FEWER SCHOOL BOARDS ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 RÉDUISANT LE NOMBRE DE CONSEILS SCOLAIRES
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
FRANKLAND PARENT-STAFF ASSOCIATION
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARDS' ASSOCIATION
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
CONFEDERATION OF RESIDENT AND RATEPAYER ASSOCIATIONS
WARDS 11/12 EDUCATION COUNCIL, TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCATION
CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FEDERATION, ONTARIO DIVISION
CONTENTS
Monday 17 February 1997
Fewer School Boards Act, 1997, Bill 104, Mr Snobelen /
Loi de 1997 réduisant le nombre de conseils scolaires, projet de loi 104, M. Snobelen
Statement by the minister and responses
Hon John Snobelen, Minister of Education and Training
Mrs Lyn McLeod
Mr Bud Wildman
People for Education
Ms Annie Kidder
Ontario Education Alliance
Ms Jacqueline Latter
Frankland Parent-Staff Association
Ms Colleen Morris
Ms Maria Miller
Ms Gay Young
Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Ms Avvy Go
Ontario Public School Boards' Association
Ms Lynn Peterson
Mr Grant Yeo
Ms Ellen Kert
Metro Parent Network
Ms Kathleen Wynne
Toronto Board of Education
Mr David Moll
Lyn Adamson
Low Income Families Together
Ms Deborah Frenette
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation
Mr Earl Manners
Ms Fiona Nelson
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Mr Barry Weisleder
Toronto Teachers' Federation
Mrs Trynie de Vries
Frances Gladstone
Confederation of Resident and Ratepayer Associations
Mr David Vallance
Wards 11/12 Education Council, Toronto Board of Education
Mr Peter Clutterbuck
Ms Bev Buxton
Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Ontario division
Mr Paul Pagnuelo
North York Parent Assembly
Mrs Shelley Carroll
York Board of Education
Mr Sam Wales
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Présidente: Ms Annamarie Castrilli (Downsview L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
*Mrs ElinorCaplan (Oriole L)
*Mr JackCarroll (Chatham-Kent PC)
*Ms AnnamarieCastrilli (Downsview L)
*Mr DwightDuncan (Windsor-Walkerville L)
*Mr TomFroese (St Catharines-Brock PC)
*Mrs HelenJohns (Huron PC)
*Mr W. LeoJordan (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
Ms FrancesLankin (Beaches-Woodbine ND)
*Mrs LynMcLeod (Fort William L)
Mrs JuliaMunro (Durham-York PC)
*Mr TrevorPettit (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC)
*Mr BruceSmith (Middlesex PC)
*Mr BudWildman (Algoma ND)
*In attendance /présents
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr RickBartolucci (Sudbury L) for Mr Duncan
Mr ToniSkarica (Wentworth North / -Nord PC) for Mrs Munro
Also taking part /Autres participants et participantes
Mr RickBartolucci (Sudbury L)
Ms MarilynChurley (Riverdale ND)
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Tonia Grannum
Staff / Personnel: Mr Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 0912 in committee room 1.
FEWER SCHOOL BOARDS ACT, 1997 / LOI DE 1997 RÉDUISANT LE NOMBRE DE CONSEILS SCOLAIRES
Consideration of Bill 104, An Act to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system by permitting a reduction in the number of school boards, establishing an Education Improvement Commission to oversee the transition to the new system, providing for certain matters related to elections in 1997 and making other improvements to the Education Act and the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 / Projet de loi 104, Loi visant à accroître l'obligation de rendre compte, l'efficacité et la qualité du système scolaire ontarien en permettant la réduction du nombre des conseils scolaires, en créant la Commission d'amélioration de l'éducation, chargée d'encadrer la transition vers le nouveau système, en prévoyant certaines questions liées aux élections de 1997 et en apportant d'autres améliorations à la Loi sur l'éducation et à la Loi de 1996 sur les élections municipales.
The Chair (Ms Annamarie Castrilli): Ladies and gentlemen, welcome this morning. We're starting with a little bit of lateness this morning. We are waiting for some of the members; some of the members are not here, but I welcome you all. We are arranging for an overflow room because it looks like there's a great deal of interest in this subject. I'll give you details just as soon as we have the room, and you'll be able to follow the proceedings from that room.
We have a procedural matter to deal with before we start with the hearings. There's a report of the subcommittee on committee business. Could I ask someone to move it?
Mr Jack Carroll (Chatham-Kent): Your subcommittee on committee business met on Tuesday, February 11, and Wednesday, February 12, 1997, and recommends the following with respect to Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, 1997:
(1) That the minister and ministry staff be invited to appear before the committee for 30 minutes at the outset of public hearings on Bill 104. Of that 30 minutes, 10 minutes would be set aside for the minister's presentation, followed by a 10-minute response/question period by each of the two opposition parties.
(2) That umbrella organizations be allotted 15-minute presentation slots and that individuals be allotted 10-minute presentation slots.
(3) That the first two days of public hearings in Toronto be set aside for umbrella organizations and that the last two days of public hearings in Toronto be set aside for individual presentations.
(4) That for the Toronto hearings, umbrella organizations would be chosen by the caucuses and a list of such organizations submitted to the clerk of the committee for scheduling. The caucuses would submit to the clerk of the committee a list of individual witnesses to be scheduled from the clerk's list of requests. Witnesses will be scheduled by the clerk of the committee in rounds from the lists provided by the caucuses. Cancelled slots will be filled with names from the appropriate caucus lists.
(5) That the committee request of the House leaders permission to sit from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm instead of from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm on Tuesday, February 25, 1997.
(6) That the deadline for groups/individuals to contact the clerk for Toronto hearings is Tuesday, February 18, 1997. Groups/individuals who call in after the deadline for the Toronto hearings will be encouraged to send in written submissions.
(7) That the committee travel to Windsor, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Brantford and Barrie during the weeks of March 17 and March 24, 1997. Dates for each location are subject to logistical arrangements.
(8) That the committee advertise for one day in all English-language dailies outside of Toronto and in the French language daily Le Droit and on Ontario parliamentary channel. The deadline for those who wish to make an oral presentation in the locations outside of Toronto will be Monday, March 3, 1997. The deadline for those who wish to send in written submissions will be Thursday, March 20, 1997.
(9) That the clerk has the authority to place the advertisement in the newspapers.
(10) That the subcommittee meet on Wednesday, March 5, 1997, to select those witnesses to be scheduled for the cities of Windsor, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Brantford and Barrie.
(11) That the committee invite Gerald Caplan and Monique Bégin, former co-chairs of the Royal Commission on Learning, to appear before the committee in Ottawa.
(12) That the Chair will start the meeting punctually regardless of the number of members in attendance.
(13) That the Chair, in consultation with the subcommittee, shall make all additional decisions necessary with respect to public hearings.
(14) That the researcher will provide background information.
(15) That each member of the committee be provided with the compendium of background information on Bill 104.
(16) That the researcher will provide the committee with various versions of the summary of recommendations.
(17) That the clerk of the committee be authorized to schedule witnesses for the Toronto hearings if the report of the subcommittee is not adopted prior to the February 17, 1997, meeting.
Madam Chair, those are the minutes of the subcommittee meeting.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Is there any debate?
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'm concerned, as we begin the hearings -- and the hearings in my view are very limited in time duration in any event -- that there are unfilled slots. I'm hoping that the recommendations of the subcommittee, which were geared to try to accommodate as many people as possible in as short a time as possible, can be seen to be implemented with some degree of flexibility.
I'm appreciative of the fact that for the clerk of the committee, given the very tight time lines in organizing, if there are some who are approached and aren't able to present and there is a rigidity in terms of names having to be drawn from the specific caucus lists, we can be left, as we are this morning, with vacant spots when we know we have a list of people wanting to present that's about 1,000 people long. I just feel that the rigidity of having to draw from each of the three caucus lists makes it unfortunate that we cannot hear from more of those 1,000 people.
The Chair: Mr Wildman, do you want to speak to this point?
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): Yes, Chair. I share the concern of my friend from Fort William. I don't understand why we would have empty slots. What we attempted to do with the very long list of between 950 and 1,000 who had already indicated they wished to make a presentation was to come up with three lists that we felt would be representative of various shades of opinion. If various members on those proposed lists are unable to present, there are lots of other people who could.
The Chair: We've had to date 1,068 groups and individuals who have asked to appear before the committee. The difficulty has been in scheduling their appearance on short notice. The clerk's office in fact --
Interruption.
The Chair: If we could have some calm, please. The clerk did in fact try to call the organizations that the three caucuses had submitted, and exhausted all of those lists. It then authorized the clerk to go into the general list of the more than 800 groups that were left in order to make sure we had a full complement for today. Organizations declined and others couldn't be reached. That's the result this morning. It isn't for lack of interest. The clerk's office worked all through the weekend to try. The difficulty has been just the very tight time frame for giving notice to the various groups.
Mrs McLeod: Given that explanation, which I accept, Friday afternoon, as it is, the time lines for beginning these hearings were very, very tight, as we all know. But if there are people here this morning who are on the list, who had called the clerk's office before the deadline and asked to make presentations and are prepared to present, could they not be accommodated?
The Chair: I could certainly entertain a motion to amend the report of the subcommittee to allow that to happen.
Mrs McLeod: I would make such a motion.
The Chair: Is there a seconder? Could we have some wording on the motion?
Mrs McLeod: I would move that where there are vacant spots on the day's presentations, individuals who have previously contacted the clerk's office in order to indicate their interest in making a presentation and who are able to present in those time slots be invited to present to the committee.
Mr Wildman: I second that.
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The Chair: You're suggesting that people from the audience here who are prepared to --
Mrs McLeod: I think that would be the easiest way for the clerk to deal with it, but I'm appreciative of the fact that if there are vacant spots this afternoon, there are still 1,000 people who could be reached between now and this afternoon who might welcome the opportunity to make the presentation.
The Chair: Is that acceptable to the seconder?
Mr Wildman: Yes.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Perhaps I could just indicate that if there are more people here than there are slots available, we could put the names in a hat and draw at random so that's fair to everybody here.
The Chair: All right. Are we in agreement?
Mr Wildman: Agreed.
The Chair: Perfect. Then we will deal with the empty spots we have in that style.
Any further debate with respect to the report of the subcommittee?
Interjection: How many spots are there left to be filled?
The Chair: I believe there are three this morning and one this afternoon. Four overall.
Mrs McLeod: It might also be appropriate to indicate to people in the audience that it has been customary for committees to allow a number of individuals to jointly present. The time slot doesn't become any longer, but if there are two or three people who would want to present jointly, that's usually acceptable.
The Chair: We will allow for that possibility.
Any further debate on the subcommittee report? All in favour, as amended? Opposed? Carried.
STATEMENT BY THE MINISTER AND RESPONSES
The Chair: We begin this morning with the Minister of Education and Training, Minister John Snobelen. Sir, you have 10 minutes. We're grateful for your presence here. The other two parties will then have an opportunity to also speak for 10 minutes each.
Hon John Snobelen (Minister of Education and Training): Madam Chair and members of the committee, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning. These hearings on Bill 104, the proposed Fewer School Boards Act, 1997, are an important step towards long-overdue reforms to elementary and secondary education in Ontario.
I'd like to begin my remarks with a few words about the larger context of education reform because, as I'm sure members are aware, the provisions of this bill are part of a wider program of education reform aimed at increasing quality and raising standards.
I would like then to turn to the bill itself and to its specific provisions. These education reforms are based on extensive consultation with the people of this province that has involved 24 --
Interruption.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we must have quiet in this meeting room. I would ask you to maintain your comments to yourselves and let the minister speak for the moment.
Hon Mr Snobelen: Consultations that have involved 24 separate reviews on finance and governance in my lifetime, including two royal commissions, 10 commissions and committees, two fact-finding reports, two panels and innumerable meetings.
The reforms address people's concerns about the education system, an education system that many believe is not delivering the quality of education that our students need. It also responds to their concerns that school board spending is not accountable and that residential property taxpayers can no longer bear the burden of the year-over-year tax increases they are expected to pay.
We are building a quality education system by focusing the resources on the individual student and teacher in the classroom, developing a rigorous and relevant province-wide curriculum, setting standards that will challenge students to excel, funding education fairly so all students in Ontario have an equal opportunity, ensuring accountability to students, parents and taxpayers and investing public money wisely.
Bill 104 is a vital component that would support this process of change and help us achieve our goal of high-quality education for all students in Ontario. Its provisions will help us focus resources where they should be, on the individual student and teacher in the classroom. It will recall school boards and trustees to their traditional role as accountable and effective guardians of the quality of education. Through this renewed structure we will also be able to ensure that education funding supports a high quality of education that meets all students' individual needs regardless of where they live. There will be no second-class students in Ontario.
We will be releasing a full and detailed proposal for the new funding model later this winter. Some of the principles and features of this model have already been presented in the consultation paper, Meeting Students' Needs, that we released last September, and the input we received from these consultations will be reflected in the proposal we will bring forward.
The government also proposed that starting in 1998 residential property taxpayers will no longer pay for education. These funds will be provided through provincial grants. Business taxes would continue to contribute to education funding, but the taxes would remain in the community in which they were generated.
Ontario has watched as, one by one, other jurisdictions in Canada and around the world have reformed their education systems to manage the cost of education by reducing duplication and waste and streamlining administration and bureaucracy. We are now ready to move forward in Ontario. These much-needed reforms will allow us to focus resources on the classroom where they belong so we can implement successful reform of the curriculum and enhance the performance of our students.
In Bill 104 you have the first legislative step towards these goals. From describing the wider context of education reforms I would now to like to speak to the bill's provisions.
The bill provides for a number of initiatives: It would enable the government to make regulations establishing new district school boards. It would provide for the election of trustees to the new district boards in November 1997 and set new rules about who is eligible to serve as a trustee. It would establish the Education Improvement Commission to ensure careful implementation and a successful transition to the new district school boards.
This legislation would allow us to reduce the number of major school boards and politicians. Redefining and streamlining the number of school boards, along with reduced spending on administration and less duplication, would permit the number of major school boards in Ontario to be cut in half, from 129 to 66. Where possible, the new district school boards would follow municipal boundaries. We propose to retain the isolate and hospital boards as school authorities.
The province would have 55 English-language school boards, down from 125, and 11 French-language school boards in place of the four existing boards, 59 sections of boards and eight advisory committees. These changes would respect all constitutional rights and the tradition of local control and decision-making. Indeed, many Ontario francophones would for the first time be able to exercise the right to govern their schools through their own school boards.
We also propose using the regulatory powers that would be established by the bill to reduce the number of politicians by cutting the number of trustees at major boards from almost 1,900 to approximately 700.
Interruption.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate that this is a critical subject and that the future of education is important to all of us, but the minister must be allowed to finish his speech. You will be given an opportunity to put your comments on the record. I would ask for your patience, please.
Interruption.
The Chair: Nevertheless, he has a right to say it, and I would ask your patience, to keep your comments to yourselves for the time being. Your time will come to make your voices heard.
Hon Mr Snobelen: Thank you, Madam Chair. The trustee's role is to provide policy direction and support, not to be hands-on, day-to-day managers in the schools.
Bill 104 also proposes new rules about who is eligible to serve as a trustee. We want to get away from the situation where those elected to serve on a board are unable to adequately represent their constituents and participate in decision-making on key issues because of potential conflicts of interest.
School board employees and their spouses would not be eligible to serve as trustees on any school board or school authority in Ontario. Running for office would be permitted if the employee takes a leave of absence.
This bill would also establish the Education Improvement Commission to make sure that the transition to the new district school boards would take place in an organized and careful way. Its proposed mandate would be to guide the process of change and to help boards plan and act responsibly during the transition.
The commission would, under the provisions of this bill, be responsible for developing and implementing a process for establishing local education improvement committees. These committees would carry out the local planning and consultation necessary to effect a successful transition to the new board structure.
0930
An equally important part of the commission's mandate would be to ensure that local accountability for education government is maintained through the transition period. The bill would give the commission the authority, for example, to appoint an auditor to look at the affairs of an existing school board. Boards would have to submit their 1997 budgets to the commission for approval. The commission would also monitor spending on a month-by-month basis, with any spending by a board that exceeded the board's monthly forecast requiring the commission's approval.
I want to emphasize two points here: First, these provisions of the bill, if enacted, would not override existing collective agreements; second, the various safeguards proposed are not permanent, but would be in place only until the new district school boards are established.
To complement this mandate, it is also proposed that the commission assume a number of important responsibilities with respect to consultation and providing advice to the government. Provisions of the bill would, for example, charge the commission with the task of identifying issues related to the establishment of French-language district school boards and making recommendations to the minister on those issues.
The commission would have similar responsibilities with respect to the representation on district school boards of the interests of members of native bands which have tuition agreements with those boards, and issues relating to the distribution of the assets and liabilities of existing boards and the transfer of staff of existing boards.
It would be asked to research, consult and make recommendations on the feasibility of strengthening the role of school councils over time and of increasing parental involvement in education governance.
Interruption.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, let me caution you once more. I fully understand that there is no more critical issue than education for Ontario and for all of us. The minister must be given an opportunity to speak. I do not want to clear this room, and I will have to do that if this continues.
May I also say, for those of you who are standing, committee room 2 is now open and you'll be able to follow the feed from there if you wish to move next door to follow the proceedings.
Hon Mr Snobelen: Thank you, Madam Chair. These are the major proposals of the bill. They would also be key parts of the structural reform of Ontario's education system. The government is committed to reforming the education system because we are committed to ensuring our children a solid foundation upon which to build their lives, a foundation upon which Ontario's future prosperity depends.
The government has made a choice. We are putting education dollars where we believe they should be: directed to students and teachers in the classroom and focused on high, province-wide standards of education, where excellence is the norm for all. We owe that to our students, who are as capable as students anywhere and have the right to a challenging education. We owe it to parents, who have the right to know that their children's education is second to none.
These reforms would be an important step in bringing the highest quality possible, and accountability to students and parents, back into the education system. In doing that, we would return public trust to the system. I therefore ask all members of the committee to support this bill. Thank you.
Interruption.
The Chair: Quiet, please. Mrs McLeod for the official opposition.
Mrs McLeod: I would love to have the opportunity, because of the frustration of people in the audience, to respond to the discrepancies between the minister's stated goals for education in the wider context and the reality of the government's track record on education, but I'm going to refrain from doing that because we have only 10 minutes in which to respond and it's going to be difficult enough to condense my 90-minute initial response to this bill to some 10 minutes of introductory comments.
I'm going to focus specifically on my concerns with the bill, first of all to take issue with a statement the minister made at the very outset, which was to suggest that this bill was going to return school trustees to their traditional role. I would suggest that contrary to that, this bill is going to make local boards, local accountability and local accessibility virtually disappear.
I believe one of the first and fundamental purposes of a local school board is to be accessible to hearing the concerns of parents and concerned citizens, and I believe that access will be virtually impossible under these newly amalgamated boards because they will be either so large geographically or so large in terms of numbers of pupils or so unworkable in terms of few numbers of trustees that it will be almost impossible for people at the local level to be able to have access to their locally elected trustee.
I also believe very strongly that that kind of accessibility is the basis for local accountability, which of course is the reason school boards exist and have existed for over 100 years in this province. If you have not got that ability to be in personal contact, to have real access to what's going on in the school system, you really, as a trustee, cannot be an effective manager or an effective decision-maker or even an effective advocate for education.
The other reason that I think school boards are going to become unworkable under this legislation is that they will be unable to provide the local accountability for decisions that affect education of our children and people in our community.
The basis, besides accessibility, for that kind of accountability is clearly fiscal accountability. We can't consider this act without at least looking at the companion piece, which is the government's intent to take over educational funding in its entirety. The local fiscal accountability of school boards, that ability to decide how many dollars will be spent on education and how those dollars will be spent, will be essentially lost.
I wonder, as the province takes over the funding, how the province is going to decide what the needs are of each local area, how the province is going to respond to those needs. Nobody really knows how those decisions are going to be made. The minister has talked rather blithely in the past about a report, a discussion paper of the ministry which he proposes is the basis for funding. If anybody has had a chance to look at that report, you will realize it is a series of very complex questions and there are no answers yet.
If I had more time, I could spend considerable time talking about the difficulty the Ministry of Education has had in dealing with even the grants provided to one single school I know of in my riding. If it's difficult to deal with one single school, how much more difficult is it going to be to deal with the needs of over 5,000 schools in the province?
What is absolutely certain is that there will be no fiscal flexibility for individual boards when the province takes over the funding of education. I think we should all have great concern about how the decisions on funding are going to be made and how the unique needs of each school district are going to be met.
But for me, the even larger concern is what this government's agenda is in bringing forward this bill. The minister, and in fact David Cooke and Ann Vanstone in the hearings before the committee last week as they accepted the roles of co-chair of the implementation committee, indicated that this is to free education dollars for the classroom. I suggest that simply cannot be substantiated.
The minister's own report, which he used consultants to confirm so that the numbers would be seen to be accurate, indicated that the most they could find through the amalgamation process was $150 million, and even to get the $150 million they had to find $9.9 million directly in classroom supplies and equipment and another $19 million in school busing -- not the administration of school busing but actual school busing of students.
We know that the Premier of this province, as late as last October, indicated that they needed to take another $1 billion out of education. We certainly know that the Minister of Education himself has been quoted saying that education should be able to find $1.2 billion.
I think it is easier to make these kinds of cuts when the government controls the dollars. I believe that is the real agenda of the government, to take control of educational funding so that major cuts can be made, and one of the reasons you have to have amalgamated boards that have essentially lost their effectiveness is because you can't afford to have real local accountability and truly effective advocates if your goal is to strip funding away from education.
I have great concern, over the next period of time, about who's going to be held responsible for what's going on in classrooms. I am fairly confident that the minister will say, as he has often responded to me in the Legislature: "This is not my responsibility. We still do have local boards. It is the responsibility of local boards. If you as a parent or a citizen have concern with what's going on in your classroom, talk to the local board about their priorities and how they're spending the dollars we've allocated." The boards will say in total helplessness: "We simply do not have enough dollars and we cannot meet the needs. All you have left us with are impossible decisions." My greatest concern of all is that it is the students who are going to get lost in this whole process.
I do not have time, Madam Chair -- and I am watching my watch; I'm conscious of the time -- to go into the government's track record on education cuts and the impact of last year's cuts, other than to say it does not give any of us much optimism for the future of education under control of the Ministry of Education under this government.
0940
We've seen what's happened to junior kindergarten. We've seen what's happened to adult education, with direct cuts. We've seen the intention to look at so-called out-of-classroom expenditures as being expendable, such as librarians. We have seen the government absolutely ignore the impact of the last round of cuts on class sizes and on special education.
I don't believe we have reason to be optimistic about the government's agenda in supporting truly increased quality of education. I don't know how you improve the quality of education by continuing to take away the resources it needs to provide that kind of quality and equality of opportunity.
I am concerned that we may lose local accountability altogether, because if boards are seen to be ineffective and if they have no taxation power, which is normally the basis for representation through election, the questions inevitably will be raised about why we have boards at all.
I believe public education itself is at risk in this bill. I truly believe that is the consequence of what we are beginning to deal with today. If we lose our advocates, we will lose one of the strongest bases for being able to maintain public education and speak to its goals. Without doubt, public education is at risk if we are indeed on the verge of disastrous funding cuts. That may be part of the agenda of the government, because as public education deteriorates, it will be inevitable that the pressure for increased privatization comes to be.
Applause.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot allow applause.
Mrs McLeod: We know, in specific ways we will get into in the hearings, that the legislation does prepare the way for increased privatization, specifically with the allowing of increased outsourcing, and that in the provision of more powers to parent councils, it will open the door to charter schools on a scale this province would never before have dreamt of or that I believe any jurisdiction has seen.
We will hear in the course of the hearings from parents who are absolutely committed to their children's education and to involvement in their children's education who say this is not the route to go for public education. The goal of public education, as they well know, is to provide the best quality of education we can provide to every student, regardless of ability to pay. The people we will hear from who are parents believe in that goal and want to see it supported.
I believe those are the issues we have to address in these hearings.
The Chair: Mr Wildman for the third party.
Mr Wildman: It's interesting, when we note the number of individuals and organizations who have indicated their desire to appear and make presentations before the committee and when we see the interest this morning, that the government and the government House leader in discussions about the scheduling around this bill indicated: "There's no real controversy about this bill. This is a bill that everybody supports. Lots of people are in favour of amalgamating school boards." The point is that this bill is not just about amalgamating school boards. This bill is about control of education and who controls it, who has accountability, who makes the decisions.
I think the minister betrayed his view about the education system in one of his last phrases when he said that the purpose of Bill 104 was to "return public trust to the system," as if public trust is now absent. I think the number of people here this morning indicates that they do indeed have trust in the current system, and their concern and desire to appear result from a fear about where the system is going under the aegis of this government's agenda. If there is a crisis in public trust, I think it results from what has happened in education over the last year or year and a half and what is proposed for changes in future.
The minister says he wants to return trustees to a position of accountability as true guardians of education. Frankly, I wonder who is going to run for trustee after this legislation is passed. These people will be covering school boards with very large numbers of students, some of them over very, very large geographic areas. They will have a difficult time being aware of the concerns of all their constituents, of the students, of the teachers, of the parents, yet they will continue to be held accountable for the decisions that affect the education in their schools.
They won't have the power to tax, but they will be held responsible for decisions, I suspect, around the fact that there are many classrooms today that are crowded, that don't have adequate supplies, that don't have enough textbooks, that cannot provide proper special education programs and so on. I wonder who is going to run to be trustee.
The suggestion that we are in favour of amalgamation of boards is accurate. There is a possibility for changes, but we really raise the question, what is the rush?
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): Madam Chair, on a point of order: I appreciate that the media are here, but the cameramen are shooting down on the private notes we're taking at our desks etc, which I think is not --
Mr Wildman: They're welcome to look at my paper.
The Chair: I appreciate your concern, Mr Young, but that's really not a point of order. If it offends you, perhaps we could ask the cameras not to aim in the direction of the notes. Please continue, Mr Wildman.
Mr Wildman: I was saying, what is the rush? Other jurisdictions have looked at amalgamation and have brought about amalgamation of many fewer boards but they've done it over a much longer period of time. One wonders why we have to complete this process in a period of a few months: the merging of collective agreements, seniority lists, dealing with assets and debts of various boards, a very difficult task which is going to involve a lot of dislocation in the process. Why do we have to do it in such a short period of time?
It's certainly not to save $150 million which the minister has indicated will be saved from the amalgamations. When one considers $150 million out of a total expenditure on education annually of about $13 billion, then one recognizes that we're talking about a 1% saving.
This is not going to significantly change the current situation in classrooms in terms of funding. What is going to change is the new funding models which are coming. The removal of education from the residential property tax, while welcome, has also an ominous edge. We're taking $5.4 billion off the property tax, and the minister has indicated there will be further cuts to education in 1998. I really, really wonder whether we're going to have the full $5.4 billion covered in new grants next year. I suspect the grants will be substantially less than $5.4 billion. We know the Minister of Finance wants another $1 billion from education. I suspect it's going to come in lower grants so that there can be funding for the income tax cut at the expense of students in their classrooms.
The Education Improvement Commission, so-called, has been set up to basically take control of education between now and 1998. No boards will be able to make expenditure decisions on purchases and so on over $50,000 without the approval of the commission. Their 1997 budgets will have to be approved by the commission and can be amended by the commission, and the commission's decisions are not appealable.
We welcome the establishment of new French-language boards in the province, but I am very concerned about the geographic size of those boards and many of the boards in rural and particularly northern Ontario, and the question of representation of trustees. I understand the minister has indicated he might be willing to look at changes in the number of trustees allowed under the bill in very large geographic areas and I hope he would look very seriously at that.
I'm particularly concerned with the provision of Bill 104 which mandates contracting out of non-instructional positions, non-instructional jobs. This is the beginning of privatization of the school system. It really does discount the importance of support staff in our education system and the role they play in assisting teachers, principals and vice-principals in providing a good school atmosphere for our students. I think it is very serious when we see a situation where we have mandated in a bill the privatization of important positions within the system, particularly when you discuss with many boards who have looked at privatization and contracting out, so-called outsourcing, and have determined that it will not save money.
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I don't want to be alarmist, but there is a very serious question about the safety of kids if we have people who work on short-term contracts in a school and we don't know who they might be and what their problems might be. This is a very serious concern and I think we must look very carefully at it.
Overall, the government is determined to take control of education away from local authorities. This hurts accountability. It makes it more difficult for parents and students, the community, to ensure they have control over their local school system and have access to it or have their questions answered. This is about taking control and taking money out of the system -- further cuts to education, a system that has already suffered from significant cuts. I'm very worried about Bill 104 in the total context of the government's agenda for cuts to education.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wildman, and thank you, minister, for appearing before us. I would remind those present that the room next door is available. It has the same feed, so you'll be able to follow the proceedings. Mr Prins from the clerk's office is next door to take your names if you wish to be slotted in one of the empty spaces for today. We'll make sure we accommodate as many people as possible.
Ms Marilyn Churley (Riverdale): Madam Chair, before moving on -- I don't want to hold up the proceedings, but I have a question of process. Unfortunately, Frances Lankin is ill today and I'm covering for her, but it's my understanding that the subcommittee made a decision that organizations would appear this week. I notice that on the last page of the agenda for today, at 5 pm, Spiro Papathanasakis, a school board trustee from ward 7, is listed, but all the other names on here are organizations. I wonder if you could clarify this. I know there are a number of trustees from a number of wards who wanted to get on but were told they had to wait, if they weren't representing their board, until a further time. I wonder if I could have some clarification on that.
The Chair: I can explain to you what's happened. You're quite correct. The decision of the subcommittee was to have organizations on the first two days and the individuals on the subsequent two days. The subcommittee also decided that the organizations would be ones that would be presented by the various caucuses, and in fact Mr Papathanasakis was on the government list as an organization.
Ms Churley: But he isn't.
The Chair: It was the government list and we went through it --
Interruption.
The Chair: Please, ladies and gentlemen, I've got to be able to hear the concern.
Mr Wildman: Surely his organization, so-called, is already represented through David Moll, who is appearing at 11:15 this morning.
The Chair: Again, it was because it was on the list that we took from each of the caucuses. We exhausted all of those lists before we went to anything else.
Mr Wildman: Perhaps the two of them could appear together.
Ms Churley: I would like to submit, Madam Chair, that this is an oversight or a problem. As I said, there are other trustees, individual trustees, who wanted the same privilege this week who were told they had to wait because they weren't representing the board. I think it's unfair to have one trustee out of all of them allowed to present as an individual trustee, not representing the board. I submit that this person should be removed and put in at a later date with other trustees.
Mrs McLeod: Chair, just adding to the discussion, the way in which we've attempted to accommodate not only the 1,068 people who called the clerk's office but also the organizational stakeholder groups directly impacted by this legislation that we felt should be accommodated -- the reason we were attempting to have two different types of presentations, as you know, was to have as many individuals as possible from the one list accommodated in shorter time segments and to allow a slightly longer time segment for those who were representing their organization.
I have to say that when the subcommittee had that discussion, I was part of it. I was rather appalled to find out at our subsequent meeting that the government's list did not include virtually any of the organizations that were directly impacted by the substance of the bill. So for the government to use that framework in which to bring forward essentially individuals who are not representative of that organization I think really does betray what we were trying to do at the outset.
Mr Wildman: Just on a very important one here, in asking for various organizations to come forward as we've done, surely it is not the committee's role to choose who represents those organizations. Surely it's up to the organizations themselves. So when we invite the Toronto Board of Education, we don't invite Mr Moll. We invite the Toronto Board of Education, and since he's the chair, I guess the board has decided that he should appear on behalf of the board. It's not up to us to decide who appears on behalf of the board.
The Chair: The clerk only follows the directions that she's given. The three caucuses submitted lists to the clerk and the clerk simply followed through with that, based on an agreement among the caucuses. I understand the point you're trying to raise. I'm not sure if it's possible at this point to ask that the two presentations of which you speak be collapsed into one.
Mr Skarica: This is the first time I've heard Mrs McLeod's complaint, but it looks like that's something we can perhaps deal with in a subcommittee meeting, at lunch or whatever. I think we're wasting a lot of time talking about process when we could get to the witnesses.
The Chair: In fact, this issue does come up tomorrow, so if it would be agreeable with the subcommittee to meet over lunch to decide the matter, we could proceed. Ms McLeod, is that agreeable with you?
Mrs McLeod: Very well.
PEOPLE FOR EDUCATION
The Chair: Our first presenter is People for Education, Annie Kidder. Welcome. You have 15 minutes for a presentation. Any time that you don't use up will be open for questioning from the three caucuses.
Mr Wildman: I don't like to be picky, but this really doesn't look like John Snobelen, so I think the sign could be removed.
Ms Annie Kidder: I am not John Snobelen.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wildman, for pointing that out.
Ms Kidder: I have glasses -- that's how you can tell the difference -- and not quite such a good suntan.
Thank you very much for letting me speak here today. I feel especially privileged because I know so few parents are going to be allowed to speak. I hope you all understand that over 1,000 parents have applied to be witnesses at these hearings and more are applying every day because they don't know that the spaces are already full. Over 1,000 parents have applied and only 60 individuals will be heard, at most. What I want to do today is explain a bit about why I'm here and who People for Education is and then what we feel about Bill 104.
I'm here, first of all, because I'm a parent. I have two girls in school. One is four years old and she's at junior kindergarten this morning. She's in junior kindergarten because she's lucky enough to live in a place that still has junior kindergarten, unlike a lot of other parts of Ontario.
My other daughter is nine and she's spending the day today at the Kiwanis festival. This morning she's performing with her recorder group from her school -- I'm missing it and she'll never forgive me -- and this afternoon she's singing with her school choir. She can do this because she's lucky enough to have a music program at her school, unlike many other children in Ontario, unlike the children in Wellington county, for instance, or Lambton county separate schools or Frontenac, Carleton or York region separate schools, just to name a few places where elementary school music programs have been cut completely.
So I'm here first because I'm a parent but then I'm also here to speak for a lot of other parents. It's very important that you listen, because those parents aren't going to get a chance to speak because these hearings are so short. It's important that you all listen. I don't just mean that the government has to listen. I think it's important that the opposition members listen also because these are parents who really need their MPPs to represent them now.
I know Mr Snobelen mentioned all the consultation that he's done. A lot of these parents are people whose vision of the consultation that's happened around the province has been police barring parents from actual access to the Minister of Education while he stages consultation with 10 handpicked parents.
So I'm here for parents like Linda Sinclair in Nottawa, who thought she was getting a new school this year. Ten years ago her child's school was deemed as needing replacement. They fought for 10 years to get approval for a new school. The year before last they finally got their approval; last year they lost it when the government froze all new school construction. Then in January Mr Snobelen announced with much fanfare that he was unfreezing the funds for new schools and for school repairs. Nottawa's school was once more approved, the survey crews went out, and then weeks later the money was all refrozen because of Bill 104 and the Education Improvement Commission, which I will get to later.
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I'm here for parents like Bev Rizzi in Thunder Bay whose son Christopher has special needs. He's been integrated into a regular class for the last couple of years. Before last year, he had enough help in that class. Last year, his special education support teacher time was cut to 30 minutes a day. The rest of the day he's just left on his own. Next year he's going to have to travel an hour and a half by bus to get the help he needs.
I'm here for Trish Eisenhour in Dowling, which is north of Sudbury, where her kids and the kids in her community describe their school as being on welfare because there's not enough equipment. There's not enough paper for art, there aren't enough books. There are 42 kids in her grade 7 and 8 class. They've cut all the extracurricular sports and they may lose their special education teacher next year.
I'm here for Suzanne Hotson in Pakenham. She has one child with special needs who's bused to Ottawa, but her special class may be cut next year. The librarian has already been cut at her other child's school in Lanark, so the library is now run very sporadically by volunteers. She talked a lot about how low teacher morale was also at both her children's schools.
I'm here for all of these parents because they're feeling a bit invisible right now. They hear Mr Snobelen continue to say that 50% of the money spent on education is spent outside the classroom. He continues to say that only 1.8% of the education budget was cut in the last year and that it's the boards' fault that these cuts have inadvertently affected the children. They feel invisible because they hear people saying that the promise not to cut classroom spending has not been broken.
These parents know that when you talk about what's spent on the classroom, you can't leave out, which they do when they say this 50%, the principal and the vice-principal, the library and the librarian, the music and the gym teachers, the learning centre teachers, the speech pathologists, the ESL teachers and the building. You can't leave these things out when you're talking about classroom spending.
These parents know that in some boards they lost as much as 23% of their provincial education grant last year, so that there was nothing left to cut but teachers and services for the children. They know that classroom spending has been cut all over the province and they know that it continues to be cut.
Up to now, the one thing these parents had going for them was local representation and now they're in danger of losing that too.
Just as an aside here, I was going to explain who People for Education is. We are parents from public and separate schools who believe in fully publicly funded education. We believe that education is not like a business and that the financial bottom line is not the most important thing.
We don't hate change. There are lots of parents in People for Education who've been fighting for changes in the education system for a long time, but we think the process by which change is made is very important. What's scary to us right now is that huge changes are being made to the education system, but we're not getting a chance to see what the whole plan is. So it's very frightening that the very first part of the plan is to take away local representation. Who are we going to have to speak for us about all these things that we know are happening to our kids?
Bill 104 will do a lot of things. It's going to create some very big boards. I got a letter from a trustee in Cochenour the other day who said now her board was going to be Canada's fourth-largest province. There will be two boards in northern Ontario that are reach the size of France. The Toronto mega-board will serve a population greater than all four Maritime provinces put together. It's hard to believe that boards this big will be more efficient and it's even harder to believe that these giant boards will be able to represent individual parents. What is it going to mean for people, for instance, who have to drive nine hours to their board office, which some people will have to do?
Bill 104 doesn't only make these big huge boards, but then it cuts the number of trustees who will serve on them.
Interjection.
Ms Kidder: Excuse me? I think this is very important. Thank you.
It not only makes these huge boards, but then it cuts the number of trustees who will serve on them. Then it cuts their pay down to nothing and it takes away all of their power. To me, it feels like what we're going to end up with is just big, huge bureaucracies but not school boards. School boards are school boards because they are run by elected representatives, but the trustees will no longer be running the boards.
Another part of Bill 104 has to do with school councils. Mr Snobelen has already stated that he wants all schools to be legally required to have school councils. Bill 104 states that the Education Improvement Commission, the EIC -- which I will get to in a minute -- is to figure out how to strengthen the role of school councils and increase parental involvement in education governance. This is all very worrying to parents, on many levels. For one thing, how do you make it a law that people have to volunteer for something? What are they going to do with the schools where they can't find people to be on parent councils? We heard there were actually going be press gangs.
For another thing, as a parent who has been very involved at my school for a number of years, I know how fractious PTAs can get. The parent association in the school right next to ours, for instance, has just had a large internal fight and the whole executive has resigned. This isn't uncommon. I've heard of PTA meetings where the police have had to be called. Parents are very passionate about their own children. What would happen in a situation like that, where the whole executive resigned, if the parents were actually running the school?
There are many other parts of Bill 104 that are worrying -- that are especially worrying when it's not at all clear what's going to come next -- but the most worrying part to me is the Education Improvement Commission. I am not an expert, but I have read this legislation over and over and it seems to give practically unlimited powers to a small body of unelected people. It says that they will continue to exist at the pleasure of the Lieutenant Governor and it talks about them making annual reports. I know Mr Snobelen said that they were there only as a transition, but it is nowhere written in the bill that they will stop existing when school boards are established. What it does in the bill is it establishes education improvement committees, which Mr Snobelen didn't say would stop existing when the school boards are established. It would be nice to know some kind of real date as to their length of existence.
Mr Wildman: Their appointments are for three years.
Ms Kidder: Their appointments are for three years, I just heard.
The Education Improvement Commission is empowered to oversee the amalgamation of school boards, as you know. All the boards' budgets have to be approved by them and if they don't like a budget they can demand that it be changed. They will decide how many trustees boards have. They can audit boards and they are to decide what services should be outsourced by boards. This is where we, as parents, are in danger of losing our custodians and our librarians, maybe even the principals and vice-principals. Who knows? Maybe music and phys ed too will be deemed outsourceable. It actually states in the legislation that decisions of the commission are final and not subject to review by court.
I already mentioned the problem with new school construction. This is because the Education Improvement Commission has to approve all capital expenses over $50,000 and their powers are retroactive, so they are deemed as having been in place since January 13. No money can be spent without their approval, but they don't exist yet so no money can be spent, period, and this is happening all over Ontario.
The Education Improvement Commission has the power to establish smaller education improvement committees which have all of these same powers. What it seems like from all this is that the work of boards will still be done; it's just that now it will be done by people we don't elect and so who are not accountable to us in any way. We'll have a lot of inaccessible bureaucrats working for a higher echelon of inaccessible bureaucrats.
Parents are concerned because they're losing their local representation at a time when the whole system is changing -- Mr Snobelen talked about the great changes he had planned -- and they're losing their representation before they know what those changes will be. They want to know if Mr Snobelen will broaden his idea of what a classroom is, for instance. They want to know what programs will be protected. Parents want to know if Mr Snobelen will put the $150 million he says is going to be saved through amalgamation back into the boards that have lost so much already.
Parents are not afraid of change. They just want to see a plan first so that they can discuss it and maybe amend it and have some kind of input into it. Parents think that Bill 104 is an extreme example of putting the cart before the horse. We need to see, for instance, a per pupil funding model first and we want to know what's going to happen to our high schools. We are very worried that all of this is just being done to cut costs.
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I noticed when I saw the list of groups the government had chosen to come and speak to you about this bill that they were nearly all taxpayers' coalitions. Taxpayers' coalitions are not education experts. They are experts in paying less tax.
Our education system is there to benefit everyone. We are educating the next generation of society. A strong education system is at the core of any democracy. Money spent on education is arguably the best investment that any society can make. Please don't damage our children's schools just to save money. I urge you to vote against this bill until we have all of the details of Mr Snobelen's plan for our children, our students and our adult learners, until we have all the details of Mr Snobelen's plan for our education system. Thank you.
Applause.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Kidder. Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot have this every time someone finishes a presentation. Apart from the fact that it disturbs the proceedings, it will take time away from the presentations. I must ask you to maintain silence in the room in deference to all.
Interruption.
The Chair: This isn't the place to do it, with respect. I will have to clear the room if this continues. Ladies and gentlemen, I really want everyone to have an opportunity to present and everyone to have an opportunity to hear. We must do that in an orderly fashion. I don't want to clear the room.
Mr Wildman: On a point of order, Madam Chair: Just for the information of the audience, the rules of the Legislature are somewhat arcane but what they basically say is that only members can make noise.
The Chair: Ms Kidder, we have about three minutes for questions. I guess it will be one minute for each of the caucuses. We'll start with the government caucus, a very brief question.
Mr Carroll: One quick question: You made a comment about your children and the music programs and so on that they have access to. It must be in Toronto, obviously. Do you believe that every child in the province should have access to those same programs?
Ms Kidder: Absolutely, and they don't right now.
Mr Carroll: That's what we're trying to accomplish, so I don't understand why you're upset about that.
Ms Kidder: I'm sorry, sir, but to me, equality and the idea of everybody having the same chances is not bringing everybody down to the bottom level but bringing everybody up to the highest level. Right now, the average per pupil spending is much lower than it is in Toronto and one would hope that the government would be trying to find ways to bring everybody up so that everybody could have these programs.
Mr Carroll: That is exactly what our objective is.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Carroll. We won't editorialize.
Interruption.
The Chair: Excuse me. We must have order.
Mrs McLeod: If Mr Carroll's government was to achieve its objective, then the Ernst and Young concern that amalgamation could lead to increased cost, not to less cost, could well prove to be the case.
I agree with so much of what you've said. There isn't time to ask a lot of questions so let me zero in on the one that might surprise people: that somebody representing parents would have concern about parent councils. I think the greater powers to parent councils will be sold on the basis of greater involvement for parents and perhaps even more parent choice down the road. In the few seconds we have, can you tell me, besides the difficulty of getting volunteers, what your great fear is, as a parent, of that direction?
Ms Kidder: It goes back to Mr Carroll's fear, in a way. Parents are passionate about their own children. We try to be passionate about everybody's children but when you have parents running a school, what they care about is their own child. It's very important that there be some kind of equality across the province and that there be some kind of objective body that's ensuring that. If you have a lot of little fiefdoms, every single school with their little parent council running it, you won't have equality across the system.
Mr Wildman: I have the same problem, with such little time. The issue that you've raised about new construction is indeed a serious one and one of great uncertainty because of the role of the EIC in this bill. I'd like to hone in on the effects you said you've identified from the cuts: larger class sizes, cuts to special education, librarian cuts, music cuts, other programs and so on. The minister continually says there have not been any cuts to classroom education. How do you explain that, and do you think the $150 million that has been identified as savings under this bill will rectify the situation and mean that we have equality in education in classrooms across the province?
Ms Kidder: Not at all, because the minister continues to say that only 1.8% of the budget has been cut, but he counts that as 1.8% of all the money that's spent on education. The government money that's spent on education, which is about $4.4 billion, they've actually cut nearly 10% of that, so some boards have suffered enormously. The $150 million isn't going to put the money back there.
I don't understand how Mr Snobelen can continue to say that cuts haven't affected the classroom. I phoned a lot of parents around Ontario yesterday. I've been talking to parents around Ontario for months. They are totally disheartened, they are incredibly worried and their children are suffering badly.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Kidder, for both your thoughtful presentation and preparing it on such short notice. We really appreciate your being here.
ONTARIO EDUCATION ALLIANCE
The Chair: The next presenter is the Ontario Education Alliance. As the alliance comes forward, could I just ask all of you to look around and see if you find a notebook. It belongs to Raj Ahluwalia from CBC and he seems to have misplaced it. If anyone should find it, please bring it forward.
Ontario Education Alliance, please introduce yourselves and start.
Ms Jacqueline Latter: Good morning. My name is Jacqueline Latter. I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this committee on Bill 104 or, as the government has so cutely titled it, the Fewer School Boards Act, 1997.
Before I begin my presentation I would also like to express my displeasure at the number of people who have been shut out of these hearings. When I came here this morning and found that there was an incomplete list and there are over 1,000 people listed to speak, and vigorous attempts were not made to get those people on to the list, I wonder exactly how much the government is willing to listen to anybody at this point. They clearly aren't making great efforts to hear us.
The Chair: In fairness, Ms Latter, the job falls to the clerk, and the clerk's office did work all weekend to try and schedule people. The difficulty has been the amount of time that people had to prepare, and people had to decline, which is unfortunate.
Ms Latter: I'm not blaming the clerk in any way, but I don't know why these things, like everything else, have to be done in such a rush in the first place. There should have been much more notice given to people.
The Chair: Understood.
Ms Latter: I'm here today representing the Ontario Education Alliance, which is an independent coalition of parents, students, teachers and education workers across the province who care passionately about the future of education in Ontario. We want to stop the education cuts and we want to build a better publicly funded education system that prepares all students, regardless of gender, race, creed or economic background for challenging and meaningful citizenship.
Bill 104 is a serious threat to our children, to our schools, to our communities and, therefore, to our future as a democratic society. I am going to present to you this morning several reasons why Bill 104 must be withdrawn in its entirety. We will not be pacified by minor tinkering or amendments. We want it to be withdrawn completely.
Just before I go into that, though, I wish to spend a few moments telling you who I am. I am a founding member of the Ontario Education Alliance and a parent of two children in the Toronto Board of Education. My daughter is in grade 10 and my son is in grade 8. He has the dubious distinction of being one of the students who will be caught in the so-called double cohort year when he graduates in the year 2002, along with all the students currently in grade 7 and grade 8. This is due to yet another ill-conceived idea of this government that seems full of ill-conceived ideas, but I'm sure I'll be back in a committee room in this building at a later date to deal with that one.
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I was the founding chair of the Ontario Parent Council, the co-chair for a number of years of the heritage language committee at the Toronto Board of Education and I continue to sit as a community member on the Toronto Board of Education's race relations committee, parent involvement committee, and safety and security committee. I'm telling you all of this so that you understand that I come to you with a fair bit of experience in the education system as a parent. For many years I've worked in conjunction with other parents, staff at boards of education, trustees and people concerned about the education system.
As I've mentioned before, my first comments on Bill 104 have to do with the process around these hearings. The process is blatantly undemocratic. This comes from a government that stated during its election campaign that it wanted to be closer to the people. I can't think of a group of people who have pushed the people further away from the government. Although over 1,000 people have to date registered to be heard in Toronto alone, the ridiculously short time allocated for the hearings will allow no more than 100 people to voice their opinions.
I address this to the government; I know the opposition agrees with me on this. I'm addressing this to the people on those people's right. I don't want to call them "the people on the left," because they certainly aren't. Why are you afraid to hear criticism? Why are you restricting the voices of people so much? Is it because you already know that what you are proposing is absolutely wrong but you just can't find a graceful way out of this? It reminds me of the scenario of Bill 103. I seem to have heard the same complaints in that room also about the undemocratic process of all of this.
Please don't sacrifice the future of our children in Ontario because you've made a horrible mistake on Bill 104 and you don't know how to amend it. We can give you lots of suggestions on what to do, the simplest of which, of course, is to withdraw the bill completely, which we've already suggested.
Your government's proposal in Bill 104 to amalgamate school boards will result in a mega-board in Metro Toronto which will be responsible for over 300,000 students and 550 schools. I know the previous speaker has said this. I know you're going to hear this over and over again. I don't think it can be repeated too often. Perhaps if you hear it often enough you will understand the ramifications of this.
That is more students than in each of these provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. There would also be at least one board in northern Ontario larger than Great Britain, the country that I come from. At least John Snobelen had the good grace last week to admit when he was in Sault Ste Marie and he was questioned on this that perhaps it should be rethought and he might be able to do something about it.
Does this represent a gentler, wiser Minister of Education, less intent on creating a crisis and more committed to doing things which benefit our children, or am I being too optimistic? I leave that in your hands. You have the power to influence your government over all of this.
The proposal to drastically reduce the number of school trustees and the reduction of their salaries to what amounts to a small honorarium of $5,000 a year means that only wealthy volunteers will offer themselves for this position, or people who are sponsored by corporations. Communities will lose their democratically elected officials. This is a travesty.
I see a puzzled look on one of the MPPs' faces. Perhaps she doesn't understand what it is this bill proposes to do. What it proposes to do is going to result in democratically elected officials having absolutely no powers and no responsibilities for that for which they were democratically elected. The gutting of the responsibilities of the school trustees will also mean that important decisions now made at the local level with input from all the players concerned, including parents, will be made only by remote figures connected to Queen's Park.
The so-called Education Improvement Commission -- and I have to smile when I hear the name for that -- is perhaps one of the most odious recommendations of Bill 104. In a move unprecedented in Ontario's proud education history, a body of provincially appointed people will have dictatorial powers over already democratically elected officials and officials to be elected in the future.
The so-called Education Improvement Commission will be able to make decisions which, in the words of Bill 104 -- and I want you to listen to this carefully because we live in a democracy -- "shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court." I have never heard of this before in a democratic country.
School boards will be forced to comply with the commission's demands or face prosecution and fines. I ask you as a human being, are you not embarrassed that your government, which promised to be closer to the people, would even for a moment consider anything so undemocratic, and then give it a mandate for four years and give the chairs of that commission salaries close to $90,000 a year, and employ them at this time, before the bill is given royal assent, if it is given royal assent, as consultants in the Ministry of Education? I thought you were trying to cut down on expenditure and waste; that seems to be an incredible waste of time and financial resources.
The commission is also being charged with the responsibility to make recommendations on how to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services. I know this has already been alluded to this morning. As a parent, I can tell you that faced with the idea that temporary help agencies will be staffing the school offices and dial-a-cleaner will be responsible for the caretaking, the mind boggles at this.
Then I realize the serious threat these proposals pose to the health and safety of our children. The health and safety factor, which parents are very concerned with, will be threatened by the fact that strangers will be in and out of the school and cleaning materials that are absolutely hazardous to the health of children will be used.
I was pleased to hear John Snobelen this morning talk about how there would be no second-class students in Ontario. We want to have a solid foundation on which to build their lives. He talked about accountability, the high quality of education and increasing the quality of the education system. That part is probably the only thing I agree with him on. The way he and your government are going about doing this is absolutely contradictory to what you're proposing and can only result in failure, and the system is being thrown into chaos because of this.
One of the most serious flaws in all of your proposals is the fact that despite the minister mentioning that over 20 reports have been done on education in the last number of years, including two royal commissions, what he fails to say is that no impact studies have been done on any of this and there is not one shred of evidence to show that any of this is going to enhance the experience of learning for the children in the classroom. That is the only reason we should be even thinking of reorganizing our education system.
I'm going to stop there because I am interested to hear the questions that are likely to be posed by all three parties. I thank you again for the opportunity to speak.
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Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thanks, Ms Latter, for your excellent presentation. Not only as an opposition politician, but also as a parent and certainly as a teacher for the last 30 years, my concern is always the bottom line being the child. I don't see the child's education being enhanced in Bill 104.
We talk a lot about out-of-classroom expenditures. If you can follow with me for a second, Bill 104 proposes that we keep the Ministry of Education, we keep regional education offices, we keep some school boards. That's how it was in the past as well, but now we're also adding an Education Improvement Commission and education improvement committees. Has this government not just added two levels of bureaucracy or out-of-classroom education expenditures?
Ms Latter: I agree absolutely that they've done that. But not only have they done that: I heard Ann Vanstone during the course of the questioning that she received from the commission approving her appointment last week. When asked about the unwieldy size of the Metro board in Toronto as it would become under Bill 104, how she thought this could possibly work, her answer astonished me, because what she said led me to believe that the system will just recreate itself, so instead of six school boards you will have six regional boards in the city of Toronto. If that's all that we're doing, we're just changing the name and removing the tax base and the power to the government. It's absurd, it's laughable, if it weren't so serious.
Mr Bartolucci: Absolutely.
Ms Churley: Thank you, Ms Latter. There isn't much time to go into the meat of this presentation, but I would agree with you that there are similarities between Bill 104 and Bill 103, particularly in terms of some of the undemocratic components. One thing's been bothering me. I heard Mr Snobelen quoted on the radio this morning in response to a situation where some of the parents who are here today were trying to talk to him and were separated by the police. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the majority of people support this bill; there are just some people who don't, who support the status quo because they have their own self-interest in preserving it. He actually said that. I would like you to tell the government members here today, and Mr Snobelen, whether or not you think that is true.
Ms Latter: Not only does Mr Snobelen not make himself available to parents, but he distorts the truth about his availability. I had an opportunity recently on a program called Face Off to ask him why he doesn't meet with groups of parents who for the last 18 months have been sending him letters, phoning him and faxing him. His response was: "I meet with people all the time. You should see my schedule." I said, "Well, that's very interesting because you never meet with any of the groups of people I'm in contact with," and he just continued to dodge that question.
As most of you know, he received a very chilly response recently at Annette Street School when he chose to meet in the school building but chose to exclude the parents from that school community from meeting with him. He has been the most unavailable Minister of Education that I recall in the time I've been involved with the education system.
Mr Young: Thank you. You expressed a concern which a former speaker did -- Ms Kidder -- regarding trustees. You suggested they would not be willing to run. We have over 100 hospitals, 26 community colleges and 19 universities in Ontario run by totally volunteer boards. They provide local input, local synergy, and they manage those institutions without pay altogether. Our proposal is that we would attract more of those kind of people who want to participate, less as a career and more as a community service.
Ms Kidder also commented on the schools on welfare. We know there's a spread of funding per pupil per year from $4,230 up to $9,000. It's almost a $5,000 spread in Ontario, so we will be funding education and we will be working on an allocation model to provide real equity funding across the province so there are no students who have that disadvantage.
But I wanted to ask about local representation because I think if we clearly define the trustee's role, clearly define the school council's role, we can have more input locally and more local representation. Could you explain to me why that can't work?
Ms Latter: As a parent who's been involved in the system in the way that I described at the beginning of my presentation for so many years, I know that only democratically elected people can help the community voice to be heard, and --
Mr Young: But they would still be democratically elected, and people like yourself would be the ones who would serve on the school councils, I imagine.
The Chair: Mr Young, would you let Ms Latter finish, please.
Ms Latter: I don't think for one minute you believe that $5,000 a year is going to attract anyone to run for school trustee. Would you run for the position of MPP if you were only paid $5,000 a year? I doubt it.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Latter, for your presentation.
Applause.
The Chair: Please, ladies and gentlemen, I must have your cooperation to be able to run these hearings.
FRANKLAND PARENT-STAFF ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The next group has very kindly agreed to step in since we weren't able to schedule a meeting for anyone else: the Frankland Parent-Staff Association, Ms Colleen Morris.
As Ms Morris makes her way up, I'd just like to address with the committee that although the subcommittee report was for groups to be on for the next two days and then individuals for the following two days, given that we have agreed this morning to try and fill the slots that were available, it appears that the next two slots that are open could be filled by individuals and not organizations. I look for your guidance as to whether we could in fact change the subcommittee -- I think the intent of the motion this morning was to try and fill it, whenever possible, with individuals.
Mrs McLeod: That was certainly the intent of the motion.
The Chair: All right. Is that okay with you, Mr Young?
Mr Young: Yes.
The Chair: Very well.
Ms Morris, can I ask you to introduce your group and yourself.
Ms Colleen Morris: Yes. We are glad to have this opportunity to speak. I would like to introduce Maria Miller and Gay Young. We are members of the executive of the parent staff association at Frankland Community School. There are about 450 children who attend Frankland Community School. It's in the east end of Toronto and I have to say it's the greatest joy every day of my life that my eight-year-old son and my 11-year-old daughter get up in the morning and go there.
It is a place that is full of active learning. We have seen cuts. We've managed to preserve our teacher-librarian and that was through working with the Toronto board, with the local trustees on the committee, and looking at inequities in the delivery of our libraries in Toronto. I fear that type of work that concerned parents did to make a change will be lost with the type of legislation suggested.
We are an active group that believes that parents and staff together can make for the best-quality education possible for our children. Last Thursday, more than 140 parents joined together; with our neighbourhood school we joined together to have a meeting to look at the impact of Bill 104 and related legislation.
I have to tell you that many people didn't sleep that night. I myself have spent many sleepless nights this year worrying about the incredible changes that are happening with such speed and with such little thought, and in fact little thought at how the proposed changes have not worked in places like New Zealand, the UK and Calgary. We'll look at Ottawa for outsourcing of custodial care.
An awful lot of what happens right now at our children's school works and it works because it's adequately funded, there's local input and we have a local board of education that is accountable for every penny that is spent and that is accountable to the parents and the students. I fear for my children's education and for all children of Ontario, and with that I'd like to pass over to Maria.
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Ms Maria Miller: My children have also had a very good experience at Frankland school and achieved very high academic standards there. My concern is that with Bill 104 proposing that basically the control of education would pass over to the province, for all intents and purposes, how are we going to hold the government accountable?
Mr Snobelen talks about accountability. He talks about making the education system more accountable. I can tell you that this year, as parents from Frankland school, we've been trying to get in touch with the government, to have input into the decisions being made, and we've not at all been successful. We wrote two letters. We wrote one letter to Mr Snobelen and a second letter to the Who Does What panel and received no response at all in any form. We followed up those letters with phone calls and still never got answers to the questions we had about what the plans may be for education. We had a lawyer write a letter for us and again received no response, except to hear that our lawyer had been asked to withdraw from the case when the principals of his law firm received a call from the office of one of the ministers.
So when you hear parents here talking out of turn, it's because we haven't been heard yet, because we want to be heard, because we won't be heard in these hearings unless they're extended. Most of the parents won't have a voice here before you. We just managed it today because there was an empty spot. How are they going to be heard? There's not enough time for hearings.
I'd like to know, if the province is taking control of education and is going to look to serving local needs, how are they going to serve our needs if they don't even answer our questions or answer our phone calls or answer our letters at this point? It's not going to get any better later, I'm pretty sure of it.
To give you an example of how the system has worked for us so far, several years ago in our school we had a problem with air quality control. The children and the teachers were feeling sick; particularly sensitive children were feeling very sick with headaches, concentration problems, respiratory problems. We finally identified, by having a specialist come in and look at the situation, that a lot of the problem came from moulds that were growing in the carpets of the school. There are other problems with the air-handling system and filters and things like that.
The parents at school, recognizing the problem, contacted our trustees at the board. We organized a meeting with the trustees. We had them come to the school and we discussed this problem. Within six months the problem was solved. We managed to remove the carpets from the school. We managed to improve the air-handling system enough and also changed some of the janitorial practices so that certain chemicals weren't introduced into the school's air. That was six months' time. It wasn't easy to get the board to listen, but they listened.
We've been screaming at the province all fall and nobody's listened to us so far. So I think we need to have more hearings and we want to know how the province is going to be accountable if they're planning to go ahead with such changes.
Ms Gay Young: Hi. My name is Gay Young. I'm here to speak as a parent at Frankland school and I will do my best to represent the parents at Frankland school. I think it's very ironic that the reason I'm actually sitting here speaking to you today is because one spot or three spots were not filled on the list when there are 1,000 parents who have requested a chance to speak at this hearing. I'm outraged and I'm worried about my children. I can't believe this government is excluding us from this process and proceeding so quickly that there is no opportunity for us to have any input.
We had over 100 parents at that meeting last week and I can tell you, I can convey from them that they are also outraged, as I am. They cannot believe that you are going to put in power an Education Improvement Commission that will have total authority, that cannot be questioned by the courts. The members will be paid $80,000 to $90,000 per year. There will be five to seven of them appointed and they, in turn, will be allowed to appoint other groups of three people that will sit across Ontario above our elected boards of education and make the decisions without consulting us because they are appointed by you, the government. I express to you my anger that this could even be conceived of.
I would also like to say that I'm very concerned about the funding for our programs. Mr Young has said that the province would like to equalize funding for every student in Ontario. I would like to say that there are different needs for different students across Ontario, and it doesn't cost the same amount for each student to be funded. Different students have special needs.
Some students don't speak English when they come to school. In fact, 58% of the children in Ontario who come to school with English as a second language are right here in Metro. Therefore, it costs us a lot of money to help those children succeed in the school system. What will happen to those children if we receive the same amount of funding per child for those children as other children who already come to school speaking English? It will be the same thing that happened to Bev Rizzi's children in Thunder Bay, who have special needs. They used to have somebody with that child, helping that child succeed at school, and now no longer do.
I feel this government is abandoning the children of Ontario. How is that going to improve the system? I really speak from the heart, but I also have to say that I know what I'm talking about. I'm very, very insulted that Mr Snobelen would say there are parents in Ontario who don't know what Bill 104 is and that's why they're angry. It's the exact opposite. More and more parents every day are learning exactly what Bill 104 has in store for our children, and as those parents find out what's written in that bill they are becoming just as angry as I am. I'm sorry, I am becoming angry. I'll try not to shout.
It's incredible, and as Maria and Colleen have said, we have done more probably than almost any other school in Ontario to try to reach this government. We've used every possible means to try to speak to you and now we're being barred from seeing Mr Snobelen by security guards and police, for goodness' sake. We're just parents. We're not going to do anything awful. All we want to do is have a chance to speak and let you know how concerned we are for all the children in Ontario.
Applause.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, I will not remind you again: We cannot have applause.
I want to thank you. You've used up your time. It was marvellous of you to be able to fill in the breach. You've given us some insight. Thank you very much for appearing before us.
METRO TORONTO CHINESE AND SOUTHEAST ASIAN LEGAL CLINIC
The Chair: The next group is the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic.
Mrs Elinor Caplan (Oriole): Madam Chair, just as the next group is coming to the table, I'd like to put on the record that I meant no disrespect to anyone here, including the minister. I had previously scheduled constituency appointments and I had to attend to those because I felt I had a responsibility to my constituents. That's why I was a little late getting to the meeting this morning.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Caplan.
Good morning, Avvy Go. Nice to see you. You have 15 minutes and any time that is left over will be for questioning from the three parties.
Ms Avvy Go: Thank you. My name is Avvy Go and I'm a lawyer by training. I'm here to speak on behalf of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic. I just want to make an interesting observation: I've done a couple of hearings since this government came into power, but I just noticed that, apart from the minister, every single speaker who has spoken this morning was a woman and I wonder whether that says anything about who is making decisions and who is being affected by this bill.
Some of you may be wondering what a legal clinic is doing here talking about education. I thought I should begin by saying a few words about the clinic. We provide legal services to low-income immigrants and refugee families from the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian communities in the Metro Toronto area. Many of our clients are not proficient in the English language, and as a result they face various barriers in accessing our public institutions, including the education system. We see it as our role to assist the communities we serve in removing those barriers.
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Over the years, we've tried to work with the communities and the local school boards within the Metro Toronto area to improve accessibility to education for immigrant and refugees families. Unfortunately, our struggle has met with varying degrees of success. I can cite a number of success stories we've had with the local school boards, particularly in providing legal education to ESL students on various legal issues that affect the student population and training sessions to public school teachers on issues facing immigrant students and their families.
However, we have also been involved in a number of situations where members of our communities are denied equal treatment or equal access in the school system. For instance, we have seen students of colour being mistreated by their school teachers or principals because of racism within the school, and all too often we see the lack of communication between the school administration and immigrant parents who are unable to influence school decisions that affect their children.
Students are not the only victims of a system that does not adequately address the issue of equity. We have served foreign-trained teachers and racial minority teachers who are trained in Canada but are denied employment equity within the school system.
It is therefore our position that any reform to the education system must be premised upon two principles, the principle of equality and the principle of equity, so as to ensure that disadvantaged students and educators receive equal treatment under the system.
Therefore, in reviewing Bill 104, we believe the question that the Legislature should ask is whether the bill serves to promote the principles of equality and equity within the public school system. The answer, in our view, is no.
Although the bill opens with an acclamation that it will "improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system," in reality the result of implementing the bill will be anything but the improvement of accountability, effectiveness and quality of our education system. It is further our position that students and families within the Metro Toronto area will be the hardest hit if Bill 104 is passed into law.
Bill 104 proposes to eliminate local school boards and replace them with district public school boards. In Metro Toronto this would mean the replacement of the current six public school boards with one new Metro Toronto district public school board. At the same time, the number of trustees in Metro will be reduced from 74 full-time to 22 part-time.
Coupled with the change in governance is the fact that school boards will lose their taxing ability and hence their control over how funds can be used. In their place, the province will assume control over how spending can be done at the local level and consequently what the education program should look like within local communities.
From the perspectives of disadvantaged communities and parents and students who are traditionally denied equitable access to local school boards, the impact of school board amalgamation and increased provincial funding control will be more devastating.
First, let's look at some figures. Of children under age 10 in Toronto, 36% live in poor families. One in four Metro families with children are headed by single parents. Of all the immigrants who enter Canada every day, over half of them settle in Ontario, and of those who come to this province about 60% eventually choose Metro as their final destination. One third of Metro public school students have lived in Canada for fewer than four years. So already under the current system immigrant parents and students have grave difficulties accessing the decision-making process. The only time that immigrant parents can exercise any influence at all within the system is when the school board establishes specific initiatives to address the issues faced by them.
I include here in my submission the example of the Chinese parents' group at the Toronto school board which allows Chinese parents to access the school administration. Such an initiative is possible in the current system because each local school board is accountable directly to the community they serve with a larger number of school board trustees who each have a smaller local constituency to work with.
The isolated cases of success will not be possible at all once the new district school board is in place. With a much bigger constituency to take care of, the district school board will be under pressure to deal with issues that are of general concern to the majority of the parents while the concerns of the minority will be pushed aside.
In addition, given the current government's public record on equity issues, there's a serious concern that any program which is aimed at promoting equity within the system will be branded as a special interest program and hence will be eliminated completely. Programs aimed at alleviating racism and sexism within the school system, programs which address the special needs of gay and lesbian students, students with various disabilities, and initiatives that support inner-city children, for example, will all face imminent attack by the province in the name of "improving quality and effectiveness."
What about the various employment equity and anti-discrimination initiatives that are still in place in several Toronto school boards in spite of the repeal of the Employment Equity Act by this government? Will the provincial government direct the new mega-board to continue with initiatives to eliminate workplace discrimination and harassment in schools? Somehow we don't believe this is going to happen.
In short, the overall impact of Bill 104 is the erosion of equity and the reduction of accountability of the public school system to disadvantaged people in this province.
Moreover, the government agenda is made clear, in our view, through the establishment of the so-called Education Improvement Commission. The provincially appointed commission will effectively seize control over the education system by restricting the budgetary and overall power of local school boards, and by establishing a commission that is armed with unchecked power and freedom from public and judicial scrutiny, the government has effectively barred all opposition to its anti-equity, anti-democratic agenda.
It is clearly an attempt of the government to impose a particular version of education reform without any regard for the interests and wishes of the people who are directly affected by the system. Among these people are the poor, racial minorities, single mothers on welfare and many other disadvantaged communities who have already experienced first hand what the reform agenda of this provincial government means in other areas.
Ironically, what this provincial government is doing to take over the education system in this province reminds me of a development that is taking place elsewhere in another part of the world.
As you may know, Hong Kong will be returned to China on July 1, 1997, and to ensure what the Chinese government called a "smooth transition," they have established an interim non-elected government body to take over matters that are currently within the mandate of the elected government of the Hong Kong Legislature. Like the Education Improvement Commission, the power of this unelected transitional government is pervasive and the decisions are also free from judicial review.
Just what this Education Improvement Commission can do within the next four years to our education system is something we're loath to consider.
To conclude: The issue of improving the quality and effectiveness of our public school system is a complex, systemic issue that can only be addressed by comprehensive, systemic solutions. Bill 104 represents a very simplistic response to a challenge that reaches beyond our education system. Our community, and ultimately our children, deserve a much better and more well-thought-out answer than what this government has offered them. Thank you.
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much, Ms Go. You've made a very impressive presentation. Because of the shortness of time, I'll just ask you one question. One of the things that has been raised by the minister in response to the types of criticisms you've put forward is that the government hopes to strengthen community councils, school councils, so that parents through their school councils would be able to influence the program for their students in their own school.
Do you think the kinds of programs you're talking about and the concerns you've raised on behalf of the minorities could be met through school councils having greater say in control over education in their schools?
Ms Go: The question is not whether it could be met, but whether there will be a strengthening of school councils and parent councils as a result of Bill 104. I don't believe that is the case. As an example, in the Toronto school boards, parent participation does not just happen overnight. It requires a lot of effort by the school boards, by the schools themselves, to ensure that all parents have a way of accessing the system. If you have a mega school board with reduced funding and the budget is controlled by the provincial government, there is no way that programs or initiatives that address parent participation will happen. So the answer is no.
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The Chair: For the government caucus, Mr Young.
Mr Young: I just wanted to point out before we go to one of my colleagues that successive governments, including this one, have appealed to the federal government to increase funding for English as a second language. We get in Ontario, mostly in Toronto, 50% of the new immigrants to Canada, yet we only get 30% of the money. There's a federal election coming, so if you'd please talk to them as well and help us in that, I would appreciate it.
I didn't get a chance to speak to the lady before, but I want to point out that our funding model, our allocation model, will be a stakeholder board. It will be a process. It will include basic funding. It will include funding for English as a second language, it will include special needs funding, it will include northern funding which would perhaps compensate for the extra cost for busing and heating in the north. It's a very sophisticated model. I wanted to express that to you and to the lady before, if she's still here.
Ms Go: Of course we recognize that this is not just a provincial or even a municipal issue. ESL training is a linked program in other federal programs and is partly the federal responsibility as well. But my concern is that with this bill and the structure and the funding it's proposing, a lot of the special needs programs -- I'm not sure whether it's simply ESL programs, but there are many other special needs programs -- will be under attack because there won't be any funding left over. The mega-board is not going to take the initiative to find money from elsewhere to continue those programs.
The Chair: For the official opposition, Mrs Caplan.
Mrs Caplan: I'm not going to debate with the parliamentary assistant the rationale; that is, when you acknowledge that there are needs, why you would then cut the kinds of dollars from the existing system that they control totally, 100%. That doesn't make any sense to me.
I would like you to talk about the difficulties people who are struggling to survive have in trying to participate in their schools, both from the fact they come from other cultures and have language difficulties, but they're also just trying to survive. What will it do to those people?
Ms Go: A lot of my clients are garment factory workers or restaurant workers who work on average 12 hours a day, and they don't work just Monday to Friday; they work Monday to Sunday. Apart from the timing factor, which makes it impossible for them to participate or go to evening meetings at parent councils, they also don't have the language skills and nobody is there to advocate on their behalf to make sure there are interpreters. There is no interpreter at this hearing, for instance.
It would be very naïve to think that somehow, if you just leave it up to the individual schools -- this is what's going to happen with Bill 104 -- magically, immigrant parents can overnight start participating in the process. Some of the horror stories we've heard are just incredible. We have clients, for example, whose kids somehow got signed up into French immersion without the parents' knowledge because they didn't understand the letter that came to them. It's simple things like this that the current system is not able to address, and none of these problems will be addressed at all by Bill 104.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Go. We appreciate the unique view that you brought here today.
Mrs McLeod: Madam Chair, a question, please, if I may put it on the record for a response either by the parliamentary secretary or by the ministry at an appropriate time. Given the parliamentary secretary's I think quite uncategorical statement about the fact that all the different areas would be funded under a funding model which seemed to be developed -- I'm not sure it is at that stage of development, but his comments seemed to indicate that there was a funding model developed.
Mr Young: It's in process, is what I said.
Mrs McLeod: I would appreciate, then, some clarification from the Ministry of Education as to the total funding commitment that will be in each of the categories that have been identified.
The Chair: So noted. We'll forward that along.
Mr Wildman: I would suggest to the committee, recognizing that we have a short time frame because of the time allocation motion, that we request the ministry staff to make a presentation to this committee on the funding formula.
Mr Young: Madam Chair, what I said was that the funding formula will be prepared by a stakeholder committee which is in process.
Mrs Caplan: That's not what you said. Check Hansard. You were very clear in assuring the witness that the funding formula would contain all of these components.
Mr Young: It will contain those components, yes.
Mrs Caplan: What we're asking at this committee is that you give the people who are here and give this committee information on what those numbers are, how that formula's going to be put forward. That's part of the deliberations, to give the people -- if you want to give them comfort, you have to give them the facts.
Mr Wildman: Chair, if the government wishes to refuse to have the members of the ministry staff come before the committee to explain the funding formula, fine. All we're doing is inviting them.
The Chair: I think both requests are for additional information. So noted, and we'll forward those along.
Mrs McLeod: Madam Chair, may I add that I support the request for a presentation on the funding formula, but I do request that it not take away time from presentations, that it be supplemental time to the committee.
The Chair: All right. Thank you.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARDS' ASSOCIATION
The Chair: The next presenter is the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, Ms Peterson. Thank you very much for appearing before us.
Ms Lynn Peterson: Good morning. My name is Lynn Peterson. I'm the president of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association and a trustee with the Lakehead Board of Education in Thunder Bay. Joining me today are Liz Sandals, the executive vice-president of the association and a trustee from the Wellington County Board of Education, and Grant Yeo, who is president of the Ontario Public Supervisory Officials' Association and the director of the finest board in Canada, the Durham Board of Education.
Mr Wildman: In the world.
Ms Peterson: In the world, sorry. I'd like to point out that Mr Yeo's association has made application to be heard here and to date has not heard a word.
Mrs McLeod: Madam Chair -- and if we could, stop the clock on the presentation -- given the fact that we have time slots unfilled and there was supposedly an effort to reach all the organizations that had asked to present, I'm surprised that Mr Yeo's organization is not on as a separate presentation.
The Chair: We'll look into the matter, and it's a matter that we'll also refer to the subcommittee when we meet at 12 today.
Mrs McLeod: Is it possible to split the two presentations today and fill one of the time slots that was empty?
The Chair: We still have one time slot open this afternoon.
Mrs Caplan: He might prefer to take that.
The Chair: Could we proceed with the speech?
Ms Peterson: Thank you. I'd also like to make one comment about the allocation funding model that is apparently in the process with all the stakeholders, being developed as we speak. The Ontario Public School Boards' Association, which represents 1.7 million children in this province, is not involved in this process. In fact, there was a meeting last Friday that we believe we were actually excluded from. We represent the majority of the students in this province. I would like to have that on the record.
Mr Wildman: Chair, I don't want to hold us up, but could we get some clarification from the ministry about that?
Ms Peterson: I would like some.
Mr Wildman: Surely if they're developing a funding formula, they would ask representatives of the public boards and the separate boards to be part of that process. If the public boards have not been asked, it calls into question how serious the ministry is about developing a workable funding formula.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr Wildman. We'll take note of that. I really would like Ms Peterson to continue, finish her presentation, and we'll deal with these issues at the end.
Mr Wildman: Perhaps our research officer could get that information for us.
The Chair: That's been noted, but for the moment I want to make sure we hear the full presentation.
Ms Peterson: On behalf of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts and recommendations with you in regard to Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act. However, given the enormous implications of this legislation, we were appalled at the time lines that have been allotted to the discussion about the future of education of the children in this province.
However, having said that, we will quickly highlight our key points.
I'd like to begin with a quote, and it is one we've probably read recently: "Imperfect as they are, boards are an integral part of democratic government and civil society. In an education system as enormous as Ontario's, it's vital to have some form of direct community input into running our schools, beyond centralized decision-making at Queen's Park plus parent councils for all 5,000 schools."
You may recognize these words of Gerald Caplan, co-chair of the Ontario Royal Commission on Learning. This commission spent three million of the taxpayers' dollars to undertake extensive research and reflection on ways to improve Ontario's education system. It came to the conclusion, on the matter of the number of school boards in Ontario, that "There is no formula, nor do there seem to be any objective criteria, that would allow us to conclude that there are too many school boards in Ontario."
Ontario's public school boards have many concerns about the legislation's proposed amalgamations, such as the geographic vastness of some of the proposed new boards, particularly in northern Ontario, and the decrease in access to decision-makers in education all across this province. One of the boards being proposed actually spans two time zones. That is not appropriate for the children of this province. But we are not here today to discuss amalgamation. Despite the legislation's uncertainty and vagueness on amalgamation, Ontario public school boards are already taking leadership and action to merge their operations.
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Our primary concern with Bill 104 lies with its assault on democracy. This is not about students. In essence, it is the province's first step towards eliminating local education governments and their local taxing authority and seizing total control of education in Ontario. This paves the way for a very market-driven, American-style education system. You'll have vouchers, charter schools and privatization measures, which will fragment the public education system and allow students of different backgrounds, abilities and means to be shoved off into different school settings. As well, local communities would be rendered helpless in addressing local education needs and protecting students from provincial funding cuts.
The following has been concluded about the American experience with privatization measures: "Despite the enthusiasm of its advocates, privatization has not proved itself a solution to low student achievement or declining school budgets. Moreover, it has not improved accountability, widened parents' involvement or increased equity."
For more than 150 years, locally elected school boards in Ontario have worked with the provincial government to provide an accountable, effective and efficient public education system. As we look to the transition to the new school board structure, Bill 104 absolutely ignores democratic rights. It gives powers for education decisions to a few unelected persons who are accountable only to the provincial cabinet.
Bill 104 interferes with the 1997 day-to-day operations of existing school boards. It effectively removes boards' authority to build new schools where provincial approval has already been granted. Particularly alarming is the commission's power to make changes to any school board's 1997 budget after that budget has been democratically approved by the locally elected school board, and they consult with the community when develop their budgets.
Bill 104 also proposes that the commission's decisions are final and cannot be questioned by the courts. This is a brazen abuse of democratic principles.
Ontario's public school boards recognize that we need appropriate help in downsizing, including advice on distributing assets, staffing issues and other operational matters. However, all these tasks can be achieved without destroying democracy and giving unprecedented powers to the Education Improvement Commission. I'll refer to it as the EIC, because I believe this is not improvement; this is implementation. It has nothing to do with the quality of education of children.
Bill 104 is a travesty of the public interest and has nothing to do with improving the quality of education for the students of this province. Instead, the savings that have been associated with the legislation's changes are extremely questionable.
The legislation decreases accountability in education. This legislation will result in a centrally driven, very large bureaucratic system. It makes a mockery of equity in this province.
The brief we are leaving you today has two parts. Part 1 addresses sections of Bill 104 that are an assault on democracy. Part 2 provides our serious concerns with the unprecedented powers of the EIC.
Our recommendations for an orderly and cooperative process for managing change in a manner that doesn't affect the students in the classroom negatively are:
Ontario's school boards must be granted adequate time to ensure that the transition to the proposed district school boards does not negatively impact the students.
If the large, northern district school boards proceed -- and they should be re-examined -- a technology and communications infrastructure must be in place prior to amalgamation. The infrastructure that we all believe exists across the province does not exist in the far north.
We believe that the 1997 local government elections should be delayed to November 1998, with the proposed new boards in place in January 1999, but I believe those board boundaries should be revisited.
With respect to democracy, we make the following recommendations:
The voting qualifications on the Municipal Elections Act must continue to apply to the election of school trustees.
Subsection 333(4), which adds disqualifications for running for the office of school trustee, must be deleted.
The trustee representation range must be from five to 22, not five to 12, as made in government statements. There will be communities without any representation at all.
Native trustee representation must be in addition to this range. This has not even been addressed.
We will provide our assistance to the EIC in helping to devise those formulas.
If Bill 104 becomes law -- and I don't believe it should -- we make these recommendations:
There must be adequate consultation on key issues.
The EIC must not have the powers it currently is proposed to have. There are already democratically approved, locally elected school boards and those have to be respected.
The EIC must establish timely and effective communications to schools boards on regulations and guidelines. Of interest is that a lot of what is proposed will be done by regulation, which means it is not subject to public scrutiny, and that is not democratic.
The local education improvement committees must include locally elected trustees and senior staff from each participating board and French-language section, and the membership of these local committees must be a local decision.
Local improvement committees must communicate back to existing school boards and their communities. I would think that is fundamentally what needs to be done if these happen.
In conclusion, this government's cavalier attitude towards democracy is absolutely frightening. It appears that this government wants to eliminate local education governments and their local taxing authority in order to seize total control of education. The province wants to use education as the scapegoat for its tax cuts. This is undemocratic and unacceptable to the parents, students and taxpayers of Ontario.
Our students deserve better, and for that reason the Ontario Public School Boards' Association will take any legal steps available and necessary to protect the democratic interests of students, parents and taxpayers within Ontario's cherished public education system.
In conclusion, I will leave you with another quote from a former Alberta Minister of Education:
"In the British tradition, we have separated our powers vertically and we've separated local government from the provincial government. I'm not suggesting for a moment that local government is autonomous from the provincial government. Historically, our forefathers intended that [local government] should have some isolation from the provincial government and some immunity from excesses of the provincial government. If we forget that or if we concede to the provincial government that it can do whatever it wants with local government whenever it wants, we have given up the very safe feature of separation of powers."
Thank you for your attention. We will answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms Peterson. Regrettably, we only have one minute per caucus.
Mr Carroll: Ms Peterson, thanks very much for your presentation. You made a couple of points: You said your primary concern was the assault on democracy, and you also said this bill made a mockery of equity. Our current system of funding has the amount of money spent on education per student being dependent upon the property values in the area where the student attends school. Do you believe that is fair and democratic?
Ms Peterson: Actually, that's not even accurate. We have taken some time in the last couple of years to take a look at school board spending and why and how it works out. There's no relationship between the ability to raise taxes locally and the amount spent. In point of fact, one of the most expensive situations in the province is in an assessment-poor board.
I've heard earlier speakers saying there's a difference of from $4,000 to $10,000 in some boards. I've heard it assumed that the lowest cost is actually the most appropriate. I would suggest to you that it's not the most appropriate. In those communities I have looked at with the really low costs, it's because there are not the appropriate services for the kids. In far northern communities, there are no such things as access to psychologists, psychometrists, assessors. Those children need those services. There's a cost that comes with it.
Mr Carroll: Can you tell me why the school boards in those areas made the decision not to have those programs?
The Chair: Mr Carroll, I regret --
Ms Peterson: May I answer that?
The Chair: Very briefly.
Ms Peterson: We have a letter from the Minister of Education stating that those are not the responsibilities of the school board. For many, many years those programs have been cut and cut and cut. Because public school boards cannot watch the children fall through the cracks, public school boards have access -- 396 million property tax dollars -- to provide those services to the children of this province.
Mrs McLeod: Once again we see the frustration with the limitation on time. There is too much here to be dealt with in 60 seconds. I appreciate the fact that it's not an easy presentation for you to make because you're clearly going to be seen by the government as the key vested interest in coming forward today.
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Ms Peterson: I have a vested interest.
Mrs McLeod: I know. I'm just going to spiel for a minute because I confess to my bias of having been a school trustee for a long time. It was suggested that it may be difficult to get people to run for these new boards, and I think the parliamentary secretary expressed his surprise because it's no problem getting volunteers for hospital boards and university boards and college boards. I want to point out the primary difference here, and I guess I'll just be asking whether it reflects your views and the views of trustee associations.
Five thousand dollars wouldn't deter me from running as a school trustee. It's more than I actually got when I was a school trustee. Driving 200 miles to my regular meeting probably would deter me, because I'm a northern Ontario trustee. By the way, John Snobelen is only talking about low density for increased trustee representatives, not making those boards smaller. But what would have really deterred me from running would be the sense of absolute helplessness if I became simply the scapegoat for the ministry's funding cuts and the one who is trying to explain the impossibility of those cuts to my local community. Is that why you think it might be difficult to get people to run?
Ms Peterson: That would be one of many reasons. If you have centralized decision-making and decentralized blame, what you have is not an opportunity to respond to the children of your community. I cannot stand in front of my community and say, "I will do this for the children." I do have a vested interest: I have seven grandchildren; four of them are in the system. I do not want anybody to take risks with their future. The people I elect -- I should have the opportunity to believe they have the right to influence the programs those kids get. The kids of this province deserve better.
Mr Wildman: I'd like to find out, since I asked the minister last week about the construction of schools and he said there was no problem, why you think it's a problem. Second, could you explain why you think the minister's in such a rush that he would use the kind of measures he has implemented in Bill 104 to get this through by the beginning of next year, rather than taking the time it might require to do it deliberately and properly?
Ms Peterson: In terms of the capital issue, the letter that was sent to us said you could debenture as long as you could pay it off this year and then take the rest of the money out of your operating costs for the years in the future. We've got a real problem in that. If we were building a school, which we are not, I suspect that if I went to the local lending authority and asked them for several million dollars, they would like to know who they are lending it to, because my board will not exist after January of this year. There's some reluctance there.
There's also no clear understanding of how these debentures are going to be paid for and by whom and who will raise the dollars. There are too many questions around capital and it has made people very reluctant to make those kinds of commitments.
Mr Wildman: In other words, you'd have to take it out of the operating funds from next year.
Ms Peterson: Apparently.
Mr Wildman: So that's a further cut to operating.
Ms Peterson: That's what would happen, yes.
The Chair: Thank you all for coming. Just as a point of clarification on the point raised about Mr Yeo's organization not being able to appear, we apparently contacted them late Friday afternoon. They are to appear tomorrow at 9:45. We're waiting for confirmation, if that's of any help to you. This is what the clerk tells me.
Mr Grant Yeo: Perhaps I can confirm it now.
The Chair: All right. We'll see the Ontario Public Supervisory Officials' Association at 9:45 tomorrow morning.
Thank you very much for coming.
ELLEN KERT
The Chair: Our next presenter is Ellen Kert. Thank you very much for being here this morning and for being available to present to us on extremely short notice, much shorter than most other individuals who've come before us. You have 15 minutes, as you know because you've been here since 9.
Ms Ellen Kert: I have 15 minutes, and I'm going to speak to what I've heard this morning because I did not expect to speak today and I have a couple of points. I am a parent. I have a son who is in grade 6 in a Toronto school. I have been very involved in my son's school from the moment he entered junior kindergarten. I have volunteered in the classroom, I have been on staffing committees, I have been involved in PSA, so I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about the public education system.
I'd like to say that the applause you heard earlier today, that you had a hard time containing, is an indication --
The Chair: Was that you?
Ms Kert: Well, it wasn't me, but it's an indication of how many parents care. This government continually says it's just special interest groups. I, as a parent, am appalled at this. I think it's important and incumbent on you all to recognize the real meaning of that applause.
A couple of points: Mr Snobelen this morning talked about quality of education. I don't see anything in this bill that has anything to do with quality of education. He talked about classroom expenses versus non-classroom expenses and that there's all this room for cutting down, paring down and saving money. This is not the case. According to the newspaper, according to John Snobelen, classroom expenses do not include gym teachers, the library, music teachers, special ed. This is nonsense.
At my son's school we still have sports teams because there are parents coaching. We have a vice-principal who is a half-time gym teacher and a kindergarten teacher who is a half-time gym teacher. We have lost our music program. We have gone from 17 classroom teachers to 14_ classroom teachers and from five full-time specialists to two and a half specialists over the last three years, and this is in Toronto, one of the richest boards. So the notion that the classroom is not being affected is bogus.
The next point is, there's been a lot of talk about accountability. I, for one, don't know of any kind of accountability where you don't have control over the money, so I don't know what these new amalgamated boards are going to do. I also don't see any change in terms of the layering of bureaucracies between the amalgamated boards and the expanded provincial control and these wonderful anti-democratic appointees with all of their powers and, supposedly, parent councils. I see just as many layers, if not more so, than we have today.
The other point that's been raised repeatedly is that this per pupil cost should be equalized. I agree with the first parent speaker this morning that all of our children deserve the same quality of education. I take exception to the fact that this is one pupil expense. The cost of educating pupils varies across the province. There are different elements that come into effect. These have to be taken into account.
Busing is not a big concern in Metro Toronto. English as a second language is not a big concern in the north. Native issues are not as much of a concern here as they are in the areas where there are reserves. We need to take these things into account and I've heard nothing today that tells me that has been taken into account in any real way.
Finally, about the parent councils, I am terrified at the notion that parent councils are being thrown out as the be-all of local effectiveness. I have been involved as a parent, as I've said, at many levels in the school, with the board, and I've noticed, number one, that certain schools have more parents involved than others. There's always trouble getting enough people involved in these councils and, as Annie Kidder pointed out, some parents only care about their own kid. Some of the most vociferous and strongest voices in the school, which will I'm sure take over these parent councils in no time flat, are the one-interest parents.
I'm concerned about racists taking over the school, who don't care. I'm concerned about parents who don't look at the interests of all the students, and I'm worried about the parents who are out banning books, and the Christian authorities. There are certain groups, very well organized, that will have a field day with these parent councils. The inner-city schools where you have a large majority of unemployed parents, uneducated parents, will get nothing. They are already missing a lot because they don't have the fund-raising capabilities and the expertise of the parents, and those students will suffer considerably.
As far as the trustees and $5,000, well, it means that only people with means can even consider such a job. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Kert. We have approximately two minutes per caucus and we'll start with Mrs McLeod.
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Mrs McLeod: Let me echo the appreciation of the Chair for your being here out of your concern, obviously, even though you weren't on the scheduled list, and being able to pick up the presentation as quickly as you did.
For me, you hit, among a number of things, on one that hasn't come forward quite yet in our committee hearings and that's really key, and that's what you've seen in terms of cuts in educational spending even in Toronto which, as you've pointed out, would rank as one of the high-spending boards. That may come as a surprise to people because there may well be people, including members of the government, who think that one of the ways in which we're going to achieve equitable funding through this is by taking some of those rich assets of Toronto and spreading them to lower assessment boards.
I think it's absolutely critical that the point you're making be understood, that there are problems with cuts in the Toronto schools. I go back to a statement that is ignored in the Ernst and Young report which talked about all of the out-of-classroom expenditures. The point was made that the Ministry of Education needs to go back to the drawing board and get a better understanding of factors beyond a school board's control that drive costs up, like special needs students and, I would think in Toronto, English as a second language. Just any comments you have further on that, because I think it's such a key point.
Ms Kert: It's absolutely true. One of the biggest problems with the cutbacks is that the classrooms have also expanded in size. There's a student who joined my son's school -- I'm involved in a PALS program where parent volunteers are matched with kids having trouble reading. I'm working with a child who's been in Canada for six months, who's in a grade 5 classroom, who I believe is brilliant from what he can do in math and what he is able to pick up, who simply does not have the language comprehension. With 32 kids in the class, he just sits in that class and that's it. The special ed hasn't kicked in for this child yet, and this is going on all over the place.
The quality of the education for everybody is dropping, and unless you have a parent -- with my son, I invest hours and hours a week with his school work at home. But the kids I work with at the school don't have parents who do that. Their parents can't do that, for a whole variety of reasons. So yes, it's already affected. All you're going to do is bankrupt one system to make everybody bankrupt.
I understand kids in the north don't have math textbooks. I've heard of schools where kids aren't allowed to take home math textbooks because they might lose them, so they don't do math. Then I read in the newspaper we're worried about technology, testing, standards and so on. If a kid can't take home a book, how are they going to learn and what kind of quality of education is that?
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for coming in in the breach. Repeatedly in answer to questions in the Legislature and publicly, the minister has said classroom education has not been adversely affected, that the government has maintained its commitment that was a guarantee for classroom expenditures. On some occasions the minister has said if things like special ed have been adversely affected -- libraries, other things like that -- well, libraries don't count because they're not classroom.
Ms Kert: They don't count. That's right, libraries aren't important.
Mr Wildman: But if class sizes have increased, then --
Ms Kert: Class sizes have increased, yes. Our grade 1-2 classrooms have gone from 21 to 28 in the last three years.
Mr Wildman: That's the fault of the board, the minister says.
Ms Kert: It's not the fault of the board.
Mr Wildman: How do you react to this? Why is it we keep getting this message from the minister that class sizes haven't gone up, special ed hasn't been affected, ESL hasn't been affected and we continually have parents like you come before us who say they have?
Ms Kert: I don't know where Mr Snobelen is getting his facts from. I don't understand the man. I open the newspaper -- you do not have to be a rocket scientist. The parents and the clapping and the jeering that you heard is precisely because every day we have to listen to Mr Snobelen make these complaints.
Talk about classroom not including a library -- before, the Frankland parents talked about keeping the library open. There's a situation in our school where the library was closed during school hours because there was no one to staff it. Do you want to explain to me that that's not part of education? How are our grade 5 kids supposed to do their research when they can't even go in the library to get a book? This is the kind of nonsense that's going on all over the province, and so the parents are furious. This bill has nothing to do with anything. All this is is a power grab, a way to control the money, look for cuts in money that doesn't exist, that is already not there.
Mr Wildman: How do you, as a parent from Toronto then, react to the --
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr Wildman. We're running out of time. Ms Johns?
Mrs Helen Johns (Huron): First of all, I'd like to say that I'm the representative for Huron County -- which is up north, I guess, from the perspective of Toronto -- but also I'm the mother of two children who go to school in this system. They're five and seven years old.
I've been a very big advocate in this government for equity finance reform across the board. I believe that there should be a per pupil rate for the normal child who goes to school, and then we have to make additional dollar allotments for things that are outside of the realm, for example, English as a second language; in rural Ontario, the gross amount of busing we have to do to be able to get the kids to school.
What happens right now is that in my riding, we don't have books, you're right, and we spend between $4,500 and $5,500 per student. What we have in Ontario right now, I believe, and why I feel so strongly about this, is a two-tiered system where kids in some areas have a lot more money spent on them for education than other children across the province do. I don't think that's fair.
I think what has to happen is we have to find a level that educates children, that allows all children to get the same comparable education in the province and allows us to say that there are special needs that we have to put dollars to. Admittedly, English as a second language, I hear, is a big issue here, but we also have special needs in outlying areas. We cannot have the discrepancy of $4,000 between my area and Toronto areas.
You're talking about cuts that are happening in Toronto when you are a negatively-funded board. You don't get money from the province of Ontario right now. You collect yours all by property tax, so any cuts you've had have been as a result of boards making decisions.
I think we have to look at this as a province and say, "What's fair for every student in the province of Ontario?"
Ms Kert: What's fair for every student in the province of Ontario is to get a decent education with a decent-sized classroom, with teachers who are knowledgeable -- not computers, not machines, but actually live people to teach them -- and to have some access to specialist support.
Mrs Johns: That's right, on a per pupil basis.
Ms Kert: The presumption or the underlying principle that I'm hearing from -- I guess this is the Conservative Party, but this side of the room -- is this notion that somehow there's all of this excess in Toronto and that there's some middle level that will be fair for everybody, and I'm saying that's not true. What I am saying is that --
Mrs Johns: And we're not saying it's true either.
Ms Kert: -- that's not true, and looking at just the dollar amounts does not deal with the educational issues.
The Chair: Thank you. That concludes the time that's available to the government caucus. I want to thank you, Ms Kert, for coming before us and presenting again, as I say, under extreme circumstances. Thank you for your thoughts.
Mrs Caplan: While we're waiting for the next presenter, I wonder if I could put a question on the record.
The Chair: Yes. Could I ask, first of all, the Metro Parent Network to come forward. Kathleen Wynne? Mrs Caplan.
Mrs Caplan: My question really, if she wishes to answer it on the record, is, given what Mrs Johns has just said about the state of education in her riding, how she goes home and justifies the cuts to education that her government has made, and also --
Mrs Johns: You have been making cuts to my education for years, the Liberals and the NDPs.
Mrs Caplan: How do you justify it?
METRO PARENT NETWORK
The Chair: Ms Caplan, I think your comment is out of order and I think we'll proceed with the next presenter.
Interruption.
The Chair: Excuse me. This is Ms Wynne's time, and I think she'd like to use it.
Ms Kathleen Wynne: I am a mediator. Would anybody like --
The Chair: Actually, we may need you.
Ms Wynne: I just don't have much time to mediate these days.
The Chair: Could you introduce your co-presenter? You have 15 minutes.
Ms Wynne: My name is Kathleen Wynne and I'm here today on behalf of the Metro Parent Network. Laura Dark is also a member of the Metro Parent Network from East York, and there would have been others of our group here except that it's very difficult for parents to be available at this time of day.
I just want to respond quickly to the last comment. I think we all know that we need about $8,000 per pupil in this province. Four thousand dollars is about exactly half of what a student in Ontario needs, so I couldn't agree more with Mrs Johns that we need to bring everybody up to about $8,000.
Having said that, I'm going to make some comments and then --
Mr Wildman: How do you do that when you take a billion dollars out?
Interruption.
Ms Wynne: All right. It's my turn.
The Chair: Yes. Excuse me, please. Ms Wynne, please continue.
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Ms Wynne: I'm a Toronto parent. I'm a mother of three children: a 17-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old in grades 11, 10 and 7. I've been a parent volunteer for about 13 years. I've served on various committees of the Toronto board. I've done field trips. I now serve on the steering committee of the Citizens for Local Democracy. I'm a member of the Ontario Education Alliance. One of the things about this current political climate is that there are lots of groups to belong to if you want to work to improve your community, so that's an opportunity that I'm really pleased has come along.
I speak to you today as a member of a group of concerned parents from across Metropolitan Toronto. Our group formed in December 1996 to begin to coordinate a response among parents in York, East York, Toronto, North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke. Our group is made up of informed parents who are able to tap into local parent opinion. We share concerns about the direction in which this government is moving education and we're working together and with other parent and teacher groups to preserve the excellent publicly funded education system that already exists in Toronto. I would agree with the previous speaker that there are problems, there are things to improve, but for the most part we have a pretty good system of education, I'd say, in Metro, and we want to preserve that.
Bill 104 is predicated on an assumption that the education system in Ontario is broken, that we are in crisis and that we must first restructure, then cut money from the system to repair it. We challenge that fundamental assumption. That is not to say we do not believe the system could be improved. Many of us, and Laura and I could speak to this in great detail, have spent many years of our lives as parent volunteers attempting to improve what already exists. Our approach, however, has been to work with our educators and elected representatives in order to come up with the very best solutions to complex problems. Education, like democracy, is a messy business. We challenge the myth that has been perpetuated by this government that education in Ontario does not work, that it is too expensive and that it does not produce well-educated, well-rounded students by the end of their OAC year. We believe it does all of those things.
The Fewer School Boards Act is a dangerous piece of legislation because it threatens local democracy. By making local elected representatives less accessible to citizens and less responsible for real decisions in education, it removes the opportunity for meaningful participation by the electorate in education. Creating the Education Improvement Commission makes a mockery of any vestige of democratic process. The Education Improvement Commission's sweeping powers are proof that this government is interested only in controlling the system completely so that it can pave the way for major cuts in the near future. The fact that this legislation has been introduced without any information about what funding levels will be guaranteed for our students and, more importantly, what programs will be considered sacrosanct convinced parents in our group and around the province that the agenda of this government is to grab money that has supported education, fund its tax cut and leave schools to fend for themselves in a corporate wasteland.
In Bill 104, sections 335(3)(g) and (h), the EIC is given the mandate of making recommendations to the minister on the feasibility of strengthening the role of school councils and of increasing parent involvement in education. These do not sound like danger. In fact, they sound like sops to parents who want a voice in their children's education. But those of us who are close to schools know that administrative authority to micro-manage schools is not what parents are looking for. This legislation opens the gate for charter schools, and that's not what we want. I have visited parents in Aurora, Durham and Thornhill who agree with Metro parents that managing a school that does not have adequate resources to provide necessary programming for its students sounds like full-time volunteer fund-raising and hours of meetings that would be better held by paid, elected representatives.
This government has said repeatedly that it does not intend to deplete the resources of the classroom. If Bill 104 passes, the stage is set for the removal of millions of dollars from education in Ontario. It will be impossible to remove that kind of money from our system without harming the classroom. Since 1975, levels of funding grants from the province for education in Ontario have fallen from about 60% to about 30% and local jurisdictions have had to make up the difference. Ontario's per pupil funding grant already ranks 46th-lowest of 63 jurisdictions in North America and Ontario's funding grants are lower than those of any of our surrounding geographic jurisdictions with similar demographics and geography. Metro funds its education entirely from its own tax revenues. At present there are boards outside of Metro that cannot provide JK for its students, that have to share caretakers between two or three schools and that have long since lost music and physical education teachers.
None of this is good for students in those boards, nor will it be good for Metro students, yet as parents we hear the government suggesting that efficiency is the bottom line of these changes. Our problem is that we do not hear anyone demonstrating that they understand the research that shows how important JK can be to a child, especially a child at risk. We do not hear anyone who understands that music enhances cognitive development. We do not hear anyone who seems to understand that the richness and complexity of the relationship between a teacher and a student is central to a healthy classroom and that this relationship is at risk if the teacher has to manage more than 20 to 25 students.
We are worried. Our Metro Parent Network group has gone to the Metro Toronto Board of Education and asked for their support in resisting Bill 104. They unanimously passed a motion that calls on the government to withdraw this legislation. We are in the process of gathering support for that motion from our local schools and support is not hard to come by. Parents in all our municipalities are distrustful of this legislation and afraid for their children.
It is important for this committee, especially those on my left, to know that parents understand the substance of Bill 104 and that they do not support it. There are meetings in schools and community centres all over Metro where parents and community members are coming together in their resistance to the mega-plans of this government. We understand that both the restructuring of the municipalities and the restructuring of education are part of the same assault on democracy.
Parent groups are not inherently negative or reactive. They form in order to be part of the lives of their children and so inherently are a creative force in a community. They tend to be energetic and positive. They look for support from institutions around them because child rearing in contemporary times can be a bewildering and isolating experience. Of course if the institutions, the government or the education system abuses them, then they must find ways to react and fight back, and that is what is happening now.
We believe that our children and our communities would be better served by a government that would consult with us and with the people who teach our children to find solutions to the very real problems that exist in our system. For example, how can we provide good early childhood education for every child in the province? How can we make sure that children do not go to school hungry, because we know the social costs if we do not? How can we make sure that private corporate interests do not start shaping the curriculum in our schools? How can we ensure that class sizes in all schools in the province are reasonable? How can we guarantee that all children have the special education, ESL and enrichment programs they need? How can we ensure that school buildings are maintained and safe by people who know the students and care about the school? How can we guarantee that the school is a genuine part of the community and is used by seniors, adult learners and youth groups throughout the week? How can we guarantee that equity programs are in place in all our schools to help our children create a more humane world than we have created? How can we make sure that day care programs are integrated into the lives of our schools?
These are the questions we should be grappling with. These are the questions to which every parent in this province wants answers. Obviously they will engender a lively debate, but if we choose to ignore them and focus on short-term financial issues, we will face greater costs in the future. We will face the costs of building more jails and higher social costs. If we do not address these issues, we will not instil in our children the flexibility of mind and the ability to work in teams that we are told by business they will need. Most significantly, we will miss the opportunity to build on the exemplary work we have already done. Our education system is one of the best in the world. Mr Harris knows this and has claimed it to be so. We need to build on it.
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A final note about the process here: The committee hearings on Bill 104 are extremely short, especially considering the number of people who wish to address you. It is difficult for those of us outside the process to believe that it has integrity when over a thousand people are being told they cannot speak. We ask you to ask the subcommittee to recommend that hearings be extended. This legislation is of major importance to us all and should be handled with respect.
Applause.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Wynne. Excuse me, for those of you who are new to this room, please refrain from clapping.
Mr Wildman: There's so much in your presentation. You posed the main questions for all of us as members, as citizens and as parents. This bill doesn't answer any of those questions.
Ms Wynne: Exactly.
Mr Wildman: I want to deal with your last comment about the process. I agree with you that this is far too short and it's denying people the right to speak, but I think you have a bit of a misunderstanding about the way things work. We have before us these hearings in Toronto, and then six hearings outside of Toronto, put forward in a time allocation motion brought in by the government. This committee can't do anything about that.
Ms Wynne: My understanding was that the subcommittee had some control over that. I was informed of that earlier in the process. Is that true?
Mr Wildman: No. The subcommittee has absolutely no control over this.
Ms Wynne: So the subcommittee can't recommend --
Mr Wildman: The subcommittee can recommend who can be invited in the hours we are given.
Ms Wynne: So there's nobody who can extend the hearings at this point?
Mr Wildman: Not unless the government -- the government could amend the motion.
Ms Wynne: That's exactly what I would like to have happen.
Mr Wildman: The subcommittee cannot do it. In the debate it became obvious that although there had not been a delay of the bill by the opposition, the government was going to bring in a time allocation motion. Initially they were talking about 10 hours in Toronto only and four hearings outside of Toronto.
Ms Wynne: Then I redirect my request from the subcommittee to the government to extend the hearings.
Mr Carroll: I have a question, Ms Wynne. You brought up the study that showed that Ontario is 46th out of 63 jurisdictions in per pupil funding. I presume that's the OSSTF publication you're referring to.
Ms Wynne: Actually, it was prepared for the Ontario Education Alliance.
Mr Carroll: In that, which used all American numbers, coincidentally, Alberta is $950 per student less than Ontario and yet they scored dramatically higher in all recent testing than we did in Ontario. Does it concern you that they spend almost US$1,000 per student less but score much better on international testing than we do?
Ms Wynne: No, it doesn't concern me because I believe the impact of the education cuts that have been made in Alberta hasn't been felt yet. I believe that in the testing that's done, in the standardized tests that are used in Ontario, we include a much broader base of kids. In a lot of cases we're comparing apples and oranges, and standardized testing is a whole other issue that we'll have to talk about at a later date.
Mr Carroll: So you don't accept the results of the standardized testing.
Ms Wynne: I think they have to be questioned, yes.
Mrs McLeod: Just a quick comment: One of the things Mr Carroll might want to do is look at the ratio of students who have English as a second language in Alberta as opposed to Ontario, which is one of the analytical factors that helps to explain the results you're seeing.
Ms Wynne: Yes. That's the piece about the inclusion of all students.
Mrs McLeod: I have just a quick comment, and then I think Mrs Caplan wants to make a motion relative to your recommendation.
The questions you've raised are just such critical questions. If I feel saddest about one thing, it's the fact that the struggle of public education has been to provide equality of education universally and not subscribe to mediocrity. I think there's not a person here who would not agree that the province, in order to have that equitable base, should be paying a greater contribution of education costs. I think what we've got here is a giving up of the struggle and a resignation to mediocrity for everybody, and I just think that's truly sad.
Mrs Caplan: If it's appropriate, and I have the floor at this time, I'd like to use the remainder of our time to place the motion that the committee actually recommend to the minister and to the government that additional time for hearings be allocated to accommodate those who have made a request who have been unable to be accommodated. I think if this committee does that, then (1) we will respond to what you said; and (2) it will give the government an opportunity to understand just how important it is to hear from people. I place that motion.
The Chair: Your motion is to extend time for hearings?
Mrs Caplan: No, that we ask the government to change its time allocation motion.
The Chair: All right. Fair enough. We will deal with that, but I want to thank you both very much for appearing on behalf of your organization.
Is there a seconder for Ms Caplan's motion?
Mr Wildman: I'll second it.
The Chair: Debate?
Mrs Caplan: Why do we have to debate it?
The Chair: I think Mr Young wants to say something.
Mr Young: I would like to defer this motion or this discussion to subcommittee.
Mrs Caplan: I don't mind if you defer it to the subcommittee, but I don't think we want to debate it as a deferred --
Mrs Johns: We have people waiting here. They have been waiting for an hour.
The Chair: Mr Wildman, is there anything you want to add?
Mr Wildman: Well, if we extend the hearings, then they'll have lots of time to make their presentations. Let's not be silly about this.
The Chair: The motion has been made and seconded. We'll defer it to subcommittee for discussion, but ultimately it is up to the government to decide what they do with the time allocation motion.
TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Chair: The next presenter is from the Toronto Board of Education. Mr Moll, thank you very much for coming on such short notice. We appreciate how much people have had to prepare to be here. You have 15 minutes, and in any time that's left over, the three government caucuses will ask you some questions.
Mr David Moll: Thank you. I believe you have a copy of the presentation I'm making, members of the committee. Maybe we'll read through this together.
The public education system of Ontario is based on the principle that it is a fundamental right for all children to have a high quality of education. Our schools, unlike the separate system, are open to all students. This gives the public school system a standing in a democratic society that must be safeguarded. We believe that Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, will irreversibly erode the viability of the public school system in Ontario.
The program is the heart of the Toronto Board of Education. Bill 104 asks students and parents to accept a new system without telling them specifically which programs in schools will be funded by the provincial government. The Minister of Education has stated repeatedly that he will ensure that more money goes into the classroom. We need to know how. We've seen his numbers and, frankly, they don't add up.
The last time Queen's Park shifted money from the public system to the separate system it cost more than four times what the province originally estimated. We believe that any reform which takes money from public schools in Metro Toronto and transfers it to the separate school system is fundamentally wrong.
While we have been given very little information about what is included in the minister's new vision, we have had a fair indication about what will not be included. If provincial capital grants do not cover funding for junior kindergarten classrooms, then we must conclude that junior kindergarten is not to be part of the new system. If the minister's cost study was intended to define outside classroom costs, then we can conclude that school librarians, music, physical education teachers, principals, school secretaries, and caretakers are not part of the new system.
Bill 104 provides for the privatization of many school board functions from caretaking and day care to payroll and lunchtime activity programs, virtually everything that is not teaching. Parents who can afford to enhance their child's education with sports programs, after-4 French classes and music lessons will be able to do so and those who cannot will have to do without. This cannot be the future of public education. This truly would be a two-tiered system where only a few get access to the extras, and that is unacceptable.
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We believe our city has avoided the problems of large American cities for one main reason: strong neighbourhoods with strong neighbourhood schools. Our residents have not abandoned the city core and fled to the suburbs. Our support for inner-city schools has always been strong to ensure that these schools are as successful and productive as those in the more affluent areas of the city.
It has been proven over and over again that spending money to correct problems when a child is young costs substantially less than spending money on an adult. Education is not about plunking children into desks for five hours a day and sending them out somewhere, maybe home, maybe not, in the hope that they will become good and capable citizens. The test of any progressive reform should be to strengthen the quality and accountability of public education. Bill 104 fails this test.
We ask for your commitment that no matter what else you do, you guarantee a basic minimum standard for our system, a bill of rights, if you will, for Toronto's public schools. These rights must include the following:
Recognition that every child is unique and that the school system must have programs to meet a student's individual needs so that all students may have the opportunity to learn;
A curriculum with clear standards that is meaningful, inclusive and pedagogically sensible;
Realistic measures of student achievement that reflect the diversity of our students and that can be used to improve our programs;
A program that includes access to junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten;
Class sizes of no more than 20 students in the primary division and 25 students in the junior and senior divisions;
Libraries in schools with teacher librarians;
Physical education programs with suitable indoor and outdoor recreational space;
Strong visual and performing arts programs -- music, art, drama, dance;
Strong language programs which include English as a second language, French, international and native languages;
Strong math, science and technology programs with adequate computer resources;
A full range of special education programs that meet the needs of our exceptional learners;
Psychological and social services to support student learning;
A secondary school program that prepares students for whatever future those students choose;
Adult education including literacy, numeracy, English as a second language and citizenship courses and instruction to adults who want to complete their high school education and gain employment skills;
Child care in schools to ensure quality care and help young children with the transition from home to school;
Safe and healthy schools that are clean and well maintained;
A dedicated professional staff, both teachers and their support staff, to ensure the highest learning and safety standards for our students;
Parent involvement that is meaningful with sufficient support to make participation in the school system effective.
Finally, you must provide a funding model that guarantees that the above standards can be met.
Equity does not come from equal funding. You know that a loaf of bread does not cost the same across Ontario. Renting an apartment in downtown Toronto doesn't cost the same amount some of you would pay in your own ridings, so why are you taking the position that education should cost the same in every school board?
We are asking that the funding model be used to secure our programs and not to extract money from the public school system.
School boards raise taxes for education and they are directly accountable to the electorate for the spending of those taxes. School boards are the only level of government with a single purpose, educating children, and we do just that. We educate more students, from more backgrounds and more countries, in more subjects, who receive more diplomas than any other school system in North America.
Like all school boards in Ontario we respond to the particular needs of the communities we serve, and our programs are tailored to meet those needs. This is and has been the cornerstone of the Ontario public school system: locally elected school boards providing for the education of children in each community.
Bill 104 will amalgamate all Metro's public school boards. The separate school board will be left as is. The new Metro Toronto district public school board will be responsible for the education of over 300,000 students, making it the largest school board in Canada. It will have more students than the total student population of six other Canadian provinces, but it won't be a school board, certainly not as we know it. In fact, if Bill 104 becomes law, we will no longer have the ability to fulfil the duties for which we were elected.
The Education Improvement Commission will take over school board functions. This unelected, unaccountable, all-powerful body will be able to dictate which programs we can run, whom we can hire and what services we can fund. What happens after the transition? With no authority to raise taxes or make program and staffing decisions, the mega-board will be no more than a giant complaints desk to serve as a buffer between the provincial government which controls the money and the parents who demand accountability for their tax dollar.
Where's the democracy in this? It's not in the governance, it's not in the funding, it's not in the taxation, it's not in accountability and it's certainly not in the Education Improvement Commission, whose decisions will be final, undemocratic and cannot be challenged in a court.
What is at stake here is not whether we have four school boards or 40 or 400. We are and have been more than willing to do things differently if the ultimate impact is improved education for our students. We know that a strong public school system is essential in creating and preserving a democratic, productive and humanitarian society.
The provincial government has provided only four days of public hearings for Bill 104, which means that many Toronto citizens will not be heard. The Toronto Board of Education will hold its own hearings so that all our communities can speak and their messages will be sent to Queen's Park.
We're not here to tell you the system is perfect. It isn't, but it's not broken. Bill 104 just might break it beyond repair. We charge you to give parents and students of Toronto a straightforward answer about the future of their schools before the Toronto Board of Education is dismantled. Thank you.
Mr Young: Thank you, Mr Moll. Mr Wildman has gone on the record twice here this morning saying something that I think he should know better than to say.
The education minister has said that cuts to education should not have affected the classroom. I'd like to give you an example. I believe the lady is still here --
Mr Wildman: Oh, "should" not. In your document you guaranteed it.
Mr Young: This is my time. I believe the lady, Mrs Frenette, is still here. I would like to have the time checked and have that added to my time, please.
I'd like to refer to Deborah Frenette's presentation. She talked about having trouble getting a librarian in their school. I wonder if you could explain to her, perhaps outside this committee meeting, after, that the Toronto board hasn't had any cuts from this government, none whatsoever. Anything that's happened in your schools is solely the responsibility of the Toronto board. It's very important to know this, so I think it's important to look at why it has affected the classroom.
Mr Moll: I thought you'd come to a question.
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Mr Young: Mr Moll, this is my time. There is a board in Toronto, I believe it's the Metro board, where 35 people who rarely if ever go into a classroom make over $100,000 a year. Trustees make $50,000 a year. They have executive assistants, they have the use of a car and driver, and it goes on and on. I'd like ask you, what has this got to do with educating our children?
Interruption.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, be quiet, please.
Mr Moll: Mr Young, first of all let me disabuse you of --
Interruption.
The Chair: Madam, I ask you to be quiet, please.
Interruption.
The Chair: Madam, Mr Moll is speaking. Please be quiet.
Mr Moll: Mr Young, let me disabuse you of the notion that we have cars and drivers.
Mr Young: I said the use of a car and driver.
Mr Moll: No, you'd be wrong in that as well. We do not have and haven't had the use of a car driver since 1971, I believe. That's quite a few years ago.
Yes, trustees are paid. They account for, in Metro Toronto -- if you eliminate them, that's about one quarter of 1%. That is also the democratic governance of education. I don't think people who run for public office do it for the money. I don't think any of you ran for these positions because you figured this would be a cushy way to pick up some extra spending money. I don't think that is it. Many of you would have been prevented, I would suggest, from running for office if you weren't paid anything at all or paid something that frankly is laughable, but that isn't what I'm here to talk about. And $5,000 to run across a federal riding is laughable, absolutely laughable.
Mrs McLeod: I think the parliamentary secretary has learned from the minister how to use totally unsubstantiated statements in order to create a perception that there's a problem that needs to be fixed. It's a skill that's been transmitted fairly effectively.
I agree with so much of what's in your brief that I think I'm going to ask you a question about something that's not in the brief; I hope that's not unfair. One of the concerns that a lot of people have been expressing, a potential consequence of the essential disappearance of boards, or at least their ineffectiveness, is more and more pressure of privatization. You've noted the outsourcing of non-instructional kinds of programs and services, but another possible consequence is privatization through the development of parent-run charter schools. The Toronto board operates a number of alternative schools under its umbrella. How do those differ in your view from the charter school or even the kind of privatization school that might develop?
Mr Moll: First of all, the alternative schools that Toronto operates -- and we have probably more than any other jurisdiction in Ontario -- operate under the rubric certainly of Ministry of Education guidelines and they are nonrestrictive in terms of their entry. They have various focuses or foci that they draw attention to, but they are not charter schools. I am concerned, frankly. It strikes me that the logical place Bill 104 would lead at some point in the future is to a complete breakdown of the kind of public system of education that has been enjoyed in this province for a number of years. Charter schools? I would be very concerned that that is where this would lead. I think it will lead there.
Mr Wildman: I have a question and then I have a question for the parliamentary assistant. I must say that I was encouraged by Ms Johns's intervention previously in which she was indicating that all of the students across Ontario should be raised to the funding level of the students in Metro Toronto.
Mrs Johns: I didn't say that. Check the Hansard; don't misquote me.
The Chair: Excuse me. Mr Wildman.
Mr Wildman: I wasn't trying to be provocative. But then I was discouraged by the parliamentary assistant's intervention. I would like to give you a chance to answer the question that he posed, and then I have a question for him. Do you expect that the full amount that you now collect in property taxes to fund education in Toronto, in your board, will be forthcoming in grants from the provincial government starting in 1998?
Mr Moll: There's no doubt in my mind that the government is not going through this exercise so that we can end up at sum zero. Accordingly, the intent is to extract substantial sums of money from Toronto public schools. Part of the problem that a number of us have with the government's -- the minister certainly has made the statement that he doesn't want things to affect the classroom and I have some sympathy with that. However, the definition of the classroom that the minister has or appears to be using simply is not the definition of what a classroom is in anyone's common understanding of that word in this day and age. It might have been in the last century; it isn't today.
With respect to Ms Johns's comments earlier, certainly I'm not looking to in any way deprive the students of Huron county of a reasonable education, or the people of Lanark or any other part of the world of what they have, but what we've asked is, "Don't take it from us to try to improve someone else's lot." Abraham Lincoln -- I'm afraid I can't give you the exact quote, but I suggest that this should have some appeal to any Conservative government -- said that you don't build up the worker by tearing down the employer. You don't do something for somebody that they ought to do for themselves. That quote goes on and on.
What are you talking about in terms of what you've got in store for us? I think that's really Mr Wildman's question. We'd like to know what you have in store before you dismantle what we have now. All boards right now have the ability, through provincial grants, to receive what the government determines to be an adequate, reasonable, basic education.
Many boards have access to very large assessment bases which they do not fully access because they have chosen in their own minds that their ratepayers aren't prepared to pay for those additional services. There is a balance right now that works. What is proposed is buried in some, as far as I know, yet unwritten regulations. What we've asked for here is, what kind of assurances are you going to give us that what we have now, we will have when you finish this process?
The Chair: Thank you very much for coming today.
Mr Wildman: I have a question for the parliamentary assistant. I would like to know if the government would entertain an amendment to Bill 104 which would incorporate Mr Moll's bill of rights for students in the legislation?
The Chair: We'll refer that to the parliamentary assistant for a future time.
Mr Wildman: I guess the answer was no.
The Chair: He hasn't responded. We'll defer that in fairness to people who are here.
LYN ADAMSON
The Chair: We now have Lyn Adamson and what I believe may be the youngest presenter, her son John.
Lyn Adamson: I really appreciate the chance to speak. I had asked to speak before this committee but hadn't heard from anyone and just came this morning. I'm speaking from impromptu notes right now, but I really appreciate the opportunity to tell you my concerns.
I'm a parent of two children in Toronto schools: Jonathan is 10 years old in grade 5 at Orde Street school, which is right across College Street on the south side. My daughter Nicole is in grade 9, in extended French, at Oakwood high school.
Of course, I am very concerned about the quality of their education and of all the other students in Toronto schools and in Ontario schools in general. I agree with previous comments that more needs to be spent across the province. We're not trying to have anything more for our children than we feel should be extended to anyone who has the same needs in any other boards of education, any other schools that have those same needs.
I'm extremely concerned about class sizes. This was the point that Jonathan brought up this morning: There are 32 kids in his class; 37 in the class next door. This is grade 5. These are classes that have several students with learning disabilities and students for whom English is their second language. The teachers simply cannot cope. It's a question of crowd control. This has already happened as a result not of provincial cuts, particularly at this point, since those are just starting to have their impact, but the taxation appeals. But we can see the direction that things are headed if money is cut out of our schools.
I want to say that we haven't been given a vision of the education that Mr Snobelen thinks our children should have, but I am extremely concerned that it's not going to contain many things that I think are vital to children's education in terms of becoming responsible citizens in the world of today. I'll give you some examples of programs that I am concerned about.
In Toronto, we have one staff person for the entire board whose job it is to promote environmental education throughout the system. That person works with trustees, teachers and parents, through the parents' environmental action group of which I am a part, to try and bring environmental education into our schools. Will this staff position be maintained in the face of cuts? I doubt it very much.
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The Toronto Board of Education has three staff whose job it is to teach conflict resolution programs throughout the 150 schools, to train the teachers, to train students in schools to bring conflict resolution into the classroom. Are we going to have those three staff when Mr Snobelen is done? If we don't think conflict resolution is an important skill for young people to learn across the province as well as in Toronto, then I think we're really missing out. In terms of quality of education, that to me is extremely important.
Toronto has been a leader in anti-racist education. This is extremely important. Look at the city we have, the complete mix we have. Oakwood high school I think is the most diverse school in the entire city, but they're all extremely diverse. They have people from many different backgrounds. If we don't have anti-racist policies, if we don't have anti-racist programs that educate and involve youth in combating racist ideas that are being brought in all the time from the fringes, we're really going to be in trouble. Look at those incidents that have happened that have involved racially motivated violence. They have been extremely destructive.
We don't want that to happen. We can't forget that prevention is the only way to contain that and to manage it and to educate our students for a future that will be a society for all and not just for one over another, which is another thing I hate to see, people pitted one against another or regions like 416 pitted against 905. I think that's extremely sad. I grew up in the 905 belt; now I live in the 416 area. I think we're aware of certain things, living downtown, that people in outlying areas don't see every day, but it's really important that we work together to create the future, because it's the same future for all our children.
The alternative schools were mentioned before, and I want to say that my children have at one point or another been in alternative schools and I have seen many of the alternative schools the board runs offer special programs to kids who would otherwise not be able to cope in the classroom. They're extremely important to continue. Are they going to continue if the control of education is taken away?
A lot has been made about cost-cutting, but I already know that the Toronto board and other boards are working together to eliminate costs in terms of busing and in terms of purchasing. Those things can be achieved without taking away the democratic control that's inherent in having a local board of education. Some of the things the local board trustees do -- most of them are full-time right now -- is they attend meetings so that they can dialogue directly with parents, they are on these committees which hear directly with parents and often have a combined membership with parents, including race relations, status of women, environmental and health issues, parent involvement. Those are some of the committees that the trustees and parents are on.
They have control and flexibility. They have funding control and they have flexibility in how they use the funds so that they can respond to parents. If there are parent delegations to the Toronto board, they hear everybody. Everybody gets their five minutes, at least, to speak to the trustees, even if it means staying all night. I have to contrast that with what this has been, where nobody has a guarantee of their right to speak even for a few minutes in front of this group. I really appreciate the opportunity to do that.
I think there is an appropriateness of scale that has to be considered. When I keep hearing about mega-this and mega-that, I think, who has forgotten the phrase, "Small is beautiful"? Small is community. Small is the neighbourhood. Small is an accessible level of government that people can relate to, that people can extend themselves to. People can walk to or easily get to the board of education to be involved. I think we need to look at appropriate scale for involvement. As we've seen, the actual cost of providing that level at the board is very little. The trustees themselves cost us very, very little in the overall picture of education.
The minister has promised that we will have improved quality of education for all children, but I don't know what that means. I've mentioned some of the programs I am concerned about. I am also going to mention a few others. What about reading clinics? Right now, there's a waiting list already for reading clinics. What will happen if the funding cuts go ahead? Learning centres, teaching assistants in the classroom, nutrition programs? We've already heard about how large a percentage of poor people there are within the city, and that's increasing because of increasing unemployment and will increase further as a result of the other changes this government is proposing to make around downloading and all the other changes that cannot be separated from this bill.
There are heritage language programs. Black heritage: My son is lucky enough to benefit from one class a week with everyone else at his school in black heritage, which is extremely important to the pride and knowledge of all students. Not just students with black heritage themselves but all students need to know what that heritage means for all of us. It's a big part of the student body and it's important for everyone to have that. Again, it's part of the anti-racist education that's really vital.
What about green playgrounds in our schools? We've been able to benefit from playground improvement. We have really old schools and really old schoolyards, but we have been able to benefit from funds that the Toronto board allocated, finally, after years of waiting, to playground improvement. Is that ever going to happen when these budget cuts come through? The trustee and the local councillor, who would be eliminated under Bill 103, have worked together with the community to create a green space next to our school. That has required a lot of negotiation and work together with the local hospital, Ontario Hydro, the school and everything. That's very time-consuming, and that's another thing trustees do: work on projects with local communities to achieve things that are really important to that local community and just would get lost in a mega-Metro arrangement.
I want to conclude simply by saying that I feel the overall effect of the changes this government is proposing to make will be increasing middle-class flight from the city and from the public schools. For example, if I couldn't get a reading clinic, would I have to hire a tutor? Would I have to put my son in a private school, which I can't afford anyway? People shouldn't be faced with that choice. We need to be able to offer a good quality of education so that the middle class will invest in our schools, will participate in our schools. We need to ensure that there's a good quality of education for all, and that's the only way to do it. All our communities depend on it. Studies have shown that if school quality goes down and if people cannot get a good education locally, that increases middle-class flight and it increases the deterioration in quality of life in the neighbourhood.
Those are my points. Thanks for the opportunity to speak.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Adamson, and thank you, Jonathan. We have time for one short question from each of the caucuses.
Mrs McLeod: Thank you for being here out of pure concern and also for being willing to make your presentation without much prior notice. Thank you also for outlining the sense of the extra things that are important to kids in the classroom that are being done within the Toronto schools, because I think we need that understanding, and also for talking about the sense of community and community partnerships being achieved. It's important for those of us who are from outside of Toronto maybe particularly to understand the richness of community that takes place because of the ability to work at a local level.
I'll ask you one quick question and then you can comment on that. One of the things the parliamentary secretary indicated earlier today was that you shouldn't be worried about whether those unique needs are going to be recognized in the funding formula because the stakeholders will be involved in developing the funding formula. I'm wondering, as a parent, whether that gives you comfort.
Lyn Adamson: It doesn't, because I have no assurance that what I and my community consider priorities are going to be considered priorities by the Minister of Education or his staff. People have to be involved in setting those priorities in their community and have to know that the funding's going to be there to meet those needs.
I also wanted to say that the staff I mentioned -- the one staff for environmental education we have and the three staff for conflict resolution -- facilitate volunteer involvement of a lot of other people. If that infrastructure isn't there, that volunteer involvement is doubly hard to get if there's no one there to facilitate it, to work with it, to make it happen. We must remember that that's needed.
Mr Wildman: I ask this question with some trepidation because of the controversy I started when I asked my last question. I misinterpreted what the Conservative Party position was, that they want to raise everybody to $8,000. I guess the opposite may be the case, that they want to lower everybody to $4,000. I wonder if --
Mrs Johns: Objection. He's starting to try and guess our intent. If that happens in the House -- you know that's not able to happen.
Mr Wildman: Well, let's compromise and say they want to bring everybody to $6,000.
The Chair: Mr Wildman, you know you cannot impute motive, but please feel free to proceed.
Mr Wildman: I don't think she has any motives.
I'm trying to figure out where the money is, which is what we're all about here. If it means bringing everyone to $6,000, with some flexibility, which is what has been said, are you satisfied that the kinds of programs you've talked about, the green program, the conflict resolution program, the race relations program, the heritage programs and so on that are so important to your children's experience, will be maintained?
Lyn Adamson: Absolutely not. I think they'll have to go, because what are you going to sacrifice instead? Class sizes are really too high as they are. We don't want to do without reading clinic -- we can't, okay? -- or the learning centre; we can't do without the library, we can't do without ESL. We want to have music and phys ed. That's a natural, good part of any child's education. We used to have swimming. That's been cut. There are things that really need to be there to bring our children up properly in the world. I think we're all jointly responsible for that and I can't see how we'll possibly get it if the money is being cut.
We're not being told what the vision is. We're not having laid out, "You'll definitely get this, this and this, whatever it costs." We're not being told that. There are no guarantees.
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Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): Thank you very much for coming. I represent the people of St Catharines and Brock, which includes all of Niagara-on-the-Lake and half of St Catharines. The concern from parents in my riding is their involvement in the education system or in their schools. Their concern has been that while they appreciate the school boards and what they've been doing, they've seen an increase in the dollars that go to things like the school board building itself instead of those dollars coming into their schools. Obviously, parent involvement is very important to you or you wouldn't be here today with your son. Could you just tell me, in the short time we have, if we want to strengthen the parents' role in our schools, how do we do that? Do you have any advice on that?
Lyn Adamson: For one thing, you've got to have the parent involvement committee, which is a joint committee of parents and trustees working together to increase parent involvement. You can't rely on parents to do everything themselves, which is what I'm afraid we're headed for. There has to be an infrastructure to make that parent involvement meaningful, to make it happen.
I don't think our Toronto board building has been treated with luxury. I haven't seen any renovations happening there. It seems to be a pretty basic building, compared to this one.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Adamson, for staying all morning, and thank you, Jonathan.
LOW INCOME FAMILIES TOGETHER
The Chair: Our next presenter is Low Income Families Together. Are they here?
Ms Deborah Frenette: Good afternoon. My name is Deborah Frenette, and I'm a representative of Low Income Families Together. Thank you for hearing our brief today at such short notice.
We are concerned that the powers of the school board are threatened and reduced by spreading the trustees too thin over such a wide area. The changes proposed by this bill will create the largest school board in the province, probably in Canada. Bigger is not better, especially when we're talking about education. The proposed Education Improvement Commission can't possibly understand the needs of a community in which they don't reside. The issues of the day for small communities are made irrelevant by the very size and distance of a group that's so far removed and unaware. We don't feel that increasing the ratio of student to trustee is a wise move, nor do we feel the cost savings can justify the harm that will result.
We feel that paying school trustees $5,000 a year means this is a job for the middle and upper classes and not for low-income people. Obviously, low-income people can't afford to work for $5,000 a year and they won't have a job that will allow them to take this as a part-time, frilly job.
We feel this bill is a disaster for the low-income community. At this time, needs among our poor people are escalating, this largely due to economic restraints and the draconian cuts to the incomes of many families, cuts made by this government. Metro Toronto has needs that demand more: Our varied population means that more resettlement demands and English-as-a-second-language classes are necessary. Children in one school in an inner-city area here in Toronto represent 62 different languages. Poverty is higher in Metro and our need for funding for inner-city schools is high. Bill 104 will remove the funds from the school-based support programs aimed at assisting our families to cope in tough times. To cut $1 billion from the system is bound to affect programming.
We understand that this government has been repeating that only 55% of the school board budget comprises in-classroom and the rest of the budget, the remaining 45%, is administration. My own MPP has been repeating this at meetings; I've heard him. Therefore, according to this faulty line of reasoning, there's a lot of fat to be cut. That's simply not so. I wish to point out some of the fine programs paid for by that 45%, many programs that assist low-income families to deal with the additional stresses poverty imposes on their families. I can do this because I am a sole-support parent and was able to bring up my children in a very low-income situation successfully, much of the success due to the programs that were available at my board of education.
The programs in the board here in Toronto are internationally recognized and acclaimed, like the school yard conflict resolution model, with programs modeled after that elsewhere.
Within that 45% are necessary programs that should be strengthened, not defunded. The lunch room program is vital for mothers who must go to work and aren't able to be at home when the child comes home for lunch. It is not safe to allow the children to come home to an empty home at lunch or after school. Many working mothers are forced to work and leave their children at what must be low-cost after-school programs. Up until now these programs have been good and of high quality. Funding cuts will have to compromise the quality of these programs.
The breakfast programs have been very valuable to working parents and to those forced to rely on assistance, and we all know the importance of a hearty breakfast to learning minds. Despite the claim made last year by Premier Harris, many children are coming to school hungry because of the cuts to welfare and due to the low wages paid for many in part-time and contract work or service sector jobs. They're coming hungry because there's a lack of food in the home, not because mom's too busy to cook in the morning. There just isn't the money for food.
It's been supported by surveys of food bank recipients done by the Daily Bread Food Bank: Families in Metro Toronto actually plan to skip meals so they can make ends meet. Mothers go hungry, and children are still being forced to go hungry. We at LIFT far prefer that mothers are able to feed their children at home because there is enough money to do so. The preparation and sharing of food at home is an important part of family life -- I'm sure you'll agree with me there -- but the current situation is forcing the schools to offer the daily bread to the children. The support for the food programs at the schools must grow, perhaps even to include lunch. These programs are all part of the 45%. We'd also like to comment that we don't want to rely on corporate charity for these vital programs, these food programs in the schools.
We are fearful that many boards will lose the important junior kindergarten program. Leaving the program to the discretion of the board may mean that funding squeezes will force the boards to drop this program entirely. This hits low-income families the hardest, as there's no money in the household to send children to private nursery school, which is the option available to higher-income families. This means that poor kids will begin their schooling disadvantaged as a result of the loss of junior kindergarten.
The school social work departments have become even more central to student needs as we face unemployment and major changes to the structure of our society. For example, lack of jobs places stress on families. It's a known fact that unemployed family members tend to take their stress out on other family members. Women are faced with growing abuse at the hands of their male partners while resources to assist these families are shrinking. The families need the school social work department, as these trained counsellors help children in crisis to remain in school and help the family deal with the needs. We pay in school or we pay in hospital and penal costs. I have accessed this type of help after I was injured in a car accident. I found the intervention my children and I needed quickly and compassionately through our small school system in East York.
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Cutbacks also force more stress on the already strained non-profit day care centres in the schools. The maintenance staff clean and maintain the day care along with the rest of the school. They also provide free or low-cost space for day care in schools. Can you guarantee that this support will remain in place while the services are contracted out? Caretaking staff are an important part of the school landscape. Will the caretaker remain the same person year after year, as is so often the case in our present system?
We're concerned that the revenues from business for education under your proposal will be kept in the community in which they are raised. That's what's being suggested here. This ensures that wealthy communities, which are benefiting from the shift of tax revenue upward from the tax cuts, will ensure good-quality education for well-off neighbourhoods and a lack of resources for poor communities like St James Town, for example. The Honourable Al Leach can tell you that St James Town, which is found in his riding, is suffering following the social assistance cuts and is populated by many working poor. Business is hurting -- and I know; I've talked to the Cabbagetown business association -- and they'll have less revenue to pay for education.
The effect of not pooling business tax for education can be seen in the US school system. I'd like to provide you with a few examples taken from a book by well-known author Linda McQuaig:
"East St Louis High in the grim city of East St Louis, Illinois, has to shut from time to time because of sewage backing up from the sewer system in the school's basement and into the kitchen area. The school relies on some 70 `permanent substitute teachers' who are paid only US$10,000 per year. In the physics lab, there is no running water at the six lab stations, only empty holes where pipes were once attached. There is a football field, but it has no goalposts, except a couple of metal pipes stuck into the ground. At nearby Clark Junior High School, 30 students are crammed into a classroom only big enough for 15. In the boys' washroom, four of the six toilets don't work and the toilet stalls have no doors. There is no soap or no paper towels."
In contrast, "At New Trier High School in a rich suburb of Chicago, school takes on the feel of a country club. Situated on 27 acres, New Trier has seven gymnasiums, an Olympic pool, a fencing room and studios for dance instruction. The school labs are fitted with the latest technology. School facilities and grounds are maintained in immaculate condition by a staff of 48 janitors. In addition to the full range of regular academic subjects, there is a wide variety of courses in music, drama, modern and classical languages, as well as aeronautics, criminal justice and computer languages. Every student has a `faculty adviser' who offers personal counselling." How about that for a contrast?
This comparison offers a very startling contrast. It is now daily life in the US, and we're on the way to this in our province. I strongly believe this. School can offer so much to a student. The irony of life is not lost on me in this situation. It is the poor child who needs the stability of a good school and a good teacher to help him or her escape the fate that awaits those who are uneducated and poor. I have found that life is made more bearable by having good reading skills and access to literature to improve my mind and escape the drudgery of a hard life. I am grateful for the chance that both my children and I had to get an education in a pubic system that allowed us to be educated, despite its flaws.
Without quality education it is not probable that the poor kid can make it in this society or even understand the forces that conspire to keep him or her poor and enslaved. Take away their education and you take away their rights. This was done to Afro-Americans when they were enslaved in the southern US. Slaves were not allowed to read, for obvious reasons.
We are asking that this change be made slowly and carefully, with due democratic process. We cannot support any change this major done in a way that you want to ram it through and hurry it up. We demand that a full understanding of the effect of this bill on low-income families be fully understood before it is implemented.
We at LIFT believe that morality dictates that all the children of our Creator be given full life chances in order to best serve their communities and their life purpose. We believe that all of society is served well when struggling parents are supported and assisted in bringing up the child who will grow into a responsible, caring human. We value our spiritual commitment to sharing the earth's resources fairly and our responsibility to the common good, not in the competition of the individual against the world.
Please, consult with care and be compassionate. The future of our children and therefore our world is in our hands.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Frenette. You've used up all your 15 minutes. I regret that. Thank you so much for coming and making your presentation today on behalf of the entire committee.
We have a matter that we deferred till the end of the session. Mr Wildman, did you want to ask your question of the parliamentary assistant?
Mr Wildman: Yes. I wanted to know from the parliamentary assistant whether the government would entertain an amendment to Bill 104 which would incorporate Mr Moll's bill of rights for students.
Mr Skarica: I'll review it with our department. If you feel that you wish to introduce it as an amendment, you're certainly free to do so at the end of the hearings.
The Chair: We are recessed until 3:30. I would ask the subcommittee members to stay behind.
Mr Wildman: I have a meeting.
The Chair: At 3:30 or now?
Mr Wildman: At 12:15; it's now a quarter to 1.
The Chair: We're going to have to continue without him, I guess.
The committee recessed from 1247 to 1532.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we're back in session. Just before we start with our first presenter, Ted Glenn has put a memo on each of our desks. Ted, would you like to speak to it.
Mr Wildman: On a point of order, Chair: In light of the discussion this morning and the comments just made by the minister in the scrum upstairs that funding for education might go up, I would like to move a formal motion that we invite members of the ministry staff to appear before the committee to explain the new funding formula and how it's being arrived at.
The Chair: Is there a seconder?
Mrs Caplan: I second the motion.
The Chair: Very well. Is there any debate? Do we have agreement?
Interjections: No.
The Chair: All right, there is no agreement. The motion is defeated.
Mr Wildman: I would like a formal vote.
The Chair: You would like a recorded vote. All right, then we'll go for a vote.
Ayes
Caplan, McLeod, Wildman.
NAYS
Carroll, Froese, Johns, Pettit, Skarica, Smith.
The Chair: The motion is defeated.
Mrs McLeod: In relation to that, if we can't have the ministry present to speak to it, I assume that we will still get all written information that the ministry can provide about the development of the funding formula as well as the specific dollar figures that are proposed.
The Chair: A request for that information has been made. Ted?
Mr Ted Glenn: This morning Bud Wildman requested information about the extent of public consultations on the new education funding mechanisms. I've distributed a memo in response to that request. If you have any questions, you can contact me directly.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Our first presenter --
Mr Wildman: Sorry, excuse me. According to this memo, the consultation will not begin until April and extend until June. That will be, according to the government schedule, after this bill has already passed.
Mrs Caplan: That's also contrary to what the parliamentary assistant said this morning.
Interjection.
Mr Wildman: This doesn't have anything to do with funding? School board governance doesn't have anything to do with funding? Oh.
Mrs McLeod: I think it's important that we all understand that what is being dealt with in Bill 104 is very specifically the appointment of an education commission which will oversee all board budgets for the current year. To suggest that this bill doesn't have anything to do with school board spending, and therefore funding formulas, is simply not true.
The Chair: We have that for the record. I'm in your hands. Is there anything that you want further?
Mrs McLeod: In addition then to the information that we've requested on the funding formula, which the government members are suggesting is for some future action, I would request information from the Ministry of Education as to exactly what funding directives are going to be put in place by the, as I guess I have to call it, Education Improvement Commission, the EIC, which will direct board spending for the current year.
The Chair: All right, so noted, a request for information.
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Chair: We are now proceeding this afternoon with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation. Mr Manners, welcome. I would ask you to introduce your co-presenters. You have 15 minutes. You may use it as you wish but if you have any time left over, there will be questions from the three caucuses.
Mr Earl Manners: Thank you very much. I'll try and make sure that there is time left over. The two people with me are Larry French, our legislative researcher, and David Moss, an executive assistant with the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.
I would like to thank you for at least the limited time that is available to make our views known on Bill 104. In the interests of democracy and public accountability, though, I would urge you to expand the hearings and the hearing dates so that the large number of people who wish to comment won't be denied a chance to participate in the democratic process.
Bill 104 is the education omnibus bill. It is, for the most part, about giving the minister the power to act by regulation. The minister will have unilateral control over education decision-making, far beyond anything to do with amalgamation. In fact, in the bill there is no mention of the number of new school boards, the number of trustees or their salary, but it does give the minister power to make decisions on things ranging from governance to funding and operation of schools.
If Bill 104 were about amalgamation, it would look like 1968 legislation enacted by a previous Tory government, which reduced the number of school boards on an even greater scale. That government did not need the extraordinary powers of Bill 104. It was able to define, by legislation, the parameters of school board amalgamation, a transition process that was open and transparent and included guarantees for board employees. I don't understand why this government can't introduce the same kind of legislation. It leaves open the very fundamental question, what are they trying to hide?
The Education Improvement Commission, which is an oxymoron if there ever was one, is a group of unelected, politically appointed commissioners who will have powers that place it even above the Legislature and the MPPs in this room, it will have powers to supersede the Ministry of Education and Training, and it will have powers that place it above the law and above the citizens of this province. If they act discriminatorily, unfairly or unjustly, it can't even be appealed to the courts. In addition, it's not even subject to the Statutory Powers Procedure Act. These kinds of powers are like the War Measures Act, but we're not at war, unless we're at war with public education.
The irony is that the EIC has the ability to use the courts for its own purposes. In a ministry document entitled Questions and Answers on Education Restructuring that was approved on January 17, 1997, the following question was posed, "If the board does not obey the commission, what powers are at the commission's disposal to enforce compliance?" The answer:
"We are confident that the legislation puts the commission on solid legal ground. The commission will have some teeth. For example, if the commission orders a board to provide information about its activities, the commission can file that order with the General Division of the Ontario Court. That order is then enforceable as if it were a court order. In some cases, there are fairly strong sanctions. If the commission orders the board to retain an auditor, any attempt to obstruct that auditor can be punished by a fine or imprisonment."
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Why the difference? Why does the EIC have such powers but citizens don't have the right to appeal to a court? I think there's a basic reason. We know that Bill 104 is not about amalgamation; it's about finding a further $1 billion in cutbacks to education. Amalgamation is being used as a smokescreen. This government has already broken its promise to guarantee classroom funding and now, in an attempt to gloss over that, it's totally redefined the classroom through the study it commissioned from Ernst and Young.
In that study, the classroom doesn't include the libraries in our schools, library books, librarians, guidance counsellors, principals and vice-principals, special education support services, office and clerical staff, custodial maintenance staff, transportation, the heating and lighting of the classroom, and preparation time to make sure we meet individual school needs. This is scary because these are fundamental to any classroom that our teachers and education workers are part of. In fact, we believe the whole school is a classroom.
It does raise the question, who will be responsible for these services? I have a very important question to address the Conservative MPPs here. Bill 104, if adopted, establishes new school boards to be called district school boards, but nowhere in Bill 104 is there any provision which would empower these district school boards to raise required funds or moneys by way of residential or commercial property tax. I believe I'm correct that they will not have the power to tax. Is that true? I'm assuming that's true. The public is entitled to an answer.
If no taxation power is to be provided, then how will any particular district school board and its trustees raise the extra money that it believes is required to provide necessary educational services like the services that have just been defined as outside of the classroom? If new school boards won't be able to pay and the province isn't paying, who will?
Bill 104 says that the commission has the power to outsource business and support service functions. That suggests, in fact it more than suggests, that municipalities are going to be responsible for these services. That's the ticking time bomb of Bill 104. These so-called non-classroom services -- other instructional support, custodial maintenance, capital construction and school transportation -- could end up on the backs of municipalities and municipal taxpayers.
Using Ernst and Young's own figures, so the government can't say that we're manipulating statistics -- these are the government's own figures -- that amounts to $2.8 billion in added burden to municipal taxes provincially, $2.8 billion you can see there. These are the services that are not being counted as classroom, that the municipalities have to pick up. That's the cost -- not just an $860-million oversight, an additional $2.8 billion.
In Metropolitan Toronto alone that amounts to $592,947,269 of additional burden on the municipal taxpayer. In a place like Windsor, it's over $47.5 million; in Timmins, it's almost $14 million of additional burden to those taxpayers. In the Premier's own riding in Nipissing, $28,543,822. I can go on. In Kenora, it's $7.5 million. In York region, the 905 belt, it is $188,428,248 of additional municipal tax burden on that region alone. In the east, in Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, it would be over $34 million. These are just examples.
I believe the public has a right to know what guarantee the government will make to taxpayers that costs the government defines as non-classroom, a total of approximately $2.8 billion, will not be added to their municipal taxes in addition to all the other costs downloaded on municipalities. Can the government make that guarantee here today? The silence is deafening.
Ontario has already fallen to 46th place in per pupil expenditures in Canada and the US. The provincial government, I say to you, must rededicate itself to supporting public education and not pass a death sentence on it by a thousand cuts, nor should it be ideologically supporting the privatization of a great public education system.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Manners. We have four minutes or a bit more.
Mr Wildman: How much time?
The Chair: You have just over a minute.
Mr Wildman: I will have a question for the parliamentary assistant after.
You heard the exchange just before we began, Mr Manners, where Mr Froese, my friend from St Catharines-Brock, said that Bill 104 has nothing to do with education funding, yet the chair of the public school trustees said this morning that she expects boards will have to pay for the capital they've been approved for this year out of operating grants for next year. You've said this could mean a $2.8-billion download to municipalities. How do you square those different statements? Is Bill 104 just about amalgamation or does it have to do with school funding?
Mr Manners: It has everything to do with school funding. You can't talk about amalgamation and governance, and then give this transition commission the power to make recommendations on things like outsourcing and the role of school councils and the general operations of schools and not have it affect funding. The two are inextricably linked. We have notes taken from when the minister and the deputy minister met with the directors of education a week or so ago where they both said that capital costs would still have to be funded partially from the local level.
Mr Wildman: How can they do that if they can't tax?
Mr Manners: That's what I'm saying. It has to come from the municipality, so there's a potential $2.8-billion cost on the municipal taxpayer.
Let me add one other point. Today we asked the ministry to give us the 1995 per pupil expenditures as they calculate every year. We were denied access to those figures, even though they're ready, because it would create, and I quote, "confusion" with the release of the other study by Ernst and Young.
Mr Skarica: Thank you, Mr Manners. I just want to ask you some questions about the 1969 legislation because things have changed quite a bit since that time. As you're aware, a number of trustees have voted themselves severance packages. In fact, when we were preparing this legislation, a number of alarmed trustees on various boards throughout the province phoned me, worried that their colleagues were going to vote themselves severance packages and those types of things. So this legislation is designed to prevent that type of abuse of trust by certain individuals. I'm not saying they're all going to do that. How would you propose to deal with that situation? It is a real problem and one the government's concerned about.
Mr Manners: I don't think things have changed much since 1968. That former Progressive Conservative government amalgamated far more boards than are being proposed here and it was able to do it by legislation and not by imposing these extraordinary powers. You can set up a transition committee that is not above the law, but can still oversee the amalgamation of certain school boards and still be subject to all the rules and regulations that govern everyone else in this society.
With respect to the severance issue, you know as well as I do that no trustee in this province since Bill 104 was introduced ever passed any law that would grant them a severance package. If some school boards have a severance package, I say to you, it is exactly the same as the one that is in place for MPPs.
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Mrs McLeod: Let me focus on the whole issue of the cost of the amalgamation, which you've also done, in suggesting that one of the costs may be a shift of $2.8 billion on to the municipal tax base. The Ernst and Young study that looked at where there might be some savings, and I think the ministry identified $150 million, confirmed that was realistic, but that study also said in the introduction that costs could go up under amalgamation. The Ministry of Education's response to that, and this is all in writing, was that they shouldn't be concerned about costs going up because the Ministry of Education would take control of educational finance and that would solve it.
If they don't move $2.8 billion on to the property tax base for the non-instructional costs, how do you think they can stop the costs from going up under amalgamation? That is certainly not what the government wants to do, to see costs go up.
Mr Manners: They'll have to put ceilings on various costs. As we've seen through the Ernst and Young study, they will redefine the classroom to make sure certain things are no longer considered to be a compulsory or mandatory part of the education system. They will implement user fees for parents so that if a young child needs speech-language services, they'll have to go to a private contractor to get it rather than having direct access to it through the school system. That is something that directly affects their ability to learn.
Obviously the only way they can hold costs down through amalgamation is to cut services. The studies that were done on three areas over the last few years about amalgamation -- I'm thinking of Windsor-Essex, London-Middlesex and Ottawa-Carleton -- all said that amalgamation does cost money if it's going to be done right.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Manners, to you and your delegation.
Mrs McLeod: A question, please, for the parliamentary assistant or the ministry to respond to: Given the fact that the Ernst and Young study clearly says this amalgamation proposal could lead to increased costs, and clearly there have been statements made that suggest one of the ways of dealing with that is to shift a significant portion of costs to the municipal tax base, could we place the question to the ministry as to what guarantees there will be that there will not be educational costs paid for by the municipality, and that includes non-instructional costs.
The Chair: So noted and it'll be forwarded to the ministry.
Thank you very much. Time is always too short --
Mr Wildman: Excuse me, Madam Chair. I understand the time frame we have here, but when we pose a question to the parliamentary assistant, he's not sitting here just to have fun, he's here to answer questions.
Mr Skarica: No, I am not.
Mr Manners: Well, I'd like an answer to my question.
Mr Wildman: Surely he's here as the representative of the minister. We're not forwarding questions to the minister; we're forwarding questions to Mr Skarica.
The Chair: Point well taken.
Mr Skarica: My answer is I'll take it under advisement, Mr Wildman, and get back to you.
Mr Manners: Can I not get an answer to the question of whether or not Bill 104 allows school boards to raise residential and commercial taxes?
Mr Skarica: You didn't answer my question, so I think I'm not here to answer questions.
Mrs Caplan: You're supposed to answer the questions. He's supposed to ask them.
The Chair: I appreciate that. If I could thank you, Mr Manners, time is extremely short.
Mrs Caplan: These people are supposed to answer the questions. I would like to know. Are these people who've asked a very specific question going to get an answer? If they're not, I'll request that it be answered in writing.
The Chair: Over to the parliamentary assistant.
Mr Skarica: Ask me the question then.
Mrs Caplan: Are you going to answer it?
Mr Skarica: Are you going to ask me the question?
Mrs Caplan: The question is?
The Chair: Mr Manners, the question?
Mr Manners: The question was, if I can repeat, nowhere in Bill 104 is there any provision which would empower these district school boards to raise required funds or moneys by way of residential or commercial property tax. Why not and will they be able to? Yes or no.
Mr Wildman: And if not, will the municipalities have to do it?
Mr Skarica: I'll check with the ministry.
The Chair: Do you have the question, Mr Skarica?
Mr Skarica: Yes.
Mr Manners: Thank you.
Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the frustration of the Chair because we're dealing with issues in this legislation that there seems to be no forum to discuss.
I want to be absolutely clear that in the Ernst and Young study, which was the ministry's own support document for the amalgamation costs, the statement is made that there are two areas in which there could be a significant increase in costs: One is in the harmonization of services between boards and the other is in the harmonization of salaries between the boards.
We have no opportunity at any point in these hearings to explore either of those issues in depth and I'd ask the committee to consider where those two issues can be examined because they are fundamental to what is taking place with this legislation.
Mr Manners: If I may, and I know we've run out of time, but in those same documents I referred to where there are brief notes --
Mr Carroll: Point of order, Ms Castrilli.
Mr Manners: -- the minister and his deputy both said that there would be significantly fewer jobs as a result of Bill 104.
Mr Carroll: Point of order, Ms Castrilli: I understood that we approved a subcommittee report this morning that gave 15 minutes per deputation, not 25.
The Chair: Yes, Mr Carroll, we did indeed approve that. Mr Manners, thank you very much. Time is always too short. We appreciate your being here on such short notice.
The next presenter is Ms Fiona Nelson.
Mrs McLeod: As Ms Nelson comes forward, the only reason that there was a subcommittee report that agreed to these time lines was because of the restriction through the government's time allocation motion on the total amount of time for hearings and the fact that we were looking at 1,058 people who wanted to present. I don't think the government's time allocation motion can be used as an excuse for the government not to present factual information in response to specific questions, and that should not be done during the time we have for hearings. What we're requesting is some forum in which we can at least ask the government these very specific questions and so far the government has denied us that opportunity.
Mr Skarica: You have it now, and I will do the best I can.
The Chair: So noted, the questions have been asked of the parliamentary assistant.
Mrs McLeod: We did this morning, or earlier, and we had a vote by the government members to defeat being able to have ministry people here.
The Chair: We'll await the response to the questions that have been raised this afternoon.
FIONA NELSON
The Chair: Ms Nelson, thank you very much for coming. You have 15 minutes.
Ms Fiona Nelson: I'd like to thank you for giving me one of the unallocated times in order to address you face to face. Forty-two years ago, I was trained as a kindergarten teacher at Hamilton Teachers' College. I taught first at a school in a rural part of Scarborough. A huge subdivision had been built south of the school that summer and hundreds of children, baby-boomers, appeared at that little six-room school.
Many portables had been hastily erected that summer in the field behind the school, and in November, 10 more were needed. I was the assistant to the kindergarten directress and between us we attempted to provide, in the school gym, a program for 72 children in the morning class and another 72 children in the afternoon class.
Until Christmas, we had virtually no equipment or supplies apart from a piano, two desks and two attendance registers. We really learned to improvise. The per pupil costs must have been very low, but so was the per pupil benefit. In the ensuing 40-plus years, I've continued to work in various capacities for the needs of little children, and there has been a change, lots of change, as well as significant improvement in programs and facilities for those little children.
Since the Hope commission of 1950, many reports have been submitted to a parade of ministers of education, health and community and social services on what is needed to enable Ontario's children to start school ready to learn and to benefit from their instruction.
I've read those reports. Without exception, they recommend front-end-loading the system, enhancing the life chances of children from conception on. This was the Premier's Council report called Yours, Mine and Ours. This one is called Children First and it was chaired by Colin Maloney, the head of the Catholic children's aid. This one is from the Carnegie Foundation in New York and, once again, it echoes, as has every report since the Hope commission, the need to front-end-load the system.
But I have to ask what reports the minister is referring to when he cuts the grants to junior kindergarten, cancels class size limits, forbids capital spending for junior kindergarten and child care facilities. I could go on and on. As I watch in horror the assaults day after day by this government on the children of this province, I see my efforts and those I've worked with for my entire adult life being swept away.
I left public school teaching in 1969 to run for the Toronto school board. We who were elected that year replaced 16 out of the 24 trustees with new trustees 30 or 40 years younger. I was one of those Young Turks. Now, nine elections later, I'm one of the old guard, but not in my enthusiastic interest in the needs of little children, and that's why I'm here today.
I object to the minister's stated intention to withdraw $1 billion from the public schools of this province. I object to the minister's stated intention to impoverish the children of this province, to create a massive social deficit as he and his colleagues deal with the monster, in their minds, of a budget deficit.
I object to the minister's attempts to criminalize school trustees of this province so that he can destroy a long and honourable part of local government in this province without public protest. I object to the minister's deliberate misrepresentation of school board spending with the ridiculous Ernst and Young study, which purports to show that for every dollar spent in the classroom, 80 cents is spent elsewhere, especially when the elsewhere list includes heat, light, translators, libraries, music, caretakers, principals etc; in other words, the very support systems that make classrooms function more equitably for all children.
As a trustee I have voted for these changes and improvements. I have voted for more parental involvement in the schools because I know children benefit from it. I've voted to feed children, to provide parent-child drop-ins, child care for student mothers so that they could stay in school. I've been wildly extravagant as I voted for AIDS education, arts education, anti-racist education.
I've topped the polls in the ward I represent nine times, a ward that includes Forest Hill, Rosedale, Moore Park, Deer Park, Wychwood Park, the Annex, Yorkville, the republic of Rathnelly. This must be the most politically active and prosperous part of Toronto. Since the government brought in Bill 103 and 104, I've attended, or will attend, 24 meetings in my constituency by highly incensed citizens worried about the usurpation of their local government. The ward I represent, Midtown, is also the area encompassing a large part of the ridings of Mrs Bassett and Mr Leach. Their constituents and mine are largely Tories and hugely furious. They and I want this government to give them back their local government, to have the civility to discuss the proposed changes at an appropriate speed and to listen carefully to what they have to say.
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Madam Chair, I am the mother of a -- well, he's a boy as far as I'm concerned, but he's now 40 -- and have three grandchildren. I have a very important stake in this society. I am extremely concerned about Bill 104 and what it is going to do to a very significant part of the structure of this province and about my ability as a duly elected person to respond to the needs of my constituents and the children in the ward I represent.
I would urge you to urge the government to withdraw Bill 104, to make sure they put forward a green paper or a white paper, that they make sure that paper is duly consulted around the province and that we start once again to build a proper education system in this province. I am extremely worried that a system that has served us well for 150 years, and in fact was the first form of government in Ontario, before city councils and before even the province existed, is going to be swept away under the cloud of what appears to be almost criminal activity as the minister paints us.
When I was here this morning, I heard a couple of things that made me smile. I moved the motion in 1972, 25 years ago, to get rid of the cars and drivers which were referred to this morning. When I became a trustee I took a 50% cut in pay, got no benefits and have nine times had a performance review more drastic than any in the private sector: You're either in or out. If I had been enticed by money, I would not have become a politician. As a kindergarten teacher, not only would I have had job security, by now I would have been retired on a secure pension. I do not now, nor have I ever, as board chair even, had an executive assistant. As a trustee of a ward of about 60,000 electors, I do my own constituency work. I do have a part-time researcher who works with me. I couldn't keep up with current information without him.
I'm proud to be a school trustee. I think it's an honourable calling. I assume, having been elected nine times, I've served my constituents well. I know I've looked after the interests, and will continue to do so, of the children of this province, and I hope that everyone in this room is also committed to the interests of the children of this province. Thank you.
Applause.
The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, please; we don't want to infringe on Ms Nelson's time.
Thank you very much, Ms Nelson.
Mr Carroll: The previous government, of which Mr Wildman was a member of cabinet, commissioned the Sweeney commission to look at the whole idea of educational funding and governance, and it was chaired by a member of the previous government. They came back and they made some recommendations about school boards.
Mr Wildman: Then why did you ask --
Mr Carroll: Mr Wildman, I have the floor, thank you.
You are coming before us today and suggesting now that we have a green paper to get some input and to study this issue. Is that because you don't like what Mr Sweeney, the Liberal, told the NDP, that now we as Conservatives are going to try to implement? Is that why you want us now to have a green -- I don't understand why you're asking for more consultation.
Ms Nelson: Mr Carroll, I think Mr Sweeney was wrong. I think that making school boards as large as that will not only add to the expense of the administration of education -- and the stated purpose of your party, as I understand it, is to obliterate administration -- but it does seem to me that I was not just talking about the Sweeney report. I'm also talking about the Education Improvement Commission and its most amazing powers to overrule duly elected local government for a four-year period. It strikes me that that is not only draconian, it's also anti-democratic, and I have not talked to anyone in the constituency I represent who thinks it's a necessary thing or a good thing.
In the previous amalgamations of school boards under Mr Davis in 1966 or 1968, I think it was, there was a significant period of overlap, there was a lot of consultation, and I know it wasn't particularly well received because people get very attached to their local governments and their local representatives.
I think Mr Sweeney was dead wrong in proposing such huge boards, but he didn't have a lot of choice. His mandate was to reduce the number of boards by 50%. If his mandate had been different, perhaps his recommendations would have been different. I don't know.
Mr Carroll: Have I got time for another quick question?
The Chair: If it's very quick.
Mr Carroll: The funding of junior kindergarten: A lot of people have talked about that. Do you think junior kindergarten, as one of 14 or 15 different years in school, should be funded differently from all the others? Do you believe that?
Ms Nelson: Yes, I think it should be funded more. If I had my way --
Mr Carroll: On what basis?
Ms Nelson: Well, I thought I explained that. In all these reports and dozens of others that I don't have the muscles to carry up here, they say that from conception on, we should be front-end-loading the system. If we do that, we produce better babies, we support families, we make sure children are ready to learn, we make sure they have the capacity to learn. We would drastically cut our costs in special education, remedial education, that sort of thing.
Mr Carroll: Does the Toronto board do that?
Ms Nelson: The Toronto board has had junior kindergartens for over 50 years and kindergartens for over 100 years, and child care in the schools for over 100 years and English as a second language for over 100 years.
Mrs Caplan: Mr Carroll, you'd be interested to know that I was in the first junior kindergarten class, just for your information. I was part of the pilot project.
Mrs McLeod: If the committee at any point becomes interested, I would be more than happy to discuss with the government members the significant differences between the School Board Reduction Task Force and what they have proposed, and I would also want to remind them that the consultation on that Sweeney report which you like to hold up was curtailed as one of the first actions of your government. All the public consultation was cut off on that report, so there was no opportunity to comment on it.
Fiona, I go back even further than you do, because I first ran in 1968. I ran as a trustee for the new amalgamated boards and worked to make those amalgamations effective because I believed they made sense for kids. I don't believe these amalgamations make sense for kids, and that's one of the reasons I am so distressed at the bill before us. Like you, I am not going to apologize for being very emotional about this bill because, like you, I see the efforts of school trustees for a long, long time being washed away by this and by what I believe to be other actions of the government.
One of the reasons being offered in defence of this bill -- and I say "in defence of" this bill because it comes with a companion piece on the funding side -- is that it will lead to equalized funding for students. Are you able to tell me in the few moments we have what you think this bill might do for equality of educational opportunity for children?
Ms Nelson: I don't have any doubt that if the government had intended to improve the funding for education, all they needed to do was raise the ceilings on the grants to the boards that qualify for grants. It's very clear that this legislation is not designed to improve the funding of education; it's designed to siphon off an enormous amount of money from education. It will ratchet everyone down to the same level perhaps and be terribly equal, but that is not equity, and it certainly is not going to serve the interests of this province in the long term if we actually want to have a well-prepared populace that will make us more prosperous in the future.
Mr Wildman: I would just parenthetically point out that the Sweeney commission was supposed to have continuing consultation and that was cut off, as my colleague indicated; and that he did not contemplate an Education Improvement Commission, with non-appealable powers; nor did he suggest that there should be a mandate for boards to contract out services.
Having said that, I'm most concerned to hear from you, as someone who has been interested in education for many years and has worked very hard in many aspects, particularly as a trustee, what you think of the new role of trustees under this proposed legislation. As you won't have the power to tax and you will be implementing decisions made by the ministry in terms of not just funding but curriculum and so on, what will be the role, as you see it, then, of a trustee who was elected?
Ms Nelson: The role under the proposed legislation is of a puppet, but I don't intend to have that legislation passed if I have anything to do with it.
Mr Wildman: Well, that's what we're about.
Ms Nelson: As far as I can see, there are some quite significant mistakes in this piece of legislation, and my hope is that these hearings will bring those mistakes to people's attention so the legislation can be remedied. I can't imagine, under the proposed legislation, why anyone would want to be a trustee. They wouldn't be able to do anything.
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When we found five babies in the washroom of one of our secondary schools a few years ago, we set together a work group on comprehensive care of children, and we started an infant child care centre so that our student mothers could stay in school and their babies have proper care and wouldn't be subject to abuse, and they would get counselling and the prenatal care they needed.
When AIDS first became a problem in the world, the city of Toronto board of health, on which I also sit, proposed to the city a budget of an $11-million education fund, a lot of which would take place in the schools. This was at a time when North York wasn't admitting that AIDS existed in North York. I think there was some kind of impermeable curtain at Hogg's Hollow. I'm not sure.
The thing I'm trying to say is that we are able to act quickly because we aren't too big. A board, for example, that is going to represent the interests of 300,000 children is a behemoth. Like a brontosaurus, it's going to take ages to turn around. I'm not at all persuaded that bigger is better. Past a certain point, clearly there are tremendous diseconomies of scale and ability to act.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Nelson. You've spoken eloquently and passionately, as usual, and thank you for doing it on such short notice.
Ms Nelson: Thank you for letting me.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION
The Chair: Our next presenter is OPSEU, Local 595, Barry Weisleder. Welcome. Thank you for being here. You have 15 minutes, and if time permits, we will have some questions from the three caucuses.
Mr Barry Weisleder: Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Barry Weisleder. I'm on the executive board of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, a union with nearly 100,000 members. I'm also president of Local 595, which represents over 1,000 substitute teachers, elementary and secondary school teachers, at the Toronto Board of Education.
My union, OPSEU, also represents substitute teachers at the Metro French school board, at the Brant County Board of Education, and we also represent clerical and professional staff at other public and separate school boards across Ontario.
I want to say at the outset that the Ontario Public Service Employees Union opposes Bill 104, just as we oppose Bill 103. This legislation, to us and to our members, is abhorrent. It constitutes a vicious assault on the quality of education, on the rights of workers, parents and students across this province.
After Bills 7 and 26, it was difficult to imagine legislation that could be more dictatorial, more abusive of the rights of Ontarians and more bloody-minded in its pursuit of the destruction of public services. Then along came 103, usurping locally elected bodies in Metro and imposing unwanted structures and new costs and responsibilities. But with Bill 104, the Conservative government has outdone itself again. It's called the Fewer School Boards Act, but a more accurate name would be "The Fewer School Boards, Fewer Teachers, Fewer Programs and Options for Students, Higher Taxes and Absolutely No Democracy, Turn out the Lights and Thank You Very Much Act of Ontario."
Michael Harrison, quoted in the press today, speaking on behalf of Mr Snobelen, our esteemed minister without secondary school graduation diploma, says the following: "We are introducing this legislation to redirect more resources into the classroom rather than wasting it on administration." This is an outstanding revelation from a government that has cut $1 billion from education expenditures already, a government that is looking for another $1 billion to cut, $400,000 of which it will steal from school boards in Metro when it grabs the education portion of our property tax.
If this government is really interested in saving administration costs, I offer these suggestions:
First, abolish the Ontario College of Teachers. This is a make-work or make-mischief project if ever there was one. Under the cover of raising professional teaching standards, the real agenda of the College of Teachers is to intimidate teachers, place them in a legal double jeopardy, undermine teacher unions, charge fees with no future limit, kill forests of trees for self-serving paper products, and pay its administrators lavish salaries. That's the first suggestion.
Suggestion number two is to get rid of the body with the Orwellian name, the Education Improvement Commission, and the salaries of the commissioners and their hangers-on. Let the elected school boards do the job we the people put them there to do.
What about the reduction of school boards and the limitation of trustee salaries? Have you considered consultation? What about giving school boards an opportunity to merge voluntarily? We know of some that want to do that. A two-year deadline perhaps, with some modest goals, would make common sense, if you'll excuse the expression. A reduction in trustee salaries? Perhaps a reduction to match a reduction in cabinet ministers' salaries might be acceptable.
What the government of Ontario is doing makes no sense unless you are very rich and your company is looking for a piece of the education market. It's no surprise that Bill 104 gives the commissioners, who are paid $90,000 a year to be elected by no one, the power to request tenders and to sell off and to privatize school services. Bill 104 is about privatization without even consultation through to the end of the year 2000. To that degree, it exceeds the pernicious nature of Bill 103. It's province-wide and it's longer in duration and in its usurpation of the elected local bodies.
Corporate intrusion in schools is already excessive. Corporate logos, co-op, cheap labour pools and Pepsi machines will soon be crowded out by corporate video messages in place of the morning announcements and corporate band uniforms and corporate sports equipment and corporate textbooks and corporate computer curriculum. Bill 104, with its $5,000 cap on trustee salaries, ensures that when parents make an appointment to see the school trustee in the future, they'll be choosing between the trustee from McDonald's, the one sponsored by Nike or perhaps the one from Ernst and Young.
When this whole abomination breaks down from drastic underfunding, decline in education standards, the rise in violence and vandalism that neglect breeds, Tories hope that Ontario will finally be ready for charter schools or some kind of voucher system. Those who can afford extra fees can send their kids to a publicly supported private school that provides books, paper and learning tools. Those who can't afford those fees, and this will include the thousands who will lose employment thanks to Bills 103 and 104 and other bills that will strip labour successor rights and eliminate low teacher-pupil ratios in existing collective agreements, those unfortunates will have to be satisfied with the lower tier of schools, schools which none the less will charge user fees even for a child to eat in her school cafeteria on a cold day.
Bill 104 is an abomination in a great variety of ways. One way is that it strips all school boards of their powers and supplants them with a non-elected body. Another is because it creates a monster in Metropolitan Toronto. Imagine a school board with 305,000 students and 550 schools. That's a population base larger than all the Atlantic provinces combined. In forcibly amalgamating all boards into one, you no doubt hope to set off a war between bargaining agents and to set off great anguish over which collective agreements will prevail in a given sector in the new, amalgamated school boards, including ours in Metro.
I can tell you that if the highest standards in employee wages and benefits do not prevail, you will indeed have a war. No wonder you've legislated that decisions of a commissioner cannot even be appealed to a court of law. How convenient the foresight. You are leading a descent into barbarism. How do you imagine that a school board as big as a Metro-wide school board will be able to serve its constituents, even to be reached by its constituents in any significant numbers? How will it even cope with basic staffing requirements that are often attuned to local needs, familiarity with the community and so on?
Let me give you a concrete example: I said at the outset that I represent 1,000 substitute teachers in Toronto, both in the elementary and secondary schools. Many of my members work or are familiar with and familiar to a family of schools, particularly in the elementary panel. We are dispatched to schools in three geographic areas in each panel, that's six dispatch zones, and when one list for elementary in zone A, for example, is depleted, they may borrow from the adjoining zone elementary list and so on in each of the panels appropriately.
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Will the dispatching of substitute teachers become Metro-wide? Will someone who normally works in north Rexdale, in Etobicoke, in north Scarborough, in Agincourt, be expected to take an assignment at the Toronto Island school on short notice? Or will the dispatching continue in the same fashion and many other things continue in the same fashion and Bill 104 is just a shell game for robbery of hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers in Metropolitan Toronto and loss of democratic control over their school board and its policies to be determined by non-elected people appointed by somebody for several years? Or will this government replace trained professionals, like substitute teachers whom I represent or English-as-a-second-language teachers or continuing education teachers with volunteers or perhaps even with victims of workfare who are pressed into volunteer service?
Clearly, Bill 104 is part of a very large package. It's a large package of class legislation for a class war that's being waged by this government. The Paroian report, which is not far behind this train of legislation, seeks to take away the right to strike from teachers, even though the vast majority of negotiations result in settlements without strikes. But by targeting teachers' rights, stripping local school boards of their authority, reducing trustees to part-time agents of corporate sponsors, who is to stand up for students and for citizens in Ontario education?
The marginalization of opposition to cutbacks and to corporate intrusion and to education ministry dictatorship is what this package is really about. The corporate rulers of Ontario apparently can no longer afford the luxury of consultation, the luxury of democracy, certainly not the luxury of quality in education. Bill 104 makes plain what its predecessors, Bills 26, 7 etc, have shown all too clearly: It's war on the working people of Ontario, their kids, everybody. The government of Ontario has launched war on many fronts simultaneously, however, which Napoleon and Hitler learned doesn't always produce predicted or desired results.
But if it's war you want, it's war you'll get. The way to avoid it is not to amend this legislation -- that's an impossible task -- it's to withdraw it and to put your agenda to the people in an election where they can determine if what you set out to do, now that we know much of what it is, not all, is indeed what the people of Ontario want. When you have a mandate, then you have the right to proceed. When you proceed without a mandate and you destroy education and attack the rights of working people achieved over many decades of struggle, you invite a war. Thank you very much.
The Chair: We have three minutes, and I'd like you to adhere strictly to them. It's the Liberals.
Mrs Caplan: I hear your passion. I agree with your concern. I'm also very concerned about the devaluing of the role of locally elected school trustees. I'd like your view, if you could, on who you think might be interested in taking the job, and given the size of the wards, even who could afford to do it and what you think the cost might be. Have you given that any thought?
Mr Weisleder: I don't think we'd have to commission a report from Peat Marwick or Ernst and Young to find out who would be interested in the job of school trustee when it pays no more than $5,000 a year. It would cost more than that to run for election in any ward, even in the new gigantic wards in the would-be district of Toronto school board. We're looking at corporate intrusion writ large, and that means that the companies that are interested in taking a piece of the education market are going to be setting the policies, with one proviso. Local school boards won't have much policymaking power any more, so perhaps it won't matter, but the education ministry has its ear attuned to what the power brokers on Bay Street want. They want this kind of legislation, and I'm afraid that's why we're getting it.
Mr Wildman: Just in relation to the issue of successor rights, this bill sets forward a tremendously quick agenda. There have been amalgamations in other jurisdictions where they've taken up to two to three years to implement them. We're talking about a matter of months, so a merging of collective agreements, many of which are quite different -- different seniority lists and so on. Have you had any consultation with the ministry with regard to the issue of successor rights and how this process will work?
Mr Weisleder: No, I haven't. What's more, I wrote to the ministry and asked for the opportunity to discuss this and to discuss the Paroian report because we weren't even invited or allowed to participate in a submission to Mr Paroian, who was looking at collective bargaining between school boards, or whatever they will be known as in the future, and teacher unions. There has been a dearth of consultation and what you'll have is a prescription for chaos.
Each of us who has fought in our bargaining agents and organizations for rights hold them dearly and we'll want to see them enforced. Even if the government is so arrogant as to take away successor rights, that doesn't preclude charter challenges and all kinds of procedures that will make lawyers wealthy and will cause chaos in school board bargaining. For a government that is even considering taking away the right to strike, to embark on this course is to invite a province-wide strike by teachers and many other education workers, and maybe that's exactly what they deserve.
Mr Skarica: You used words like "war" and "assault," those kinds of words, which I take as very serious words, but as I'm reading the act itself it indicates that the commission shall, in many cases -- I'm just reading from one paragraph here -- "consider, conduct research, facilitate discussion and make recommendations to the minister." How does that translate into war and attack on working people?
Mr Weisleder: That might be in one particular area, but you know the commissioners have the authority to approve all budgets, to approve all appointments and to decide on -- are actually encouraged to seek tenders and to set out to privatize, sell off, services that schools now provide as public services to the public. Doesn't that worry you?
Mr Skarica: That's the exact section I just read to you, the privatization section. I don't see anything draconian about it, and we're going to perhaps disagree, but it says "conduct research, facilitate discussion and make recommendations." How is that an attack and a war on working people?
Mr Weisleder: It's a furtherance of the agenda of privatization. I think that's quite clear. Even if the commissioners or the Education Improvement Commission -- I can't get over that Orwellian name -- didn't exist, the Ministry of Education and the other ministries of the government have shown their great liking for privatization. They wouldn't need recommendations in order to proceed. This will simply try to bolster their case and quicken the pace of it.
What is lacking or what is torn away in substance from local governance is the right of the local bodies elected by the people to say: "No, we don't agree. We won't have that. We'll seek the funding another way." That's what is taken away, and whether the commissioners recommend it or not, we know what the orientation of the government is. That's why we call for the removal of this legislation and for real consultations to break out.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Weisleder. Thank you, in particular, for being able to appear on this first day and still make a full submission.
Mr Weisleder: You're welcome and thanks for the opportunity.
Mrs McLeod: For the record, another specific question comes from this presentation that merits response from the ministry. I believe that the question essentially was, if there are personnel who are not assigned specifically to one school or to specific schools and are assigned on a daily basis, how will the decisions be made about assigning those staff in the very large boards? Perhaps if I can extrapolate, would there would be restrictions that say that staff can be required to take assignments only within the existing board boundaries?
Mr Skarica: I can look into that, but it seems to me from looking at the legislation it would appear that's one of the aspects the commission will be making recommendations to the minister on.
Mrs McLeod: My frustration, and it is a legitimate frustration of a legislator, is that there is nothing in the bill that isn't subject to the recommendation of the education commission. Therefore, we have no idea, nor does anybody else, including members of the government, what the implications of this legislation are going to be. If we can't get some answers to the questions about how this legislation is going to be implemented, then how can we possibly know whether this legislation is good, bad or indifferent?
Mr Skarica: I give you the same answer, that there are a number of aspects that the commission is to look into and do research on. I would anticipate that and many other questions are areas that will be looked into to facilitate discussion and make recommendations to the minister on.
Mrs McLeod: So we can then anticipate a recommendation that the legislation will be withheld until all the recommendations of the EIC are received?
Mr Skarica: No, I didn't say that. You asked me a specific question as to one area, as to personnel who aren't assigned to any particular high school, and I imagine that's something that there will be recommendations made to the minister on.
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Mrs McLeod: I just have never in my experience seen legislation brought forward when very specific questions about implementation could not be answered.
The Chair: I think you have your answer.
Mr Wildman: I have a specific question related to successor rights. I want to know if the provincial government will direct --
The Chair: It's very difficult to hear the question, please.
Mr Wildman: -- the local boards and the Education Improvement Commission to respect successor rights in the merging of collective agreements.
The Chair: Did you want an answer from Mr Skarica now?
Mr Skarica: I don't have an answer for you right now.
Mr Wildman: Well, we need to know that, obviously.
The Chair: Very well.
TORONTO TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Chair: The Toronto Teachers' Federation, Ms Gladstone. Welcome. Would you be so kind as to introduce your co-presenter and you have 15 minutes to do with as you wish.
Mrs Trynie de Vries: Mrs Trynie de Vries, president of the Women Teachers' Association of Toronto.
Frances Gladstone: I am here to state emphatically that Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, must be rescinded. The concepts that I will address today regarding this issue have already been stated repeatedly. However, I believe that it is important that I add my voice to the growing numbers who are expressing grave concerns with your plans for the educational system.
There are many flaws in your proposed bill, and among them is the way that you have chosen to combine boards of education. In the more rural areas of this province, you want to amalgamate boards that currently are manageable but which, if amalgamated, will cover enormous distances. This will create huge logistical problems for school staff, parents and students, who will have great difficulty attempting to organize meetings or work together in any meaningful way. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the workings of these geographically large but numerically small boards to present the issue in detail, but I'm certain that my colleagues who will be directly affected by your proposal will take the opportunity, if they can, to address the matter themselves. I can, however, address the proposal for amalgamation in Metro Toronto.
Before I go into details about the proposal for amalgamation of Metro boards of education, however, I would like to highlight one significant piece of information. Ralph Klein reduced the number of school boards in Alberta to 57. The population of Alberta is 2.5 million people. The population of Metro Toronto is also 2.5 million people. With amalgamation, there will be one school board to service the same number of people that 57 school boards service in Alberta.
The justification for this has yet to be made clear. From any viewpoint, economics, pedagogical, philosophical, organizational, it makes no sense to create so monstrous a board. If amalgamated, this board will be responsible for 310,000 students. It will also have to deal with 11,000 statutory members at the elementary level as well as a similar number at the secondary level. This accounts only for students and teachers. There will also be an enormous number of support, caretaking and maintenance staff, plus a vast bureaucracy.
Attempts to unify all the elements will be an organizational nightmare and chaos will reign for years to come. You cannot combine six boards of education whose culture, style, needs and practices differ greatly into one vast amalgamate. Each board currently has its own policies and procedures for everything from hiring and firing to curriculum development and introduction, staff management, professional development programs and all other matters that have to be dealt with on an ongoing basis. Whose methods will be used? Whose discarded? Who will decide? The implications are far-reaching and not easily resolved. Many years are required if anything at all is to be done, and it is not clear that anything needs to be done. The system functions well as it currently exists.
One of the problems that will arise as a result of the size of an amalgamated board is that a vast bureaucracy will be required to run the system. Statistics have shown that larger systems cost more money to run than smaller ones. In addition, it will also be a far more impersonal system, one in which parents, especially, will experience a great deal of frustration. As the boards now exist, there are trustees and superintendents in each family of schools readily accessible to parents who have questions or concerns. In a single board, with reduced employment, this accessibility will disappear. However, this is not to say that certain elements can't be jointly operated. But this requires time, good management and cooperation.
When Metro boards unified their purchasing departments, approximately two years was taken to ensure that the transformation would be a smooth one. Now, we have a unified purchasing system which has been cost-effective. The six boards have also negotiated centrally at both the elementary and secondary levels since the passage of Bill 127. Other areas in which we can develop a joint organization are being examined. But that is a far cry from amalgamation. You expect to have the entire six boards combined and smoothly functioning by January 1998. This is just not possible.
Additionally, this government proposes to remove local funding of education through property taxes and assume the cost provincially. The funding of education properly belongs where it is, at the local level, where locally elected trustees, who are accountable to the public, have the financial autonomy to determine how much money is required, how that money will be raised and how it will be spent. If amalgamation of the Metro boards takes place, clearly there will be no local levels as we now know them.
It is common knowledge that the education system is not broken in Ontario, but there is a strong belief that it will be if this government takes it over. Statistics clearly show the success of our schools. In 1993, Ontario secondary schools graduated 84% of their OAC students. Some 50% of these graduates went on to university and students who have graduated since 1989 are generally more literate than students who graduated before them. This does not sound like a broken system.
We do have high education costs in Ontario and for good reason, though they are far from the highest in the country. In an example of 63 North American jurisdictions, Ontario ranks in 46th place in cost-per-pupil spending. This despite the fact that there is in Ontario a huge percentage of immigrant children, as well as a far larger percentage of special needs students and socially disadvantaged families than elsewhere in the country. These factors account for much of our increased spending costs, especially in Metro. But in a democratic education system the needs of all children must be met, and this costs money, more money here in Ontario and especially in Metro Toronto than elsewhere. But less, not more, money is being provided, and there will be still less to the municipalities and the school system if this bill becomes law.
Part of the reason for a bill to amalgamate the boards of education is to enable you to take control of the funding so that you can make massive spending cuts -- up to $1 billion is the rumoured amount. Among other things, you needs these cuts to pay for the ill-advised income tax reduction you have promised. If you succeed in gaining control of funding for education and have the power to cut these funds, we know there will be a tremendous reduction of services provided to students. The money, after all, will have to be found somewhere.
Your concept of "inside" and "outside" the classroom has made it clear where you plan to attack. Despite the fact that all services currently provided are necessary to the education of children, you have chosen to classify them in order to justify the reductions you will propose. By making it seem that money is being spent unnecessarily and that there are places where it is not required or where less might be better, you are attempting to sow the seeds of doubt -- one more crisis being created that you will fix. But your efforts to persuade the public will fail here. You might believe your analysis of this situation, but others will not.
First, you will attempt to differentiate staffing because you do not understand the role or the value of well-trained professional teachers; nor do you value learning, though you claim to, especially in the earliest years. Despite study after study which show that children who begin school at age three cost governments far less over time because they become more productive adults, this government has made junior kindergarten, which begins at age four, optional. Now it wants to remove certified teachers from the program.
It also believes that teachers are not required in libraries, where they have long been curriculum partners, nor in guidance, where they provide much needed programs and counselling. This government also thinks principals and vice-principals need not be teachers. Such concepts show very clearly the lack of understanding of the role of school administration. School administrators do not just shuffle paper and money; they work with staff to develop programs, they provide leadership, they counsel teachers and students, and a host of other responsibilities which no person who has not taught could begin to fulfil.
Next, there will be a reduction or elimination of courses at both the elementary and secondary levels. English is one glaring example. As part of its reform of secondary education, this government plans to reduce the number of hours of English instruction as well as reduce time requirements in other subject areas. It's hard to conceive that a government that has claimed that our education system is not working believes its students would benefit from government's attempt to reduce the number of hours in a program that is at the very core of student learning.
Other students who will also suffer are those in special needs programs, which are costly to provide and will very likely be reduced in number. We expect this government will revise the qualification factors for these programs so that fewer children are deemed to have special needs. With less funding, we also anticipate the elimination or reduction of immersion French, ESL and heritage language programs, again by changing the parameters for qualification.
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Then there will be the elimination of adult education programs. This government thinks only in the short term. Advisers in the Ministry of Education and Training seem to be unaware of the fact that a better-trained, more highly skilled workforce is produced by providing education to adults who did not, for a wide variety of reasons, access it earlier. We also know that education allows people to become better qualified for meaningful work. To propose that adults now pay for this opportunity is to prevent them from accessing it. They do not have the funds needed to pay for their courses.
There will also be large-scale reduction in much-needed support services. These include educational assistants, student support personnel and custodial maintenance people. Educational assistants provide invaluable help in the programs where they work. They perform a wide variety of tasks that are of great benefit to and much needed by students and teachers. Student support personnel, who include psycho-educational consultants, social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists, assess, evaluate and diagnose student needs that classroom teachers are not qualified to do. Without these people, we could not begin to address the problems these students present. Custodial and maintenance personnel clean, maintain and repair the schools. If their services are reduced, the buildings will quickly fall into disrepair, become shabby, dirty and unsafe, and outsourcing of these services would be more expensive and less efficient.
In addition, this government plans to greatly reduce the number of trustees and replace them by increasing parental responsibility -- on a volunteer basis, of course -- in the schools. While many parents have long taken an active role in their children's schools and are a strong, effective voice, most do not want greater responsibility. In any case, how many among them are available to do this job on any kind of regular basis? Most parents have neither the time nor the desire to take on this additional burden. It is one thing to have input into the programming and decision-making at the schools. It is quite another matter to be the deciding factor in running the schools.
You expect parents to make a commitment as unpaid workers to determining curriculum, handling the budget, hiring and firing staff, deciding values and ethics, and a host of other issues for which they have neither the training nor the desire to assume the responsibility. Further, the ability to participate fully in parent councils will be limited by economic, linguistic and cultural factors. This desire to strengthen the role of parents removes the universality and equity of the current system. It strikes as just another step on the way to this government's goal of privatizing a system as well as the step towards putting in place charter schools.
As well, this government plans to cut costs by eliminating or reducing the amount of preparation time available to teachers. Once again, this shows a clear lack of understanding on your part. In most occupations, as part of the regular course of the day, people do those things that they are required to do, whether it be telephoning, interacting with others, working at their desks or machines or wherever else they are required to be and do what they need to do. Teachers cannot fulfil any other part of their responsibilities when teaching. They must concentrate their attention on the children before them.
Therefore, in order to attend to the myriad tasks which they must also manage, they must have time free from teaching. Even when this time is provided, most teachers still spend several hours per day outside classroom time planning lessons, developing and organizing programs, contacting parents, meeting with their peers, marking papers and on and on. But besides the requirement of teachers for this time, there is also the fact that preparation time provides programs at the elementary level. Without prep time, some of these programs may be lost in the shuffle as they will all be taught by classroom teachers who are already overburdened. It may well be difficult for them to take on the additional burden of another program. Because of the existence of preparation time, these programs are currently provided, regularly and uniformly in each school, to the great advantage of the students.
But as much as anything else, we have grave concerns about the hidden meaning behind this bill. It is our fear that this government plans to privatize whatever possible, sell off assets and put much of the $13-billion cost of education into corporate hands. Among the plans we believe you have are such things as selling off school buildings and leasing them back and selling off such services as transportation, maintenance and caretaking. Through these actions, we would expect to see the quality of service deteriorate and we would also expect to lose control of how our schools are run.
In the end, should you cut costs, whatever cuts are made, it is the children as well as the employees who will pay for them. The children will pay in larger class sizes, less individual attention, reduced programs and fewer needs met. If this government's agenda is followed at the secondary level, students will be less well equipped to take a leading role in society. This government plans to incorporate work experience into the secondary curriculum. Any work program must have a strong, curriculum-based component or students will become cheap labour for various businesses and will not be well educated in the process. With the main focus on technology, their learning will quickly become obsolete as it will be impossible for the schools to provide up-to-date equipment.
The goal to have Ontario students be well prepared to take their place in a global economy is a sound one. However, removing funding from secondary and adult education programs will undermine this goal and prevent its fulfilment. Further funding reductions will increase the negative effect already in evidence in the classroom. Statistics have shown that Ontario does not have the highest education costs in the country. It does have among the highest needs and cannot accommodate further per pupil reductions to funding.
The Chair: Ms Gladstone, I ask you to wrap up. You've exceeded your time.
Frances Gladstone: I'm just about finished.
What we are asking is that you re-examine the concepts you have put forward in Bill 104 and reconsider its passage. Our school system functions well as it currently exists. There is no need to amalgamate the six Metro school boards. This bill is not about greater efficiency or cost saving. Amalgamation of school boards will not improve the quality of education. What this bill is about is to give this government control of education funding. We believe it is your intention to remove money from the system, privatize education and put the increased funds into the hands of the corporate structure. The corporations are dictating this government's moves, and in education and other areas, you are following instructions well.
Our request to you is to make the only rational decision possible, which is to shelve Bill 104 and leave the structure of the education system as it is. Leave education funding at the local level, keep per pupil funding at the amount presently set and retain your current responsibility for social services. Nothing in this system is broken and there is nothing that you need to fix.
The Chair: I regret that we don't have time to ask questions, but thank you very much for your presentation here today.
CONFEDERATION OF RESIDENT AND RATEPAYER ASSOCIATIONS
The Chair: I ask the Confederation of Resident and Ratepayer Associations to come forward. Mr Vallance, welcome. Thank you very much for coming in today. You have 15 minutes.
Mr David Vallance: Well, I'll give you a chance to catch up. It's a short one.
The Chair: If time permits, then, we'll ask you some questions, if you don't mind.
Mr Vallance: My name is David Vallance. I'm here from the Confederation of Resident and Ratepayer Associations but I come from a business organization rather than a residents' group myself, because we're also ratepayers. My remarks are directed at the broad strokes of the bill rather than the detail because I haven't had time to take a really close look at it; it's more on the concept than the substance.
This government has taken a curious turn. In an all-out effort to give a tax reduction to high-income people who repeatedly say this is less important than reducing the deficit, the Harris government has cut welfare payments, reduced its own numbers by reducing the number of MPPs, or at least it will, and is now proposing to reduce the number and role of school boards in the province.
Like a lot of the proposals from the Harris government, this seems to be a good way to save money. Maybe, but many corporations that did similar things are finding out that it doesn't necessarily work out the way that common sense said it would.
The Economist magazine, the January 4, 1997, issue, in an article on large corporate mergers says management thinkers who "urged bosses to re-engineer, downsize and thin out their management ranks....have left those top executives still more isolated from what goes on in their firms. Managers of the business units, who are rarely at the table when a takeover is negotiated, are now even further removed from strategic decisions. Yet it is these poor `demoralized souls' who are expected to put into practice a firm's post-merger `integration strategy.' So the destruction of much of a merger's potential value takes place out of sight of the bosses who championed it."
Incidentally, the article also states that 57% of large corporate mergers after three years lost value, and over the longer term even more lost value.
The same article also states: "What seems to link most mergers that fail is the acquirer's obsession with the deal itself, coupled with too little attention to what happens next, particularly the complex business of blending all the systems, informal processes and cultures that make things tick. In the 1980s, this `soft stuff' often did not matter. Anybody could make a merger pay off if enough jobs and capacity were cut. But now most of those surplus workers and factories are gone. `Top managers often don't value the qualities of the firm they are buying,' says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School. As a result they destroy much of the existing value."
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I think the previous presentation spoke to that aspect.
This bill seems to contain too much obsession with the deal but provides too little detail to show that there has been enough attention paid to what happens next.
The reduction in the number of trustees and the dramatic capping of their remuneration at $5,000 has an appeal to those who think all who are elected are useless. Does that thinking exclude MPPs? What does the reduction in the number of trustees accomplish? Have they been performing a useful role up to this time? Five thousand dollars may make sense in North Bay, but has it any meaning in Toronto, Ottawa or London? Will trustees be elected or appointed? If trustees represent a much larger area, they will be very remote from both the taxpayer and the parent in these cities. Will anyone even want the job, and I believe it is a job, not a volunteer position, for $5,000?
Is the government paying attention to what happens next, particularly the complex business of blending all the systems, informal processes and cultures that make things tick?
How do parent councils square with community standards? Will each school have its own standards, possibly set by a small clique of parents who dominate the parents' council? There is some indication that non-classroom costs include the principal, heating of the school and school maintenance, libraries and phys ed teachers. Are the Premier, the operation and maintenance of the legislature building and its research resources not part of the cost of maintaining a government? Will the age and quality of the buildings be taken into consideration when allocating funds for non-classroom costs? More important, will the need for special requirements be taken into account when dealing with the areas that have high populations of immigrant and refugee children with very different cultural backgrounds?
There are some areas where a common curriculum and centralized purchasing process could be valuable for saving money. The thrust, however, does not seem to be to create efficiencies; rather it focuses on getting rid of politicians as if this magically creates savings.
The appointment of an Education Improvement Commission, with salaries of $90,000 a year, to figure out how to get there from here indicates that the acquirer's obsession with the deal itself, coupled with too little attention to what happens next, is what is going on here.
One area that has been open to criticism in the past is the promotion of teachers to administrative posts. Does a teacher make a good manager of transportation, of school construction, of maintenance operations?
I have some reluctance in introducing references to the Economist to a government that seems to want to operate by the seat of its pants and common sense. All too often the studies show that the intuitive solution to a problem is not the best. I also have great concern that a lot of what has been proposed here appears to be that of a centralizing, dare I say it, socialist regime. The lack of any detail to so many questions indicates that the final comment from the Economist item on the Harris government in the January 25, 1997, issue, may be prophetic. It says: "The changes on the way are less of a revolution than a whirligig. Whirligigs have a way of spinning out of control and even of savaging the man in charge."
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much. I found your presentation refreshing and thought-provoking and it raises a lot of questions. I really wonder, representing ratepayers as you do, whether you think the time frame for implementation of Bill 104 is adequate to ensure that all stakeholders, if you want to use that term -- students, parents, teachers, trustees, ratepayers -- will have an opportunity to have an influence over how these changes are implemented or whether there will be chaos, as has been suggested by some of the other presenters, simply because of the short time frame between now and January 1.
Mr Vallance: That's a very interesting question. I was called on Friday to ask whether I wanted to present today or tomorrow, and I chose today because tomorrow's no better for me. This is a short presentation because I haven't really had much time to study the bill or the whole thing behind it.
I think the result will be chaos because, as the document says, there's too little attention paid to the detail of merging all the things that go on in the background that aren't properly understood, the same as in a corporate merger. The difference between this and a corporate merger is that in a corporate merger usually there's an incentive to make a profit, whereas here you've got a culture that's largely a bureaucratic one and the mindset is quite different, in my opinion.
To answer your question, I think the way to get there is the old saying, "Make haste slowly," and "Evolution, not revolution, produces a far better result." I think what we've got here is a revolution, and it's not going to work in the long run. That's my opinion, so that's what I'm trying to say.
Mr Carroll: Thank you very much, sir. There's a question I asked a group this morning and I'd like to ask it of you. Statistics released by OSSTF -- in American funds, coincidentally; I'm not sure why they did that -- as have been quoted, show that we are 46th out of 63 jurisdictions in per pupil spending and we are US$950 per student higher funding in Ontario than in Alberta. Despite that fact, Alberta does dramatically better than us in all international and national standard testing. Does that concern you?
Mr Vallance: Certainly it concerns me, but I think the previous presentation, with 53 school boards in Alberta, which has the same population as the city of Toronto, says something about that. What my document is saying is that there are efficiencies and there are ways to save money in the system. My perception of what's going on here is that you're obsessed with the deal itself rather than the nitty-gritty of actually creating those savings.
Mr Carroll: Last year we passed along to the school boards of the province of Ontario a 1.8% decrease in their funding, and the way they handled that is that 70 of the boards went out and raised taxes instead of finding efficiencies. How would you suggest we find the efficiencies if the school boards won't do it?
Mr Vallance: To me, that's something the same as your cutting of welfare payments. You've passed on your role, as I see it, of creating efficiencies to the recipient, who may be ill equipped to deal with that. Perhaps the efficiencies should be created by showing them how to do the efficiencies and create the savings rather than just saying: "We're going to cut your funding. Save money." If you're operating on a budget and somebody cuts your payments, you've got a drastic reaction to take. As an individual perhaps you can do that, but when you've got perhaps thousands of people involved, it's a far more difficult process, particularly when there are unions and federations of teachers involved that are into a locked-in contract or whatever. I don't think it's as simple as that.
Mr Carroll: There are a lot of examples of efficiencies out there.
Mr Wildman: On a point of order, Chair: I can't let this pass. It's in Hansard in the House that Mr Peter Wright of the Ministry of Education and Training has said that the cuts were not 1.8%; they were 5.6% last year.
The Chair: Thank you, but that's not a point of order. Mrs McLeod.
Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the time you put into appearing today and making your presentation and also what I believe are very legitimate questions you raise about a process of carrying out change in a way that would be successful.
I don't think you need to feel apologetic about not having had time to read the act in detail, because one of the concerns with the act is that most of the recommendations about implementation are left to a commission to be put in place and bring forward those recommendations after the act is actually passed. That's one of our basic problems, in all honesty: not being able to get at the details and get answers to those questions. I hope some of the issues you've raised will be ones which the government will take seriously.
I'm not sure if it's fair to ask you to comment on a companion piece to the bill, which is part of what the minister introduced in introducing the bill, and that's the intention to take education funding off the residential tax. There are two aspects of it which concern many of us and might concern the ratepayers' group or the business group, whichever part of the hat you wish to wear. One is that all the evidence now is that there is a significant additional offload on to the property tax base as a result of the tradeoff for taking education off the residential tax. The second is that business continues to pay a commercial tax for education, so they have to bear not only their continued tax for education but their share of the offload on to the municipal tax base. I don't know whether your organization has had a chance to look at that issue yet.
Mr Vallance: If you have half an hour I could give you an answer. Yes, we've looked at that. My concern on the property tax side is very complex and I don't want to go into it right now. But to trade off school funding for the other costs seems, as I said in my document, to be obsessed with the deal rather than the nitty-gritty of how it works. Really, there's no advantage from the property taxpayers' point of view to doing this, and if it's going to create total havoc, which it will -- I'm quite convinced it will; I've seen corporate mergers and I've been involved at the bottom end of it, I haven't been involved with the actual merger, and seen what happens in head offices and so on when you do this kind of thing -- there will be chaos.
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I guess, perversely, I'm sort of hoping some of this stuff will go ahead because this government is going to look so stupid in about two years, so incompetent, that all its good ratings now will start to disappear as people realize that the management aspect of its proposals, many of which have some common sense and are probably necessary in the long run for the province, is not being dealt with. There's no attention to detail.
Supporters of the government, many of whom are in our body, our group, are frustrated that they're creating a situation whereby they look okay still because, as the figures say, if somebody says to me, "Do you support the government?" I say I support the general thrust of what they're doing, yes. But will I vote for them again? Not a damn chance. That's really I guess because of the chaos you're talking about that's going to occur because of this. Trading one for another that gives you no benefit does not make any sense to us. That's really what we're saying.
The Chair: Mr Vallance, thank you very much for coming in today and presenting, again on such short notice. The committee is very appreciative.
Mr Carroll: On a point of privilege, Madam Chair: I want to correct the record on the quote I made about the 1.8% reduction in funding vis-à-vis Mr Wildman's comments about 5.8%, The 1.8% is the amount that the overall budgets of school boards was reduced as a result of our funding cuts; the 5.8% is a different number that relates to a different thing.
Mr Wildman: It relates to the grants, which is what counts.
Mrs McLeod: If the record is to be corrected, the suggestion of Mr Carroll was that boards should have been able to cope with a 1.8% cut in their funding without resorting to cuts to the classroom. In fact the cuts that have directly affected boards that were dependent on grants were considerably in excess of the 1.8% and in some cases exceeded 15%.
The Chair: As you know, Mrs McLeod, only Mr Carroll can correct his own record and he has done just that.
WARDS 11/12 EDUCATION COUNCIL, TORONTO BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Chair: We'll move to the next presenter, Wards 11/12 Education Council, Mr Peter Clutterbuck. Welcome to the committee.
Mr Peter Clutterbuck: Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson and members of the committee. I think you have a copy of my presentation, about seven pages. I've attached to it something I'll be referring to in the first few paragraphs, a concrete example of a parent-driven process in our wards around the impact of budget cuts in our schools even before the more recent ones, a concrete product of parents working together with local trustees to gather information, analyse it and produce it in a form which we submitted to Minister Snobelen. I wanted to make sure you have that, and one of the reasons is we talked about that here last year.
Last May I was pleased to appear before this standing committee on behalf of the Wards 11/12 Education Council to present at that time our concerns about Bill 34. Wards 11/12 Education Council represents 13 primary public schools and one secondary public school in a section of the city of Toronto, schools with a total enrolment of more than 5,000 children. Our education council is led primarily by parents from each of the schools in the wards but also includes the involvement of teachers and principals and our two school trustees. I myself have a 14-year-old daughter in the eighth grade at Winona Drive Senior Public School.
We take our responsibilities in wards 11/12 seriously, as I explained to the standing committee last spring. We were concerned then about the implications of the proposed cuts in education financing for the quality of our children's schooling and we decided to do our own impact study of budget cuts in our schools via a school survey on changes in class sizes, the amount of help teachers have in the classroom and the status of specialty learning programs which our parents value and our children need. I reported preliminary findings to the standing committee on May 6 last year. We did a more complete survey, thanks to the help of our local trustees and other officials with the school system, in the fall of 1996 and presented Minister of Education Snobelen and our two MPPs, Mr Derwyn Shea and Mr Tony Silipo, with our final results, including summary discussions from parent and teacher meetings in 11 of our schools. That's what you have there.
Since most proposed government legislation today seems to lack any consideration of community impact, I have attached a copy of our final report. In doing so, I make my first point on the matter at hand, Bill 104, and the process for public comment on Bill 104, and that is, even if legislation like this is fast-tracked with insufficient time for public hearings, community people, and parents in particular, are asking the right questions and are beginning to collect their own answers and to gather together in order to share their concerns about the direction that this government is taking the education system.
Since last fall, we in wards 11 and 12 alone have had more than 30 parent meetings on the proposed changes to the education system. Even before Bill 104, we started. Parent concern is mounting as we meet two or three times weekly with more and more parents in our own 14 schools, and I'm going to another parent meeting tonight, and we begin to share our findings with parents in other parts of Toronto and Ontario.
The standing committee should extend its sessions to hear from all who wish to make a statement on the critical issue of the future governance of the school system in this province, because parents are asking these questions, are sharing information and need a chance, as well as teachers and others involved in the school system, to make their input.
More specifically with respect to Bill 104, first, Bill 104 will give us bad school governance. The Ontario government's operating premise in most policy areas is that government's role should be reduced to the absolute minimum. The very title of Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, asserts the government's bias. Less is more for this government when it comes to any public governance function.
The government's message to the wider community is that our schools are overgoverned with top-heavy adminstration. The Minister of Education misleads citizens by claiming almost half of education funding does not serve the child in the classroom. When we in wards 11 and 12 investigated that charge, we found it to be totally false. In the Toronto school board, the entire central administration accounts for only 5% of the total board budget. The rest of the Toronto budget goes into the schools where our children spend their school day in classes and a variety of other learning settings and situations. Some of that help comes into the schools from the central board in terms of resource people. We consider that an important service and support for our children in their classes.
It is these misleading public statements by the minister and government officials which foster support for getting rid of "unnecessary governance and bureaucracy." What does the government propose by way of an alternative but a much more massive and unresponsive bureaucracy? If Bill 104 comes into law, it will merge six school boards and the Metro Board into the largest single school board in Canada. The new Toronto district school board will be responsible for 300,000 students, which as someone has already pointed out, is slightly less than the total number of students in the province of Alberta, which has about 50 school boards.
What is the rationale for good and effective governance upon which this is based? We are sceptical of the government's interest in effective governance at all. Rather, we believe this change is primarily intended to wrest control of governance in education from the local level and to centralize authority and power in the same way that the proposed changes in financing education by removing it from the local property tax will do.
Bill 104 reduces democratic access and accountability. Essentially, Bill 104 eliminates any useful role or expectation of the school trustee. First of all, it increases by 350% the ratio of students to each trustee in the redrawn ward areas. In Metro, a trustee's representative responsibilities will rise from about 4,000 to 14,000 students. The new Toronto district school board will become the biggest board in Canada, with the worst student-trustee ratio in Canada.
Second, Bill 104 allows district school boards to set a trustee's salary, so-called, up to $5,000 annually. This is absolutely ridiculous in the 1990s. Actually, this provision shows a complete disdain for the community's choice by democratic election of people to represent their children's interests and the public interest in a quality school system. Clearly, no one will be able to dedicate their full-time occupation to the role of school trustee unless they have other means of livelihood, which in itself could open up conflicts of interest. The $5,000 trustee salary cap is one of the clearest signs that the government does not value the democratic foundation of our education system.
At the community level, we in wards 11 and 12 know the difference between good, accessible service from our elected trustees and what Bill 104 promises to give us. Our experience in wards 11 and 12 is that our trustees are always with us when we need them, which could be any time of the day, evening or weekend, for telephone calls or meetings. They assist the education council with the preparation and communications on policy and program issues to the larger parent community. They hear our concerns and carry our policy recommendations to the school board. We just do not believe that more than tripling the trustee's jurisdiction while turning the function into a less-than-part-time hobby with lunch money is going to maintain that level of service and accountability.
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We can only conclude that this is exactly what the government intends -- to minimize, if not eliminate, the district school board's accountability to parents and the community in any meaningful way by emasculating the role and function of the elected school trustee.
Bill 104 offers the illusion of parent participation for most and the mechanism for charter school development for others. The government's promise of legislated community advisory councils in each school will of course assure parent involvement. This is a charade. Not only does Bill 104 void the role of the trustee to all intents and purposes, it expects parents to assume greater direct responsibility for their own school's operations without the policy guidance of a full-time, properly compensated trustee nor other administrative supports. Further, this very expectation of advisory councils evokes the notion of the little red school house, the one-room school house, rather than any sense of our schools as part of a complex urban system, at least here in Toronto and Metro.
It is more than likely that the level of budget reductions to Toronto schools will be such that these community advisory councils will become community fund-raising vehicles for the schools to try to maintain even minimum standards of basic education. Doubtless some of these councils in more privileged communities will take advantage of their independence and greater means to apply to the province for charter school status. This will only further erode our public education system.
Bill 104 sets up the Education Improvement Commission as a final affront to democracy. The most remarkable and outrageous provision in Bill 104 is the establishment of the provincially appointed Education Improvement Commission. In effect, the EIC makes the Fewer School Boards Act into the No School Board Act. Its powers supersede the decision-making of all current duly-elected school boards in Ontario for 1997 and effectively places them under trusteeship. Even appeals to the court on EIC decisions are precluded. In fact, the threat of penalty to individuals and boards which resist or obstruct the EIC is clear. Similar anti-democratic language to intimidate opposition to the government's proposed action can be found in Bill 103.
While the specific powers given to the EIC in Bill 104 concentrate on the transition year of 1997, the EIC's mandate extends for four years. Why, we ask, is it necessary for this transition authority to exist for that long? It is our deep suspicion that its powers will be further added to with future amendments to Bill 104 so that, in effect, even the new elected district school boards will not be really governing our education system. We expect that the EIC's powers to dispose of school assets paid for in Toronto by the local property taxpayer -- perhaps sell them off to private interests and lease them back -- to privatize and outsource school services and new building construction and to approve school budgets, all will be extended beyond any arguably reasonable transition period.
All of this concerns us in wards 11 and 12. We are particularly wary of the use of the EIC to control and reduce school budgets. We believe that this government is firmly committed to fulfilling its unwise tax cut promise by saving money in the education system. This so-called saving will come at a cost to our children's education. Government statements indicate that Toronto schools can expect upwards of $2,000 less per pupil. In our communities we are calculating the impact of that level of reduction. On a school-by-school basis we are talking with parents about the real cost of this cut in terms of drastically rising class sizes; losing teachers and teachers' aides; leaving the remaining teachers in too-large classes with complex needs and not enough help; dropping programs parents and students value and need such as music, art, physical education, special education, language training etc.
We can see the EIC being the government's agent for undermining the quality of our school system over the next few years with an extension of its powers to control budgets and to override the decision-making authority of elected school boards, as few as they might be. We note that the EIC, while above the law with respect to local citizens, is accountable itself to only one authority: the Minister of Education.
Bill 104 destroys local governance and a tradition of democratic accountability in our education system. The Ontario government is on a mission. That mission involves the removal of government from the lives of Ontario citizens. The Ontario government does not believe in a meaningful and positive role for government in the creation of the kind of society which we all want for ourselves and our families.
It is up to the citizens of this province to decide whether they too have a similar minimalist view of the role of government in our lives. But our avenues for so expressing our collective interest in making public bodies work more effectively for us are now being cut off by government action on a number of fronts, which shuts down democratic participation.
Bill 104, much like other government initiatives, is not just about creating simpler governance structures and it is not even just anti-government. It is anti-democratic as well, and in the case of Toronto it is assaulting a democratic local decision-making tradition that is almost as old as responsible government itself in this province. We suggest that you not pass and you not put forward the Fewer School Boards Act.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): Thank you, Mr Clutterbuck. Can you tell us how many parents participate on the education council at your school?
Mr Clutterbuck: Yes, we have at least two people from each of the parent associations who come to our education council meetings, usually a first representative and a backup, second representative. We have 14 schools and that's about 28 parents. In any particular meeting of the education council, we might get 15 or 16 out, but we hold general parent meetings monthly or every other month where we get 150, 200 parents out, depending on the time and the weather and things like that.
Mr Pettit: What advice could you give us that would achieve increased parental involvement?
Mr Clutterbuck: We really have found that communication is important for parents and getting them the message that meetings are happening, helping them frame the issues and encouraging them to come out, even doing telephone trees which parents participate in. All that requires a commitment from your local trustee, first of all, with a manageable number of schools in the ward, and secondly, other school officials, including some teachers and principals but people at the central office as well, who help set up telephone trees, help guide parents in how to actually participate in meetings. The Winona Parents' Association nominated a totally new parent to become a chair of the committee. She needed some training and instruction and we got that from the school board in terms of how to participate as a chair.
Mrs Caplan: I too want to follow along and talk about the experience you've had in your community getting involvement of people who have difficulty either because of language or socioeconomic -- how many of your active participants who have gone through this kind of community development come from the groups I've described?
Mr Clutterbuck: At every meeting we have, especially of the larger parent meetings in schools, we always have people there as translators. Most of the presentations are in English, sometimes in other languages like Portuguese and Spanish but mostly in English, and we always have through the school board arranged translators who in little different sections of the audience help people actually understand. Every single meeting we have you always hear a hum in the audience because people are getting the message in their own language.
Mrs Caplan: Those would all be considered expenses of the school board that would not directly be classroom expenses?
Mr Clutterbuck: I guess this government would not consider them classroom expenses. We consider them getting parents the information they need in the language they need and that affects their kid in the classroom.
Mr Wildman: Thank you, Mr Clutterbuck. I very much enjoyed your presentation, as I did the presentation last May, and I appreciate the additional information you've given us. I want to ask just one question. One of the arguments that has been put forward by the government to justify having fewer boards, fewer trustees and lower pay for trustees as it relates to Toronto is that they want to encourage the local school councils to become more active and involved in the operation of the schools. As a parent who is very interested and involved in your own schools in your area, do you support that thrust of the government as a way of justifying Bill 104?
Mr Clutterbuck: I support getting parents more involved in the schools, for sure. I think Bill 104 takes away the kind of infrastructure which now makes that possible. What the bill proposes is counterproductive to what the government wants.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Clutterbuck, for appearing before us today and making your presentation.
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BEV BUXTON
The Chair: Ms Bev Buxton. Ms Buxton has been waiting virtually the entire day to appear before us. We thank you for taking the spot that is available this afternoon. You know the rules by now; you've been here all day.
Ms Bev Buxton: My name is Bev Buxton. I am a parent. I don't represent a formal group. As you now know, I didn't know I was going to have a chance to speak until a few hours ago. Nevertheless, as ill prepared as I am and as unfamiliar as I am with this kind of proceeding, I'm very grateful for this opportunity to speak and I'm happy to help to ensure that as few such opportunities as possible are wasted in the 20 hours we have to speak about this.
As this is a day to hear from umbrella groups, I've chosen my group. I'm going to represent my children and their friends and their friends' friends and all of the hundreds of thousands of children in this province who are the ones with the smallest voices and who have the most to lose if this bill is passed.
As you don't know me, I'll give you some of my credentials to speak here today. First of all, I'm a citizen of Ontario and I have an education. I have an Ontario secondary school honours graduation diploma, a BA from the University of Toronto and an MA from Queen's University in Kingston. I have attended public schools in Germany, in Quebec, in Australia and here in Ontario. I have spent more than a decade editing and writing educational materials for Canadian students. In short, I have a wide experience of and a strong commitment to education.
Mr Snobelen, in his opening statement about Bill 104 this morning, talked quite a bit about the importance of accountability to the general populace -- I include myself -- about the need for a greater efficiency in the administration of the education system and about the importance of a world-class education for Ontario students. I don't suppose anyone here would challenge the importance of any of those issues, but I will challenge the notion that these issues are sufficiently addressed by Bill 104.
First I want to talk about accountability. Having listened today, I know that many speakers have addressed this issue. In particular, the point has been made that amalgamating school boards and reducing the number and the power of school trustees will make the system less accountable at a local level.
I also think it's very significant that, as Mr Snobelen says, Bill 104 is the first of a number of bills relevant to the reform of education. In this first bill the minister proposes to change radically the structure of the education system. He proposes that we reduce to the point of virtual oblivion the powers previously held by trustees and school boards and he proposes granting those powers to an appointed commission that reports to him.
Here's the main point: He asked that this bill be passed before he tells us, the general populace, to whom he says he wants to be more accountable, just precisely how those incredible powers are going to be used.
The fact that this is the first education bill demonstrates a severe lack of accountability, in my view. To be accountable to me, the government needs to provide some very basic facts and information. I want to know why the Education Improvement Commission needs to be set above the law. I want to know why there is no public disclosure of the amounts of the per pupil grants or at the very least what formula would be used to calculate these. I want to know what specific criteria would be used for determining that formula. I especially want to know how those criteria for the formula relate to the government's values and priorities for my children's education.
This government, while saying that accountability is important to it, is proposing a bill that is paternalistic and authoritarian. It wants unquestionable power over education policy and funding first. Then it will either divulge its plans or possible simply put them into action. I submit that the government, to give credibility to its commitment to accountability, should withdraw this bill until it discloses the full mandate that it will certainly give to the Education Improvement Commission and allow public feedback on that.
For the reasons I've stated, I don't believe that the motivation for Bill 104 is to make the education system more accountable, nor do I believe that efficiency of administration is the motivator. Let's admit for the sake of argument that the board system allows inefficiencies. Well, who's surprised? Let's even go so far as to suggest that external pressure from the government is required to convince boards to relax their hold on territory and cooperate in ways that would allow a more efficient delivery of services.
It has been pointed out several times today that the radical restructuring proposed in Bill 104 would save about $150 million. Surely, it makes more sense to work within the existing system to find new efficiencies instead of risking the loss of so much that is good in the system as it exists. If only $150 million is to be gained, it stands to my reason at least that the board system is not as grossly inefficient as Mr Snobelen would have us believe.
Finally, and most importantly to me, I cannot believe that the motivation for Bill 104 is the improvement of the quality of my children's education. If that was really the motivation, when I read that bill and when I read some of the statements from this government, I would have to come to the conclusion that the government thinks (1) our system is grossly, even culpably wasteful; (2) our children are getting a really bad education; (3) the system operates with almost complete disregard for parents' opinions; (4) present decision-makers within the education system are at best incompetent; and (5) the entire system is so wasteful, so moribund, so unresponsive and so unfit to educate our young that the only solution is to dismantle the entire system and make the government itself responsible for it.
First of all, although the system is very imperfect, as most systems are, it is a good system. It's a system that nurtures good citizens, thoughtful decision-makers, responsible and well-informed adults and creative thinkers. It fosters respect and understanding of others and it provides students with those basic skills we hear so much about. It is a system to be improved. It is not a system that's so decrepit that it needs a complete rebuilding.
The government obviously disagrees with me, but even supposing it is right about the condition of our education system and I'm wrong, Bill 104 does not show evidence that it is motivated by the need to improve the quality of education. A government setting out to improve the quality of education in this radical way, as far as I'm concerned, has the responsibility to delineate with the utmost clarity and conviction its vision of a good education and of a well-educated citizen. They have the responsibility to show us the concrete objectives that flow from that vision, objectives they must meet in order to achieve that vision. It is simply not enough to ask us to trust them to do a better job than the last guys, especially since that means pulling down a system that works and that has taken years to build.
It's trust; that's what it really comes down to. Mr Snobelen is demanding that we trust him blindly, as he and his appointed Education Improvement Commission take over our education system. I'm not a parliamentarian. It looks like he has the right to make this demand. I am a citizen with a strong belief in democracy and I don't believe it's right for him to make this demand. I think it's an abuse of power. Am I wrong? It's entirely possible, of course.
Luckily, I don't have the power to demand that you all trust me. I would ask, however, that each MPP ask himself or herself a few questions before voting yes to Bill 104. These are my questions: Is it responsible for a government simply to ask for trust when proposing such fundamental change? Is it a good thing for any government in a democracy to feel it has the right to that kind of power? Do MPPs deserve that kind of power? Do the citizens of Ontario willingly and consciously confer that kind of power when they elect a government?
I urge you to withdraw Bill 104 until the necessary trust you need is rightfully earned. That trust can be earned through fair disclosure of information, through conscientious consideration of opposing points of view and through the articulation and dissemination of both a vision for education, not the province's fiscal health, and a plan that flows clearly from that vision.
Mrs McLeod: I'll ask you one question in one area, but I also want to take some of our time to place some of the questions you've asked of the government in your presentation as questions that require an answer from the ministry. Some of the questions you've raised may be debatable ones, particularly in the last few moments of your presentation, but some were also very specific. They constitute information which should be made available to the public. I would like, Madam Chair, to come back and place those questions either at the end of my time or at the end of this presentation.
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The question I'd like to explore with you a little bit picks up on -- and thank you for your presentation. It was a very thorough one, although done, I know, with not much notice for preparation time. You did touch on the fact that you've done considerable education writing, I assume perhaps in the curriculum area. I want to bring to your attention that one of the areas of saving that the ministry sets out when they look for $150 million of a $14-billion budget as their savings from this amalgamation is in what's called educational support. Essentially, they are the people who provide support for curriculum development within the school boards.
There are frequent references made to the School Board Reduction Task Force report done under John Sweeney's leadership, and one of the things that report says very clearly is that if there are going to be fewer school boards, there also has to be more responsibility for the Ministry of Education, particularly in the area of curriculum development. I'm not sure if you feel that's an area that you could comment on, but do you see there being efficiencies to be achieved in this whole process that will lead to better curriculum for kids?
Ms Buxton: My area has actually been the writing of textbooks rather than in developing curriculum, so I'm not entirely familiar with how that works. I'm probably not really able to address that question.
Mrs McLeod: That's fair enough.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mrs McLeod: Chair, I'll come back at the end to place the questions.
The Chair: Yes, that would be fine.
Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for a very comprehensive and thoughtful presentation. The Sweeney task force, set up by the previous government and which has been referred to by Mr Snobelen and his colleagues, in its interim report said there were not going to be any savings from amalgamating school boards. Mr Sweeney specifically said there could only be savings with significant changes to education finance. As you've said, Mr Snobelen has told us and it has been confirmed today that this information, the new formula, will not be available until after this legislation is passed. You're saying, basically, that it would be reasonable for you as a citizen and a parent to expect that the information would be available prior to the passage of this legislation.
Ms Buxton: Absolutely.
Mr Wildman: If it is possible for the government to come up with a formula for determining what basic levels of educational services should be available to each student in Ontario, with some flexibility based on various factors, and that then would determine how much money is flowed to students across the province, would it really matter what kind of governance there is in education?
Ms Buxton: For me to make some kind of informed decision about how I want education to run, I need to know that, but I must say it's not just knowing what the formula is or what the criteria are that disturbs me. It's not knowing how that relates to what this government thinks of as a well-educated citizen. You hear a lot about being able to perform well in international tests and things like that. Frankly, that's not the definition for me, that's not a vision of what an educated student is. What you've just described alone would not make enough of a difference to me.
Mr Wildman: And I suspect that what the basic services that are going to be funded are is crucial.
Ms Buxton: Yes, and I have to see how that relates to what they believe to be a good education.
Mr Skarica: I am going to ask you a couple of questions that may be unfair --
The Chair: Actually, you're down to one question.
Mr Skarica: All right. You said this is a system that works and we heard from another presenter that there's nothing we need to fix. Perhaps I could point this out to you: The Roman Catholic board around this time last year came out with a huge deficit, and it turned out from the audit report that the trustees had no idea how it happened on the left hand, and that board did not know what the right hand was doing. We heard at committee hearings last year that we had an unfunded liability for the teachers' retirement gratuity that was at least $1 billion -- that's what the ministry says -- but Beth Cooper from the Windsor board said it could be up to $10 billion.
So here you have a system with massive deficits. Trustees don't know the left hand from the right hand, and we don't even know what the unfunded liabilities are. How can you say it works?
Ms Buxton: You're saying that the system is completely corrupt and completely broken?
Mr Skarica: I'm not saying that, but you're saying it works. Don't you concede that there are serious problems --
Ms Buxton: I have made that point. I am not the person who sat here and said, "Nothing needs to be fixed." I don't believe there's a system on earth that doesn't require fixing, including this one, but your government clearly feels it has the power to go in there and fix things unilaterally. Why does that necessitate the entire pulling down of the system? Why don't you go after the things you've just described to me? Show them how to fix them. I'm a parent, I work, I have three kids; I'm not going to be able to tell you how to do that. I don't have paid assistants. Figure that out and go after that, but don't pull the whole thing down and say, "It's because of these few instances over here that we have to yank the whole system apart." There's no system that's perfect, and that's not the way.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Buxton, for your intervention, your interest in staying around all day, and the promptness with which you prepared your presentation.
CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FEDERATION, ONTARIO DIVISION
The Chair: Our next presenter is from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Ontario division, Paul Pagnuelo. While he comes up, Mrs McLeod?
Mrs McLeod: On a point of order, Madam Chair: Is there anybody staffing these hearings from the Ministry of Education?
The Chair: It appears that there is no one.
Mrs McLeod: I have perhaps somewhat limited experience with committee hearings, Madam Chair, but I thought it was the practice, if the ministry took the hearings seriously, to have a ministry person staffing the hearings to be able to respond more directly to the questions raised.
The Chair: We have the parliamentary assistant.
Mr Skarica: It is customary. Every time I've been in these committee hearings we have had somebody, so I'll see.
Mrs McLeod: I appreciate that. I want to report the fact that after a full day of hearings we have not had the Ministry of Education staffing the committee, and it concerns me.
The Chair: There was someone earlier, I understand. Ms McLeod, you had some questions.
Mrs McLeod: The questions that follow from this presentation are -- I accept the fact that the last few questions were somewhat debatable questions and not information-seeking questions, but the questions around funding formula, which has already been raised, were very specific and should be placed on the record as questions requiring --
Mr Froese: Is this a point of order or what?
Mrs McLeod: No, these are questions for the Ministry of Education to respond to.
The Chair: They are questions for information that Ms McLeod wants to be forwarded to the ministry.
Mr W. Leo Jordan (Lanark-Renfrew): I think we should explain that to the man. It's not fair to the presenter.
The Chair: With respect, Mr Jordan, we dealt with this earlier. We said we would defer it to the end of Ms Buxton's presentation.
Mrs McLeod: I'm actually attempting to do it very quickly.
Mr Jordan: I would count it as an interruption to the gentleman who is ready to make his presentation.
The Chair: I understand your point. Ms McLeod, please continue.
Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much, and I'm trying to do it as quickly as possible. The second question that was raised was: In what specific ways does this bill further the minister's vision of education? The question that comes from this presentation and from the previous one is: Why is legislation proceeding before any of the basic questions regarding implementation have been addressed? From the earlier presentation, a very specific question: Why is the term for the EIC members three years when the transition period, according to legislation, ends on December 31, 1997?
Mr Skarica: I'm writing them down as fast as I can.
Mrs McLeod: In the interest of time, I'll provide them afterwards.
The Chair: Mr Pagnuelo, thank you very much for your patience as we conduct these hearings and thank you very much for being here today. You have 15 minutes to make your presentation. Any time you don't use will be used for questions by the members.
Mr Paul Pagnuelo: Good evening, Madam Chair and committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to comment on Bill 104, which reduces the number of school boards and trustees.
Eliminating unnecessary duplication and overlap, reducing cost, improving efficiency, clarifying responsibilities, improving accountability and making the property tax system fairer are all goals that I think few could object to, and certainly they're goals that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation supports.
After years of debate, waffling and inaction on municipal and school board governance, disentanglement and property tax reform, what we have just witnessed is that Ontario has been turned inside out and upside down, but the fact that the Harris government has confronted these issues head-on with a package of sweeping reforms doesn't mean the solutions are, in many cases, the right ones.
The week of January 13 was a whirlwind of activity. The pace of announcements was breathtaking as minister after minister outlined changes in the structures and responsibilities of our school boards and municipalities, and overlaying it all was a revamping of the way property taxes are assessed and apportioned.
The federation has characterized mega-week as a combination of good news and bad news but with, unfortunately, much of the good news being outweighed by the bad.
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In reviewing the various mega-week announcements, the good-news portion, in our view, largely relates to the changes related to education. Education Minister John Snobelen should be commended, not condemned, for firmly putting the lid on out-of-control school board spending, tax increases and misdirected classroom cuts by administrators and trustees. By tying the purse-strings of the new regional boards and stripping away their taxing authority, the minister was able to reduce the number of school boards and avoid the megacity consequences of higher costs and more bureaucracy.
Despite one's political ideology, I find it difficult to believe that any government in this country, regardless of political stripe, would deliberately set out to lay waste to the future prosperity of a democratic and civilized society by de-educating tomorrow's workforce. I don't believe the education minister is out to wreck our education system, as some have charged.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation welcomes many of the proposed changes to Ontario's education system. Having had the opportunity to meet personally with the education minister, we believe he is sincere in his determination to reduce administrative costs and, more important, to refocus resources to meet the needs of students instead of administrators.
The minister's funding model, which recognizes local circumstances, will ensure that no Ontario student is deprived of the opportunity to receive a high quality of education just because they're in an assessment-poor board, and that to us is very key.
With the province gaining control over education spending through its funding model, the lid has finally been put on out-of-control school board spending and tax increases. The problem currently facing our existing provincial school boards is not a revenue shortfall but one of overspending. Existing school board budgets provide limited discretionary opportunities for cost cutting in non-employee expense areas without eliminating all expenditures for classroom supplies, computers etc. As a consequence, salaries and benefits in both the instructional and non-teaching areas must also be considered as realistic opportunities for system-wide cost reductions.
While the federation has been calling for the government to put a complete end to the use of property taxes for funding education, removing the costs from the residential tax bill is a major step in the right direction. However, having said that, we are very concerned about the corresponding downloading of social services to balance the ledger. Trading education for welfare, in our view, is totally inappropriate.
By tying the purse-strings of the new regional boards and by stripping away their taxing authority, the minister has taken the necessary steps to ensure that administrative costs are actually reduced in the consolidated boards. Because of this and the limited mandates that boards will have, we don't have the same concerns about the amalgamation of school boards that we have about the amalgamation of municipalities. In fact, we would have preferred if the province had gone further by eliminating boards altogether, vesting the real decision-making and ultimate accountability with the schools themselves. Just as we have been arguing in the case of municipal governance, the solution to greater efficiency and better accountability for results is moving government closer to the people, not in making it more remote. We see making government more accountable, more responsive, closer to the people, by bringing the power down to the local schools.
Cutting the number of trustees, capping their honorarium at $5,000, and eliminating potential conflict-of-interest situations by prohibiting school board employees and their spouses from running for office are moves which we also applaud.
Do we have concerns? We most certainly do. A major challenge for the minister will be to ensure that salary and benefit costs are tightly controlled. Even more important, we are concerned that the education bureaucracy at Queen's Park, which has to accept much of the blame for the mediocre quality of education today in the province, will grow into an even larger and more rigid bureaucracy. The ministry itself has to be turned inside out and upside down, set on the right track to quality improvement, and right-sized.
We are also concerned about how the assets and liabilities of the existing boards will be disposed of and how these may relate back to the funding model. With the province now having responsibility for funding and for collecting taxes, where do these go and how are they distributed? Who ends up with ownership?
While moving major decision-making affecting our children's education down to the local school level through advisory councils is a positive move in the right direction, a major concern is how to ensure that those councils don't end up being co-opted by special interests, including the administration of the new boards.
We are also concerned that the reforms do not go far enough to include competitive alternatives such as charter schools.
Overall, we think the minister is to be congratulated for introducing major and long-overdue reforms designed to reduce costs, improve accountability and restore credibility to Ontario's education system.
I'll be pleased in whatever remaining time is available to answer any questions.
Mr Wildman: I appreciate your presentation. You say you believe that government should be more accountable and that you should bring government closer to people as part of that. Do you think creating, particularly in northern Ontario, boards that are thousands of miles across an area is bringing government closer to the people?
Mr Pagnuelo: It's my sincere hope, and obviously the minister is the only one who has got the longer-term view that may not have been completely shared yet, is that boards will disappear in time. The best thing that can happen to education is to bring real decision-making down to the local schools. There are problems with the establishment of school councils in terms of getting good people interested in sitting on them. How do you ensure that they clearly represent the community, that they're not stacked for special interest? Those are serious problems that need to be addressed and need to be overcome.
But to me the greatest thing, and I say this not just as a taxpayer but as a parent of two children in the system, parents and the community have got to become much more involved in the education and the importance of education to our children. If parents would rather sit back at 7 o'clock at night and watch Wheel of Fortune than go out and participate in local school council meetings, we're never going to really turn the situation around positively in this province.
Putting the power down at the local school level is really the ultimate solution in terms of improving accountability, improving monitoring the standards and having parents and local citizens more directly involved than they are today.
Mr Carroll: Thank you very much, sir. Picking up on that same point, one of the concerns we hear from many presenters is this concern about parents not wanting any more responsibility when it comes to education, parents in poorer areas not being able to come forward and do an effective job. In the business you're in, the work you do, you deal totally with taxpayers as a spokesman for taxpayers. Are there ways for us to get people involved at the local level in school councils, and what are some of those ways? Is your organization in a position to help us with some of those ways?
Mr Pagnuelo: We'd be glad, obviously, to sit down and share thoughts in terms of how to overcome the apathy that's out there today. I have to say there's a lot of apathy, and it's not just in terms of school councils. We see it all the time. One of the amazing things we're seeing happening in Toronto right now and in areas such as the suburbs of Hamilton is that citizens are waking up and they're realizing that they can't afford to be apathetic; they've got to be more involved and plugged in.
What has happened over the last 30 years is that governments have created this whole environment and approach to entitlement which has basically said: "You can abdicate your responsibilities as a parent. You can abdicate your responsibilities as a voter. Just leave it to government. We'll take care of every need you want." Parents have really become unplugged from the system.
I know how difficult it was, just in the case of the two schools our children go to, to find people who will stand to be elected to the school councils. I know how difficult it's going to be next year for those same schools to replace the existing members. There is no easy answer, and I know parents today -- in today's work environment, it's very hard. You have both spouses generally working today. The demands on time are great, but I have to sit back as a parent -- all of us I think have to sit back and say, "What's more important?"
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There are a lot of other things we can become involved in, but I think our children have to be number one priority in all our lives, whether we've got children in the system today or not. We may be grandparents, aunts, uncles, what have you, but I think the future success of not just this province but this country depends on the future workforce and equipping them with the tools and the knowledge that they need.
I don't think we can do enough in terms of improving education and the system in Ontario, but a big part of that has got to be getting citizens in local communities much more involved than they have been in the past. We can't play passive roles any longer.
Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): On page 3 of your brief you say that "the solution to greater efficiency and better accountability for results is moving government closer to the people, and not in making it more remote." How does this bill do that?
Mr Pagnuelo: What I'm saying is, if you look at what the new mandates of school boards will be in terms of they're out of the funding game, they're out of the spending game to all intents and purposes, as we said in our presentation, what I'd like to see is the government going much further by simply eliminating boards and bringing it back to the local school.
Mr Duncan: If I can, though, you're contradicting yourself. You say on the one hand, "We don't like what they're doing, we don't think they're doing it right, but we're supporting this." I don't understand that.
Mr Pagnuelo: No, what I'm saying is it doesn't go far enough. We would have liked to see it go further.
Mr Duncan: Actually this goes, if I might --
Mr Pagnuelo: No, I'd much rather --
Mr Duncan: -- this goes the other way. This, in my view, and I think a number of experts have said it, takes us away from the local area.
Mr Wildman: It gives it to Queen's Park.
Mr Duncan: This gives it to Queen's Park. How is that going to improve efficiency?
Mr Skarica: On a point of order, Madam Chair: This is really inappropriate. This is a witness and he's being interrupted by politicians.
The Chair: Mr Pagnuelo, please respond.
Mr Pagnuelo: What I have read in the bill and the minister's pronouncements is in terms of strengthening school councils, and that's where I think we should be focusing, not on boards. If we look at boards and their history in this province, in my experience with boards at first hand they've been a major disappointment. What I'm beginning to see, it's a long, slow struggle, it's got difficulties that have to be worked out, but it's bringing power to the local level, and by the local level, I mean the local school.
Mr Duncan: But I --
The Chair: Mr Duncan, we're out of time. Mr Pagnuelo, thank you very much for coming and presenting to us today. We really appreciate your being here.
NORTH YORK PARENT ASSEMBLY
The Chair: The next presenter, North York Parent Assembly, Mrs Shelley Carroll. Thank you for being here. Welcome.
Mrs Shelley Carroll: My vice-chair is Audrey Ormrod.
Madam Chair, Mr Skarica and the esteemed members of the committee, good afternoon, or should I say, good evening. The present Minister of Education and Training and his predecessor are familiar with the North York Parent Assembly. Both have appeared as keynote speakers at our annual fall conferences. Both know that we are not a recently formed political action group but an elected, city-wide group founded by parents in 1992 and recognized by the North York board, to enable parents to become more meaningfully involved as partners in the education process, a group that would not be afraid of change but would in fact suggest and help implement changes to the system that educates their children.
A motion to adopt the attached resolution to oppose Bill 104 was passed unanimously by the Metro Toronto School Board, and the elected ward representatives of the North York Parent Assembly voted to do the same on February 6. The next logical step was to ask each local school advisory council chair to propose the same motion to their members.
Though time was a problem, the responses have been overwhelming. In North York these strengthened school advisory councils are opposed to Bill 104 until it is accompanied by a detailed plan for future education, including a detailed funding model and an outline of the level of classroom support we can expect for items such as student services, class size, maintenance services, extracurricular programs and other local programs.
The Minister of Education received letters of concern from North York schools and the parent assembly in the fall. We are still waiting for any reply. The North York board has been used by the minister as an example of a board with excellent practices such as benchmark testing, but will locally successful programs such as the equitable offering, through full transportation, of French immersion continue at its present level of quality? Because Bill 104 does not answer parents' concerns but dismisses them, schools like Rippleton Public School, Pierre Laporte Middle School, Hollywood Public School and Sheppard Public School voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
North York parents have asked again and again what the minister means by "classroom" when he insists that education reform should not affect the classroom. We have never had a direct answer to the question, but we believe that the difference between classroom and administration is the difference between the school building and the central office building. The principal and vice-principal, the caretakers, the secretary, the lunchroom supervisors, the teacher-librarian, the guidance counsellors, teachers' aides, the special education resource teacher, the psycho-educational consultant, the speech pathologist and the multicultural support staff all have a direct relationship to student success in the classroom.
In Metro, where one third of the children in the classroom have lived in Canada for fewer than four years -- in schools like our Grenoble Public School the ratio rises to three out of four -- where nearly one third come from low-income families, and one in four come from single-parent homes, the teacher does not have a classroom without these people's support. Because you do not see them as "in-classroom essentials," the schools like Elkhorn Public School, Northview Secondary School, Crestview Elementary School, Claude Watson School for the Arts and Stilecroft Public School voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
If this bill passes, all the assets of our municipal school board will be assumed by the province. Local taxes have built and maintained all school buildings in North York without the benefit of provincial grants. Our school board trustees have endeavoured to anticipate local needs and account for projected enrolment statistics. When a building is not in full use as a school, they have arranged for responsible community use and have generated revenue from that space. Because the province's control of these assets will put that revenue in provincial coffers and minimize community use, schools like Faywood Elementary and Middle School, Summit Heights Elementary School, McNicoll Public School, Maple Leaf Public School and Highland Junior High School voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
The Education Improvement Commission is undemocratic and legally questionable to us in that its powers are retroactive to January 13. Parents are opposed to it as explained in the bill. Many facets of our education system are on hold pending the approval of the EIC, which negatively impacts successful local initiatives. We ask the minister why he would introduce another expensive tier of education governance, giving the school board licence to expand to meet their demands for monthly reporting? Because we have no confidence in the agenda of the EIC, schools like Roywood Public School, St Andrew's Junior High School, Dallington Public School, Newtonbrook Secondary School and Calico Public School have voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
The most frequently asked question at our parent meetings since January 13 has been, "What happened to secondary school reform and the back-to-basics junior curriculum?" We ask because considerable effort went into our responses to that proposal and we know that massive curriculum reform cannot be achieved simultaneously with the administrative reform necessary to amalgamate these Metro boards. The in-school administrators and the teachers were never going to achieve the reform without instructional support from their boards. Because Bill 104 leaves our children and their teachers with no faith in the ministry's goal to reform the secondary curriculum with input from parents, students and local educators, schools like Stanley Public School, Donview Middle School, Broadlands Public School, Dunlace Public School, Sloane Public School and Bayview Elementary and Middle School have voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
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The difficulties of dealing with 67,000 students in North York are known to the North York Parent Assembly. Communications with families of students in an urban centre are a vital part of high-quality student results and yet we face a major challenge every time we set out to reach all of the students' homes on behalf of just the assembly. Our board educators and our trustees report the same difficulty. Communications are but one small aspect of dealing with 300,000 students if the ministry proceeds as planned.
Parents have asked on several occasions for proof in the form of even one written study that bigger is better. Because the parents feel that reducing the number of school boards has nothing to do with improving or even maintaining the quality of service, schools like Steelesview Public School, Georges Vanier Secondary School, Finch Public School, Churchill Public School and Norman Ingram Public School have voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
The biggest concern, and the one hardest to address in the time constraints today, is over the changes to the role of trustees. Fortunately, Conservative MPP David Turnbull of York Mills riding has already heard our views on this subject and he asked us to prepare a brief detailing this position. I submit it to you today. It's included with your package and it underlines for all present that we in no way pretend that there are not people who have problems with the trustee system at present, but we do not have the problems that Mr Snobelen alluded to at the Enoch Turner School House and the brief will tell you that.
We do not see how our trustees could represent the numbers you propose in assigning them full federal ridings, more constituents than even city counsellors will have according to Bill 103. They are guardians of extensively used services, not occasionally accessed services such as health or even garbage collection. We wonder who could possibly be interested in running for trustee, given the inequitable enormity of the urban task versus that of, for example, Nipissing. This brief outlines our fears.
The only thing we know about the funding model as yet is that you are removing its control from the local trustees. Funding will be calculated on a per pupil basis, but who will allocate it to the schools? If not the trustees, then how can they be, as the minister puts it, guardians of local education? Because we have no confidence that you will read this brief and amend the changes to the role of the trustee, schools like Yorkview Public School, Derrydown Public School, Forest Manor Public School, Cassandra Public School and Owen Public School have voted to adopt the resolution to oppose Bill 104.
Because many more school advisory councils will meet this week to discuss this and will vote to adopt the resolution and will ask the North York Parent Assembly to communicate their position to you, we strongly urge you today to withdraw the bill until you can provide parents, whose vested interest is most precious, with a detailed funding plan and an outline of the level of classroom support to be guaranteed to ensure the success of our children and therefore the future of the province of Ontario.
I leave you with the words of one of the co-chairs of the Royal Commission on Learning, Mr Gerald Caplan: "Successful system-wide restructuring of education cannot be achieved without the support of its stakeholders." Thank you.
Mr Skarica: Perhaps instead of asking a question I can give you an answer. You referred to the secondary school reform. The deadline date for submissions was originally the end of November and that was extended to January 2, and we got 23,000 submissions. It'll take until the end of February to collate all those, so you'll get the report some time in March. That's what's happened to it.
Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much for your presentation. I was watching you respond visually to the suggestions of the previous presenter, that parents were apathetic and needed to become more involved. Clearly you are parents who are extremely involved in your children's education and anxious to have that kind of involvement.
Tell me why you would be resistant to a direction that would see more and more power to your parent council when with your kind of involvement your kids would be okay.
Mrs Carroll: We know what children respond to at school. As I said to a reporter, and it appeared in the Star a month ago, parents were very glad to see the proposed policy memorandum 122 in that it gave us a licence and a list to ask questions regarding our education system. We needed that. There are schools where principals were not allowing us to ask some of those questions, but we never wanted it to extend to the point where we began to usurp the principal's role. Once the principal loses a sense of authority in the school based on parents' conversations, he is a goner in the face of his students.
Mr Wildman: I would also think that you might not want to usurp, to use your term, the role of the trustee.
Mrs Carroll: Absolutely. I should say that when you're reading the brief on the role of the trustees, we wrote that brief based on our experience with them, not based on a conversation with trustees: "We have to write a brief. What do you want us to say?" It's based on our experience, since the founding of the parent assembly, in our work with them.
Mr Wildman: Can I ask a question on that? Did Mr Turnbull indicate to you that he would bring those concerns forward for amendments to the legislation?
Mrs Carroll: He did say that he would share them in private caucus and he did say that he would let me know how that went. I have not heard from him since.
The Chair: Thank you very much, both of you, for your presentation this evening. The hour's late and we appreciate that you stayed all this long while to present to us.
Mrs Caplan: As an MPP from North York, I just want to say what an excellent presentation and how proud I am of the parent council.
The Chair: Ditto from the Chair, but we'll move on.
YORK BOARD OF EDUCATION
The Chair: Our last presenter, and by no means the least, is the York Board of Education, Mr Wales. Thank you very much for being so patient.
Mr Sam Wales: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. On February 10, 1997, the Board of Education for the City of York passed a motion to oppose Bill 104 as the board members had serious concerns about the potential impact on the education offered to the students in the city of York.
The brevity of Bill 104 speaks to only a few of the components that make up education in the province and leaves an abundance of unanswered questions. The legislation sets out a model of governance, proposes a role for school councils and establishes an extremely powerful commission. These areas will be the focus of this presentation.
First, local representation: As of January 1, 1998, Metropolitan Toronto taxpayers will effectively lose local representation at the school level. Bill 104 limits the number of trustees in Metropolitan Toronto to 22. This means that the new Toronto district school board, with a student population of over 300,000 and with 550 schools, will see each school trustee representing an average of 25 schools within their representative area. Each trustee would be responsible for these schools and would answer to approximately 70,000 taxpayers.
School trustees have traditionally worked at the community level, offering very direct service to their constituents. How will a school trustee be able to respond to the needs and concerns of such a large group? The magnitude of this proposed school district will break the tradition of local school representation and eliminate the unique position that our children, our students, have held in this country since our nation's birth.
Parents communicate with trustees at school council meetings, at school events, at home and school meetings. This contact strengthens communication links and assures parents that the education being offered to their children is a priority for their elected representative. For the non-parent taxpayer, this strong communication link enables a trustee to respond knowledgeably on what is actually happening in the schools. Parents and non-parents, and students too, have a right to ask questions and deserve to have those questions answered by a local representative.
With 25 schools to represent, trustees cannot fulfil the duties of the position. How can the traditional community approach of the school trustee exist with a constituency of more than 70,000 people?
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There are many trustees who give more than is required by the Education Act: They offer connections into the business world that lead to partnerships, they link schools to other community groups and they offer a source of moral support for parents seeking to encourage their children to strive for excellence. In the private sector, one would be rewarded for adding value to an organization. With Bill 104, public education and Ontarians will not be rewarded but will be punished by losing local representation at the school level.
School councils: The Minister of Education has stated that school councils will take a greater role in the running of the school. Even without school councils, parents have always given their opinion and have kept a watchful eye on schools.
Parents today are taking the opportunity to be part of school councils, and that's positive. I believe you are hearing here in this room, as I have heard at my local school advisory councils, that parents do not want to run schools but they do want to be involved. They are volunteers with limited time and do not want to assume roles that are normally performed by education professionals.
There are many communities, especially in Metro Toronto, where parents cannot be as active in schools as they would like to be. These are parents who are single, who are struggling in a new country, who are both working long hours and who are striving to pull themselves out of poverty. Because of the demands of work and the home, they are not available to participate at their children's school.
As the funding model will most likely reduce the number of education professionals, namely supervisory officers, and Bill 104 will significantly reduce the number of trustees, there will be no option but to download more responsibilities to school councils. This is unfair to school council members and ultimately unfair to students.
The funding model: Taking $1 billion out of education in Ontario will take dollars out of the classroom. The unique needs of students in the Metro Toronto area call for an infusion of compensatory educational supports. Students from the city of York have been identified, through Statistics Canada census data, as the neediest of the needy.
I quote from the Board of Education for the City of York's publication "Bigger is Not Better": The Case Against Amalgamation:
"According to the 1991 census information from Statistics Canada, compared to other municipalities in Metro, the greater Toronto area outside Metro, Ontario or Canada, the city of York has: the largest percentage of low income families; the largest percentage of parents with less than grade 9 education (which is the generally accepted level of functional illiteracy); the largest percentage of single-parent families; the largest percentage of unemployed; the largest percentage of population who do not have English as their mother tongue; the largest percentage of immigrants."
Long before we had such concrete statistics to validate our concern, the Board of Education for the City of York was addressing this reality, by offering students compensatory support in an attempt to offset these disadvantages: before- and after-school programs, lunchtime programs, readiness-for-school programs, summer school, English as a second language, enrichment programs, remedial programs, English skills development, inclusive curriculum, interpreters, translations, race relations and, considering our high urban density, a strong safe schools initiative.
For several decades, the city of York school system has offered night-time and daytime programs for adults. These programs aim to help parents and community members achieve a higher level of basic education and skills training. If mom and dad read better or get a better job, their children will reap the benefits, and so will the community, the province and the country.
What if the funding model necessitates the elimination of these interventions that are available now to these students? Our society will pay the price later, and a hefty one at that.
Just this weekend, the Toronto Star reproduced a chart listing the funds spent per pupil in each province and in the United States. I shudder to think how Ontario students, and especially city of York students, will fare in tomorrow's world if Ontario's funding drops even lower. Will the funding model destine the students from the most populous area in the country, and the most needy, to a disadvantaged future? Will the funding be so restrictive to ensure that all decisions are economically based? I sincerely hope that this will not be the case and that you, the committee members, will hear the concerns presented.
Education Improvement Commission: Half of the text of Bill 104 is dedicated to specifying the powers of the Education Improvement Commission, powers so significant that I wonder what the proposed new school districts will be allowed to do. In January 1998 the members of the school districts will be duly elected to represent their constituents, but the Education Improvement Commission will continue to hold control until the end of the year 2000.
The Education Improvement Commission has the power to call for ministry regulations that can control the functioning of the school districts and has extensive power to enforce what the commission deems appropriate for those school districts. The fate of thousands of employees and the fate of hundreds of thousands of students will be controlled by the Education Improvement Commission. To whom do these students and employees present their concerns? To the elected trustees, who will have very limited power, or to the commission?
Within this submission I have raised a number of questions about local representation, school councils, the funding model and the need for compensatory education, and the Education Improvement Commission.
The students, the parents and the taxpayers of Ontario need answers. Bill 104 raises many questions and does not answer them. I call upon the committee members to consider answers to these questions and present amendments to the legislation that respond to these questions.
Mrs Caplan: Thank you. It's the end of a long day and you're eloquent and passionate and you've repeated what we've heard from a number of presenters today, but I think it's important and it can't be said too often, and that's the concern of the length of time that you will have this -- I call it the "ick" --
Mr Wales: Or "eek."
Mrs Caplan: -- "eek" -- and as someone who is involved and chair of your board, what do you see as the role of the trustee? There really will not be a trustee. What would be their role in the new regime?
Mr Wales: Unfortunately, it's not going to be very much. I was quoted in the Sun originally once, and unfortunately it's a quote that I don't like to use but it was in Friday's paper. I said that the trustees are literally being castrated, and that's what it is. I think we're losing democracy. There is no local representation. Who are you going to get to run? I've heard this before. Very few are going to run. If they need to work and they need to compensate for that time, $5,000 is not going to do it. As a trustee for $5,000, I'll probably go to a board meeting, maybe a couple of committee meetings; "That's it, thank you very much." What happens when a parent calls me? "Sorry, I don't have time to talk to you. Why don't go call the board office, which is representing 300,000 students, or why don't you call the provincial government."
The question here is that we've always had local representation and it's always gone beyond what the Education Act has said. Is that bad? I don't think so. As I said in my submission, in the private sector if you work hard, if you're creative, if you're a leader, if you take charge in your organization, you're promoted. I think that's what trustees will need to do, but they won't be able to do that.
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Mr Wildman: Thank you very much, Mr Wales, for your presentation and for your patience.
One of the arguments that has been raised for the committee about the government's agenda, which includes Bill 104, is the fact that in Metropolitan Toronto there is about $8,000 spent per student as opposed to some other parts of the province where only half of that is spent, and the suggestion that this is not equity. We've heard all the arguments with regard to ESL and immigrants and so on, but you've talked about the very significant needs in York. Do you anticipate that after the changes come into place, if they do come into place, that the $5.4 billion that the government is removing from the residential property tax will all be transferred in grants to boards across Ontario, starting in 1998?
Mr Wales: That's an interesting statement. That's an interesting question. Supposedly, it will be. My greatest fear is -- well, there are two things that I touch upon -- the loss of local taxation, which I think you've heard today and which I think is very important. I think there's a constitutional issue there. Second is the funding allocation. What is the formula? You can take the money out, but are we going to get it back? I don't know.
To set up a framework such as the commission is fine, but setting it up without having a formula and instituting the legislation before we have the opportunity to input and find out what we're going to get back, it's -- you know, when you go buy a house or you go buy a car, you do a little research and you find out what you're going to get.
Mr Wildman: You may still get a lemon.
Mr Wales: Yes, you may still get a lemon. We've paid our money, we've paid our taxes, but we don't know what kind of school system we're going to get. That scares me.
Mr Froese: Thank you for coming. I've read your comments that Ontarians will be punished because they're losing local representation. As you know, the bill will enhance the school councils. Where I come from anyway, the parents have been concerned that their elected representative haven't been there, like you say they have been there. There's that side of the issue too. I understand there's the other side of the issue, like you presented. Parents in my riding have complained to me that their representation isn't necessarily there and that when taxes increase, they go to pay for school boards, buildings and so on, those dollars not being put into the classroom or used wisely. There's that side of the argument. They want local representation, where I come from anyway.
Obviously, your presentation speaks against that, but in a world where, if you can envision it, Bill 104 has been passed, how do you see the new school boards, the district school boards, and the parent councils working together to improve that concern of parents that dollars are spent wisely and that the education system is improved? Or do you believe there's nothing wrong, everything's okay?
Mr Wales: First of all, there are politicians on all levels -- municipal, provincial and federal -- who are terrific and there are some who are absolutely terrible. It's an elected democracy. When you go knock on a door and you say, "Hi, I'm Sam Wales," and you smile at them and they take you for your word, that may not be what they're getting when you get elected. I can't answer for individual trustees, but I can say that on the whole many of them are very good trustees and do work in the community.
Myself, I have been involved. Having been a board member at Ryerson Polytechnic University, I initiated a scholarship fund with Ryerson, through the John Brooks Community Foundation, for Vaughan Road Collegiate. I did that. Recently in my community, in ward 3 in the city of York, I initiated a Saturday morning tutorial program, because I saw a need in a community where there was poverty, single parents, high immigration. They didn't have the money. In ward 1, if you didn't like the school system, you could send your kids to a private school. You couldn't do that in ward 3. I think there are many levels of quality of politicians and I've seen many of them.
I really think that school councils want to do good for the school, and most of them I don't think want to be involved. I've talked to parents who don't want to make those heavy decisions. They want professionals, and that's what educators are.
How do we get good elected representation? It's, "The majority rules." That's politics and that's the way it's going to be. Sometimes you get a good one; sometimes you get a bad one.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Wales, for being here today and for your thoughtful presentation, and thank you to your colleague for also being here.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for your interventions and your cooperation during what has been a very long and hectic day. I remind you that we meet tomorrow at 9 am in room 151. I would ask you to take all of your documents with you for tomorrow morning. We are adjourned and I would ask the subcommittee to remain.
The committee adjourned at 1826.