 31, 2000. These agreements reflect the result of free collective bargaining at the local level. They were reached within the parameters of the legislation and regulations that existed at the time they were negotiated. The established principles of free collective bargaining must be respected and these contracts honoured.

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We wish to draw to your attention an error in subsection 23(3) which deals with transition provisions. This subsection says that regulation 171/2000, which imposed new workload requirements, continues to apply for the next school year. These workload requirements are inconsistent with the collective agreements of those very boards for which a transitional period is provided. OCSTA believes that all school boards with agreements that extend beyond August 31, 2000, and that were in place May 10, 2000, should be grandfathered. We have recommended, on pages 7 and 8, what we consider to be appropriate legal language.

OCSTA does not believe the enforcement measures in the proposed legislation are necessary, reasonable or helpful. Throughout our history, Catholic school boards have acted responsibly and in keeping with the law. The spirit of mutual respect and co-operation which for many years has characterized the relationship between local boards and the provincial government has worked well. Our sincere hope is that it will continue.

The compliance aspect of the legislation erodes the balance of responsible local decision-making. It intrudes inappropriately into areas which historically have been the responsibility of local school boards and for which boards have been accountable to their electors. OCSTA is particularly troubled by the proposal in Bill 74 to give the minister authority to directly alter a board's plans for co-instructional activities and for the assignment of teacher workload. It is not appropriate for the minister to interfere directly in the exercise of governance responsibilities of school boards, and in particular our Catholic school boards. OCSTA recommends the removal of the new compliance legislation and also the withdrawal of the subsections which empower the minister to unilaterally alter a board's plans.

School boards are presently required to finalize estimates for their 2000-01 budget by June 30. The legislation that results from Bill 74 and any regulations arising from it will significantly impact those estimates. It will thus be impossible for boards to meet the present deadline. OCSTA recommends an appropriate delay in the date for submission of school board estimates.

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association appreciates the opportunity to express to you our views on Bill 74. We trust that our recommendations will be considered carefully and be received in the constructive spirit in which they are submitted.

I would like to conclude by summarizing our recommendations.

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association recommends the immediate adjustment of capital allocations to reflect the increased need for student spaces; and that the Minister of Education signal her willingness to grant temporary exemptions on class size requirements under section 170.1 of the Education Act.

OCSTA recommends that prior to any legislated change in secondary school teacher workload, the matter be fully studied to determine the impact on secondary school students and schools.

OCSTA strongly recommends the removal of those sections of the proposed legislation which mandate extracurricular activities; that the teacher union's ability to use work-to-rule as a strike action be eliminated; that subsection 277.2(5) be deleted; that consistent with the complaints process proposed by draft section 230.1, the reference to "any person normally resident" be replaced by "any supporter of the board."

OCSTA recommends that section 23 of Bill 74 be amended as follows:

"23.1 Subject to subsection (2), this section applies where the collective agreement between the board and the designated bargaining agent,

"(a) provided, on May 10, 2000 that it continues to operate after August 31, 2000; and

"(b) is in operation on the day this act receives royal assent.

"(2) If any amendment is made to the collective agreement on or after May 10, 2000, this section does not apply, or ceases to apply, as the case may be.

"(3) Despite section 5 of this act, section 170.2 of the act, excluding any regulations made under it, as that section reads immediately before this act receives royal assent, continue to apply until the collective agreement expires.

"(4) Section 170.2.1 of the act does not apply until the collective agreement expires."

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees' Association recommends the removal of the compliance legislation other than that which is in the current act and also the withdrawal of subsections 170(2.7) and 170.2.1(14).

Finally, OCSTA recommends an appropriate delay in the date for submission of school board budgets.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr Petrozzi. Unfortunately, we don't have any time for questions. We appreciate your coming this morning.

ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARDS' ASSOCIATION

The Chair: The next speaker is Ms Liz Sandals, president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association.

Ms Liz Sandals: Good morning. I would like to introduce to you Gail Anderson, OPSBA's executive director, who's here with me this morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you today on behalf of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association. School boards across the province are deeply affected by this legislation. This bill, if passed in the current form, will have a tremendous impact on students, teachers, parents, school boards, trustees, and how we locally govern education in our school system across this province.

I would have liked the opportunity to speak and interact with you at length today about Bill 74. Because of the impact of this proposed legislation, our association was very disappointed to learn that the government had set aside only a day and a half for the standing committee to hear the concerns of the public and, in particular, that our local public school board was not allowed to present to you. We strongly believe that a better effort could and should have been made to hear from Ontarians.

Certainly we agree that a strong and effective publicly funded education system responsive to the needs of our students is the cornerstone of a democratic society. That being said, the government should have nothing to fear by hearing from members of the public-their taxpayers, the people they represent-about an issue so paramount to our society.

OPSBA recommends that the government spend more time consulting and analyzing the impact of this proposed legislation and, in so doing, further extend the public hearings process through this standing committee.

This government, through Bills 104 and 160 and now with Bill 74, has fundamentally reshaped the education system within our province, most dramatically in the area of local governance. We do not believe that this proposed legislation is a fundamental shift towards improving the quality of education but rather about power and control by the province.

Our association has a long-standing position, developed before the introduction of Bill 104, that education reform must be founded on the principles of improving education quality, ensuring equity and access, promoting cost-effectiveness and affordability, and improving accountability to the public. Our association continues to stand by these principles.

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Public school boards have always been willing and prepared to make changes in the best interests of the children. For years, OPSBA and its member boards have been submitting recommendations to the province that would allow school boards greater flexibility in providing services in a cost-effective and provincially equitable manner. Our consistent message to the provincial government over the past 10 years has been that one size does not fit all. With the introduction of Bill 74, we are being told, "One size must fit all-or else."

Bill 74 amends the Education Act by adding a new part VIII to the law entitled "Compliance with Board Obligations" The Ontario Public School Boards' Association submits that this new part VIII is totally unnecessary. School boards have always acted in accordance with the law. The Education Act already gives the minister the power to appoint "one or more persons to serve as a commission to inquire into and report upon any school matter." OPSBA argues that this broad power, which has been used by various ministers, is already sufficient to allow the Ministry of Education to intervene in perceived mismanagement by boards.

OPSBA recommends that part VIII of Bill 74, concerning compliance, be deleted.

More offensive than the actual power the minister is afforded through this investigatory power is the extremely low statutory threshold under which a board may be investigated. Any ratepayer can make a complaint. The minister only has to be "concerned" that a particular board may be perceived to have done something that may have violated, or may result in the violation of, the applicable provisions of the act.

OPSBA recommends that investigations of school boards or public representatives not be allowed without clear reasons based on objective criteria.

OPSBA recommends that if part VIII is not completely deleted, it be amended such that section 230.1, which concerns complaints by school councils and ratepayers, be removed.

Public school boards vehemently object to any legislated attempt by the province to wrest control of educational matters from locally elected school board trustees. The threat of prosecution negates a trustee's role to first represent the needs of the communities in his or her jurisdiction. Most objectionably, the minister's control can extend to any matter affecting the board's affairs.

It should be noted that only the corporate school board has decision-making authority, not individual trustees. They should therefore not be subject to individual liability. It is offensive to school boards that individual employees can be fined or dismissed by the minister for perceived non-compliance.

If part VIII is not completely deleted, OPSBA recommends that section 230.12, which calls for fines for non-compliance, personal liability and electoral disqualification for trustees and dismissal of employees, be deleted from the legislation.

With respect to extracurricular activities, by mandating that teachers be forced to supervise extracurricular activities which are now provided voluntarily, the government has created an environment that will further demoralize educators, not improve the quality of education.

Much has been said in recent weeks about the extracurricular activities that teachers perform. Oftentimes these activities are described as coaching, running clubs or attending meetings. School boards and trustees are aware that teachers and school administrators do much more to contribute to the school experience. For example, in many schools across the province teachers run nutrition programs for students. They raise money or ask for donations to cover costs. They supervise the preparation and distribution of food throughout their schools, without any fanfare, on a daily basis. They do this not because they are told to or because it's part of their job; they do this because they know that children they teach often come to school hungry and they know children can't learn on an empty stomach.

Our association values the commitment that teachers make to all aspects of the learning process. We do not believe that forcing the assignment of extracurricular activities will enhance student opportunity.

OPSBA recommends that the government value the commitment teachers make in providing extracurricular activities within their schools.

We further recommend that Bill 74 be amended to allow teachers to provide extracurricular activities voluntarily.

OPSBA recommends that mandatory assignment of extracurricular activities only be required when there is clear evidence that the specific needs of students are not being met.

OPSBA further recommends that section 170.2.2, which calls for extracurricular assignments at any time in any place, be deleted.

Instructional time: The Education Act currently allows boards to assign a proportionate amount of instructional time to part-time elementary and secondary classroom teachers. Bill 74 does not contain a provision that would allow boards the authority to assign proportionately reduced workloads to secondary part-time teachers. School boards want to ensure fairness to all employees within their board.

We recommend that a technical amendment be made to the proposed legislation to more clearly define a part-time teacher and allow for proportional assignment of workloads to part-time secondary teachers as well as elementary teachers.

Furthermore, OPSBA recommends an immediate release of regulations that will be associated with this section, to allow school boards to conduct their staffing requirements for September 2000 and complete their budgets, as my colleague from the Catholic board noted.

In conclusion, the Ontario Public School Boards' Association calls upon the provincial government to stop this interference in local democracy. It is not too late to tone down the rhetoric, to remove obviously offensive amendments to the Education Act, to recognize that respect is a two-way street and to work with the education community to strengthen, not diminish, our children's future.

We would really like to be able to get on with implementing the provincial curriculum, with implementing accountability for student performance, not to have to deal with the sort of roadblocks that are being put up in Bill 74.

Thank you, and I would be prepared to entertain question.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Sandals. We have about two minutes for questions.

Mr Kennedy: You've very cogently summarized the act's impact on the boards. There is an implication in the bill to take away some of the teachers you now have in your boards; in other words, the increased workload. I just wonder what your view is of that. The Catholic board was here and asked for a study to be done. They have a separate paper that suggests there are safety concerns and so on from on-call that may arise for the wellbeing of children. Are some of those concerns shared by your association?

Ms Sandals: Certainly it's going to take a while to sort out what the real impact of this is, because in the case of secondary we have both decreased class sizes and increased workload going on at the same time. So it's going to take a while to work out in the various boards what the impact is in terms of the actual number of employees, whether, with retirements, we will be laying off or not. There will be some issues around supervision in schools. I think that's going to be a practical reality. With more teachers teaching classes, there will be less people available for supervision.

Mr Marchese: I think it is too late, actually, to make any changes to this bill. I don't think you can tinker with it; I think you either not do it or we're stuck with the problem.

I believe that mandating extracurricular activities and the additional instructional time will not only demoralize teachers but that the extra load on teachers will affect the quality of teaching and ultimately affect the quality of education the students are going to receive. Because you can't stress the teachers to the point where they have little energy left to teach in an effective way. That's my fear. Do you share that fear?

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Ms Sandals: I ended with a comment on the new curriculum. I think that anybody who has looked at the research on change processes and effective change understands that you have to have the support of the front-line worker, particularly when the front-line worker is a professional, as are teachers, in order to make the change happen. One of the really distressing things about the current environment is that teachers are so insulted by the implication that they aren't appropriately providing programs for students that it's really getting in the way of us being able to do the right things to get the support for the curriculum reform and actually make good things happen in schools. We are dreadfully concerned about the aspect of demoralization and how you make schools work when you have a demoralized workforce.

Mr Marcel Beaubien (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex): Thank you, Ms Sandals, for your presentation this morning. First of all, let me make it clear that I kind of like your recommendation 8. But having said that, I heard a presenter this morning mention that extracurricular activities have never been removed except when they were in the position of striking. Could I have your comments on that? That is certainly not the case with one of the boards that I represent in my constituency.

Ms Sandals: There are a number of awkward things about the legislation. First of all, when we look at next fall, from the public school board's point of view, most of our employees will possibly be in a legal strike position, in which case the language in the bill doesn't actually prevent them from withdrawing extracurricular activities anyway because they would be in a legal strike position. I'm not sure that the legislation actually in any way addresses next fall. So it's off target, for starters.

In terms of your comment about our recommendation 8, we understand there are a few boards where there has been a dreadful problem with prolonged withdrawal of extracurricular activities. We understand the frustration of the parents and the students in those communities, and of the teachers too, quite honestly. What we're trying to find is some sort of compromise. Normally things proceed on a voluntary basis, but we do understand that there are occasional, and fortunately very occasional, very unusual circumstances, where things get off-kilter and there isn't a program. But that's when we need to look at mandatory compliance, not for the tens of thousands of teachers in the province who are voluntarily doing things.

The Chair: Many thanks, Ms Sandals, for your presentation.

ONTARIO EDUCATION ALLIANCE

The Chair: The next speaker is Ms Jacqueline Latter, provincial coordinator of the Ontario Education Alliance.

Ms Jacqueline Latter: Good morning. I would like to introduce, on my right, Tam Goossen, the former vice-chair of the Toronto Board of Education and a trustee for nine years. It's an unexpected privilege this morning to introduce a friend on the left. I got here this morning and discovered that one of the most important parent groups in the province, People for Education, had been shut out of these hearings. So the next few moments of remarks I address specifically to the government members.

Annie Kidder, who is sitting on my left, is one of the most eloquent and respected supporters of education in this province. The government should be grateful that Annie Kidder and People for Education exist as a resource to go to, because they keep talking about how they want to consult with parents. There are no better people than People for Education to consult with. Annie and the members of People for Education probably talk to more parents in one day about education issues than any of you or your despicable government speak to in a year. Everyone in the education community and beyond values the opinion of Annie Kidder and People for Education members. So again, it's my privilege to give up a portion of our time to Annie Kidder and to again put on record my dismay and absolute-I can't even think of the words. I'm furious that you would not consider People for Education worthy of speaking at this hearing.

Interjection.

Ms Latter: I'm going to speak now and then we'll decide between the two of us how we're going to do this.

I'm a parent of two high school students in the Toronto District School Board and as such I guess I'm a special interest person, because I am especially interested in my children's education and that of every other child in the province.

It's too bad that Mr O'Toole chooses to leave the room at this time, because I was at a forum with him in Oshawa recently where he said some of the most outrageously confused statements about Bill 74. Clearly, he doesn't even understand what the bill does.

I'm going to speak specifically about my experience as a parent in the system with my two children. The Royal Commission on Learning in 1994 described teachers as the heroes of our system. I couldn't agree more. Both my children, Heather and Andrew, have been served so well by the teachers and workers in the education system. I'm a single parent and as such have raised my children with a limited income, but because of our fine education system, until this government came along, my children were able to have the benefits of participating in school teams, baseball, swimming and other activities such as music. These things happened for my children because of the dedication of the people in the system, the teachers and the support workers who are willing to give of their volunteer time willingly, with good grace and without any coercion. My children would never have been able to afford to go to music lessons or participate in swim clubs or anything else, and so because of those teachers my children had what I consider a well-rounded education. My daughter is going to McGill in the fall; my son is going into grade 12. I'm actually quite happy that they're escaping the system before the full brunt of the devastation that this government has foisted on it will be felt. I know that's selfish, but as a parent I have to be a little selfish sometimes.

I want to quote to you, just in case the government members don't remember what Bill 74 is all about. It supposedly is "An Act to amend the Education Act to increase education quality, to improve the accountability of school boards to students, parents and taxpayers and to enhance students' school experience." I cannot understand how anyone of any sense could think that this bill does any of those things. It does not increase education quality, it will never enhance students' experience, and in terms of the accountability of school boards, I would like to turn it over at this point to Tam Goossen, who, as I said before, is a former chair of the Toronto school board and a trustee for nine years.

Ms Tam Goossen: Thank you, members of the Legislature. Besides having served for nine years on the former Toronto Board of Education, my own two daughters are very proud graduates of the Toronto system and they are now doing quite well in university.

I live in downtown Toronto-Bathurst and College, to be exact-and I came all the way here today to tell you, unfortunately: Please, enough is enough. We don't need any more provincial government directives to run our schools. There is no proof that Bill 160 has made the education system any better, besides creating havoc everywhere in the system. Why do we need another bill to rub salt into the deep and unhealed wounds inflicted by the impact of Bill 160?

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As far as we in the communities are concerned-in my other hat I'm a vice-president of a non-profit organization called Urban Alliance on Race Relations, which has a very active committee on education issues-I don't know if we ever will recover from Bill 160. With the amalgamation of the school boards, the changes to the curriculum, all this provincial testing, the changes in the secondary schools and the attack on teachers by the government, most students and parents are confused, fearful and uncertain as to what all these changes have meant to the quality of their education.

When I was on the school board I used to go to all the parents' meetings in the schools in my area to discuss with them their concerns about the schools and their children's progress. There were times when discussions might be difficult, but most of the time these meetings were great forums for both the parents and me to exchange ideas on education. I usually left these meetings with a very good understanding of what the parents' concerns were and what they expected me to do at the board.

At the board level, with trustees representing all parts of the city, there was a real sense of give and take in terms of addressing the different needs of our students and schools. Although we were from very different political backgrounds, we all agreed on one thing: Public education is one of the most important pillars in a democracy and it needs our unconditional support and nurturing.

With the changes brought in by Bill 160, trustees have already had their role and influence diminished, but at least they have been able to do a few things to safeguard the interests of their schools and communities. With the passage of Bill 74, trustees will be left with nothing meaningful to do except to be willing stooges of the Minister of Education.

Is the government serious that by introducing such a punitive piece of legislation it is really improving the accountability of the system? Do we not live in a democracy where citizens can exercise their rights on decision-making through duly elected representatives?

I don't doubt the personal abilities of the present Minister of Education-unfortunately she's not here to hear this today-but by concentrating all the powers in her office, can she really bear the heavy burden of the different expectations and needs of our students and their families from our diverse communities in this province? Can she personally guarantee the success of all our students who entered the schools when her government took over the system? Can we hold her personally liable for the lives of the students who have to drop out and who can never return because the system is so tightly run from Queen's Park that there's no room to give anybody a second chance?

In my humble opinion, unless all of you can personally guarantee that this bill is really about improving the quality of the education system, I urge you to not support it.

Ms Latter: I will now introduce Annie Kidder.

Ms Annie Kidder: Thank you very much, and thank you, Jackie and Tam, for agreeing to share your time. Everybody has expressed their dismay at the fact that these hearings are so short.

Yesterday we released our tracking report on the state of elementary schools in Ontario. This is a survey of all the elementary schools in Ontario-940 schools participated-and ironically one of the things we noticed most in this report was how proud parents were of their schools and what they were most proud of was the extracurricular activities. They wrote long lists of them. Also ironically, one of their main complaints was that cuts to transportation budgets were causing cuts to extracurricular activities, that they were actually losing extracurricular activities because late buses were being cut in some boards and students weren't able to stay at school. Also, there were cuts to lunchroom supervisors, which also caused cuts to extracurricular activities because there was nobody to take care of children at lunch. The teachers had to do it and thus were not available to do all of the things they normally did at lunchtime.

I want to try and be very brief. My main point has to do with going back to Ryerson again, because I think it's very important that we remember what the initial vision was for Ontario's public education system. One of the things Ryerson went on at great length about-many times he went on at great length about many things, but this was one of them-was the importance of the division between politics and administration. He said it was important that the administration of the school system must be a distinct, non-political department. He criticized the American education system because it was constantly unsettled by legislation based on politics. It's very important that we remember this, because this legislation allows not the Ministry of Education, not the government, but politicians to interfere in the day-to-day life of school boards and into the day-to-day policies of school boards. We're very concerned about what will happen to the stability of our education system when politicians interfere in that life.

For me, the most important thing that came out of this tracking report and that's coming out of these hearings is that we remember the connection between policy and its effect and that what this bill does is it cuts teachers, it eliminates local democracy. We already can see, and we can see by things like this tracking report, that badly thought out policy based on fiscal restraint is having a negative effect on children.

I was talking to a trustee yesterday or the day before and she said: "Unfortunately, children take a long time to grow up, so we can't measure those effects instantly. We can't see what will happen to kids who wait for one to two years for special education services or who don't have extracurricular activities because of cuts to education, or who can't be represented by their school boards to make sure that the local needs of their community are met."

My biggest dismay about this bill has to do with school boards. I'm sure that probably half of the extracurricular stuff is going to get thrown out because it's too silly for words, but that the school board stuff will stay, and what that does is fundamentally change the education system in Ontario. It does complete the work that was begun in Bill 104 and Bill 160 and it will take away my local representation and my feeling and belief and faith that I have somebody there who's looking out for the needs of my community. It will allow politicians to interfere with the day-to-day life of my children's school. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms Latter, Ms Goossen, Ms Kidder. There's no time for questions.

Mr Kennedy: On a point of order, Madam Chair: On behalf of the official opposition, I would like an explanation in writing of how the list of deputants was chosen today. There was a variance between information we received through this process. I would like to have that in writing before this very limited hearing continues in Ottawa. I would like that to be provided.

The Chair: What is the wish of committee?

Mr Kennedy: Is there any objection?

The Chair: Do we have any problem with that?

Mr Beaubien: I don't have any problem with that. That seems reasonable to me.

The Chair: We'll submit that to you in writing before 9 o'clock on Friday.

This meeting is adjourned until 9 o'clock on Friday in Ottawa.

The committee adjourned at 1207.