MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
CONTENTS
Wednesday 7 October 1998
Ministry of Education and Training
Hon David Johnson, minister
Ms Nancy Naylor, director, education finance branch
STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES
Chair / Président
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South / -Sud L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury L)
Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South / -Sud ND)
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall L)
Mr Ed Doyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South / -Sud L)
Mr John L. Parker (York East / -Est PC)
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener PC)
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre / -Centre PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Mrs Barbara Fisher (Bruce PC)
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William L)
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma ND)
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes
Mr David Caplan (Oriole L)
Clerk / Greffier
Mr Viktor Kaczkowski
Staff / Personnel
Ms Anne Marzalik, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1542 in committee room 2.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
The Chair (Mr Gerard Kennedy): I call the meeting to order.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): Mr Chair, I'm just wondering if it might be convenient after the leadoffs -- after the minister makes his presentation and we hear from the opposition caucuses -- that we designate a time when we would deal with issues related to post-secondary, colleges and universities, and to training, so that the ministry doesn't have to have staff here the whole time. They would know when those particular matters were going to be dealt with, and it would probably be more convenient for the minister.
The Chair: Is the proposal by Mr Wildman acceptable to other party members?
Mr Wildman: I'm open to suggestions.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I'm amenable to the idea, but I'd like to suggest that the subcommittee meet after this meeting, or at some convenient point, in order to divide the time.
The Chair: We can do that. I'll have to ask one of you to represent the subcommittee. Mr Young, are you able to stay behind and examine this?
Mr Terence H. Young (Halton Centre): Yes.
The Chair: All right, we'll do that.
We'll have opening statements to start. The format is half an hour for the minister, followed by responses from each of the opposition parties. The minister, of course, will have another half-hour to respond to their comments. I invite you to start.
Hon David Johnson (Minister of Education and Training): I welcome the opportunity to talk about the tremendous change and progress in the quality of education and training in the province of Ontario. Our province has undertaken major reforms in education and training systems. In three years we have accomplished a good deal. Ontario still faces many challenges, but we should first, and above all, recognize the success we've had.
For example, by helping almost 61,000 young people find work, Ontario Summer Jobs 1998 helped more young people than any other provincial government summer jobs strategy.
Youth are benefiting greatly from Ontario's strong economic growth. Since February 1997, Ontario's youth have gained almost 46,000 net new jobs. This year Ontario will spend about $200 million on labour market programs for over 154,000 young people, which is about 60% more youth than we served in 1995-96. Ontario has the highest spending on youth employment programs in Canada.
Our elementary students are benefiting from the investment in over 3.2 million new textbooks that support the challenging new provincial curricula for math, language, and science and technology.
Province-wide support for teachers' assistants, librarians, guidance counsellors, as well as tutors in the classroom, has been increased.
The quorum bell sounded.
Hon David Johnson: Does that affect this committee?
The Chair: No, it's a quorum call.
Hon David Johnson: I realize that, but -- I guess you guys don't care anyway, do you?
This kind of success gives us a solid foundation for building the future, and indeed it is time to look to that future. The key to providing a secure future is to build a strong, competitive economy that will bring jobs and prosperity to Ontario and improve our quality of life. In education and training, our challenge is to build a system that provides the people of Ontario with the skills and knowledge they need to seize the opportunity. We want to prepare every student for success, whether it's in the classroom or in the workplace or throughout their lives.
Today, Ontario is making substantial investments in education and training as a key priority, building tomorrow's prosperity and quality of life through today's actions. Some examples include:
We have recently announced an expansion of the student testing program to include annual province-wide testing of all grade 6 students. Formerly, grade 6 had been tested on a smaller basis and grade 9 was tested this year on a smaller basis, but this will now be all grade 6 students across Ontario. That's another step ensuring that our education system provides the consistency and quality we want everywhere in the province.
Our students will benefit from a dramatic increase in the number of new schools. Our new, student-focused approach to funding will permit school boards to take advantage of long-term financing and start building new schools at a rate 10 times faster than the old system allowed. We reckon that about 200 schools will be under construction in the next three years.
Working in partnership with our community colleges, we are moving forward on performance-based funding, which will reward colleges for providing programs that meet the needs of students and employers. When this is fully implemented, up to 10% of the total funding available to colleges through general-purpose operating grants will be distributed based on performance. I might say that many in the college sector are eagerly awaiting this and wishing to participate. Alberta, by comparison, currently ties about 2% of funding to performance. So when we are at maturity, Ontario will be in a leadership position in Canada, and indeed North America, with respect to basing funding on performance.
We have proposed changes to apprenticeship legislation, which would create work and learning opportunities for thousands of people in Ontario, with the goal of doubling the number of people entering apprenticeship programs to 22,000 from the existing 11,000 per year. There certainly are wonderful opportunities for young people in the apprenticeship program. Whether it's tool and die or cook and baker or some of the newer ones in agriculture and cable networking, they're just wonderful career opportunities and we want our young people to be able to take advantage of these opportunities.
These initiatives are all investments in our future.
Our efforts for elementary and secondary education are to put students first by focusing on quality in the classroom. We are committed to ensuring that Ontario's students will have the best quality education in Canada. Guided by parents, we are focusing on measurable results and benchmarking those against the best in the world. We already benefit from excellent teachers who are very dedicated and provide valued guidance to our students. Our teachers need an excellent system that will support their hard work.
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In this school year, parents throughout the province are seeing substantial measures to improve the quality of the education system. This includes Ontario's first new kindergarten program in 50 years, which will outline the knowledge and skills children should develop during their first year of school. For the first time since 1944, there will be consistency in what Ontario children learn in kindergarten, because we believe that children's early learning experiences are too important to be dealt with haphazardly. Now we will have a strong foundation for their future intellectual, physical and social development. An early learning grant guarantees funding to each school for junior kindergarten or other appropriate early learning program. This is the first time that such funding has been guaranteed.
In addition, world-renowned expert Dr Fraser Mustard and child advocate the Honourable Margaret McCain are heading a study of early learning and will make recommendations on how best to prepare young and preschool children for scholastic, career and social success. We expect that report later this year.
The kindergarten curriculum leads to the new, rigorous curriculum for elementary school students. There are clear expectations for each grade. For example, Ontario now has a rigorous science and technology curriculum, the first new elementary science curriculum in 30 years. Students will now be expected not only to learn scientific and technological concepts, but to apply them to everyday life, which I think will be most interesting to the students.
The year-by-year expectations are actually a very key point: The teachers, the students and the parents will know at each grade in each subject what the student should learn and what the teacher should teach. International test results have shown that Ontario students know less about science than students their ages in other countries. The new science and technology curriculum reflects our commitment to upgrade what is being taught in our schools to ensure that our students are ready to compete with the best in the world.
Now that we have clear expectations of what our children will learn, parents have asked for clear, straightforward information about how their children are learning. We have listened and we have responded. A new, easy-to-understand report card will be used in all elementary schools, giving parents better information about their children's progress.
I might say that it's particularly gratifying to us that teachers have been so involved in all these initiatives, whether it's the new curriculum, whether instrumentally involved in actually writing the curriculum; whether it's the report card, where the teachers and educators from across the province are involved in guiding the format and content of the report card, and the electronic report card that is a spinoff of that; or the testing, which is the next topic. The teachers are certainly involved in guiding the testing process and also in marking the testing -- very enthusiastically involved, I might say, in the testing program.
The expanded testing program, as indicated, now in grades 3 and 6, will let parents know how their child is performing, and will also let taxpayers, school boards and government know how well the system is performing, and where we need more focus. Also, beginning this fall, school boards are required to ensure that average class sizes, on a board-wide basis, do not exceed 25 pupils in elementary school classes and 22 pupils in secondary school classes. Elementary students will now have five more days in the classroom, while high school students will receive 10 additional days of instructional time. In both cases, that brings the elementary and the secondary up to the national average. Before this, they were unfortunately receiving fewer instructional days than students in other Canadian provinces.
These measures are all meant to increase the quality of our classrooms and improve our students' learning. The Ontario government has set high standards for our education system, and the only way to ensure that these standards are met is to focus our education dollars on students in the classroom. For the first time in history, classroom spending has been defined and protected. Changes to school boards, administration and funding are all designed to support learning and teaching. In particular, we are ensuring that every student gets a successful start in school and are protecting programs for students with special needs.
Ontario wants all students with special needs to have the support they require to reach their full potential. Ontario's new, student-focused approach to funding provides protected funding for special education, which school boards may use only for special education. This new approach will ensure that students' needs are identified and addressed in a more consistent manner throughout the province.
In addition to fair support for new school construction, school boards will benefit from a total of $574 million for transportation in 1998-99. That's an increase of $14 million over the amount originally announced.
In high school, we are increasing the number of compulsory credits, with a greater emphasis on math, science and language. For the first time, students will be required to take a literacy test in grade 10. I must say, this seems to be applauded by most people in Ontario.
Students will also be expected to prepare an education plan and to link their learning with their career goals, whether those include college or university studies, apprenticeship training or a job following graduation. Working with teachers and guidance counsellors, we will make sure that secondary school students are aware of the wide range of careers available to them. We intend to increase opportunities for young people to learn about careers in skilled trades. This will be included in the career education provided to grade 9 students and will support the network of school guidance counsellors.
We have established programs to help students who plan to go directly to work from secondary school. They need education and training programs that will help them find pathways into the workforce. For example, our youth apprenticeship program offers students the opportunity to train as registered apprentices even while they're completing a high school diploma, so that once they've graduated from high school, they have some of the requirements of the apprenticeship program.
We've also established a bridges to work program, similar to the Ontario youth apprenticeship program in that it combines secondary school education with on-the-job training, but aimed at employment in broader areas outside the existing apprenticeship trades. We want to increase private sector participation in these and similar programs. We will set up a provincial partnership council to help expand co-operative education, work experience and school-to-work programs.
A key step forward in strengthening the pool of skilled workers in Ontario is reform of apprenticeship training. As I indicated earlier, we do intend to double the number of new apprentices. We want to encourage more employers to train apprentices and expand the skills that can be learned through this effective means of training. We intend to give industry greater responsibility for apprenticeship training. New legislation, the first since 1964, I think it was, to be precise, was introduced in June and debated last night, I understand, in my absence. It will provide a framework for our reforms.
Partnerships also underlie job connect, the Ontario government employment preparation program, which does an excellent job of linking employers who want to train with people who want to learn in-demand skills. During the first quarter of the current fiscal year, job connect served more than 20,000 people -- about 24,000 people, if my memory is correct -- which means we are on track to achieve our target of 94,000 in a full year. We expect that fully 80% of these, about 75,000, will be placed in on-the-job training positions or further education. These high expectations reflect our conviction that job connect is a leading program of its kind in Canada.
We are laying out Ontario's plan for tomorrow's job market, to invest at least $9.5 billion over the next 10 years to help meet the job and skill training needs of Ontario workers and businesses in every sector of the economy. In this year's budget, the government took aim at the serious shortage of graduates from our colleges and universities in high-demand engineering and computer science programs. We will invest $150 million over the next three years to implement the access to opportunities program, otherwise known as ATOP, to double the spaces for students in these fields. Operating costs for new spaces will be recognized and funded, with industry matching the government's investment in start-up costs.
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In the 1997 budget, Ontario announced an investment of more than $10 million to support training in four critical skill areas that were identified by business. The first was training in auto parts design and manufacturing technology, where there will be a partnership between Georgian College and the Industrial Research and Development Institute; secondly, training in metal machining and other key engineering technologies, through Conestoga College; thirdly, comprehensive business and technology training in the telecommunications industry, through Humber College and the Telecommunications Learning Institute; and finally, new media skills training at the Canadian Film Centre.
In this year's budget, we have dedicated a further $20 million to kick-start other forward-looking skills partnerships. The Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Tourism, in co-operation with my ministry and the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology, are reviewing projects through a competitive process. The focus of these new skill investments is to create strategic skills essential to the competitiveness of growing industries today. The government's willingness to invest in strategic skills is built on the expectation that all participants, whether it's industry or educators or students, as well as governments, will contribute substantially to the new skills partnerships.
These immediate investments complement the $500-million research and development challenge fund introduced by the government last year. One of the key purposes is to attract and keep world-class researchers right here in Ontario. This goal will be achieved by encouraging partnerships among businesses, universities and other research institutions. Funding has been approved for 18 proposals from the first competition. The government's total investment is over $68 million. All projects also have secured funding from business and industry, and another 10 proposals are still under consideration.
In June, as one example, we announced approval of six proposals from the University of Toronto. These include a partnership between that university and Northern Telecom to expand and enhance the staffing and the physical infrastructure at the Nortel Institute for Telecommunications. This institute provides global leadership in research, training and education in telecommunications, ensuring that Ontario industries maintain their significant competitive edge in this most important sector.
Also through that same challenge fund, the University of Toronto and Bell Emergis will establish the new Bell Emergis university laboratories to develop new technologies for computing, and networks and communications, and to turn these into new commercial products and services. This is a complementary facility to the one already at the University of Waterloo. The two new laboratories will work together on telecommunications research and new product development.
Together these investments fit in with the broader perspective of the new Ontario Jobs and Investment Board, which has been established to help develop a vision for Ontario's long-term economic prosperity. The Ontario Jobs and Investment Board, known as OJIB, is organizing seven regional conferences this month and in November to seek broad participation in developing regional strategies for long-term job creation and economic growth. I am pleased to be a member of that board, and my ministry supports the board's research on the future relationship between learning and jobs in the new millennium.
At the college and university level, in addition to the ATOP program, we are establishing a comprehensive set of benchmarks including graduation rates, placement rates and loan default rates. Students may use this information as a guide as they consider schools and programs in which to invest their money. A key component of accessibility to post-secondary education is giving qualified students the information they need to make decisions about their education.
We are also committed to taking major steps to support qualified students. This year the government is helping over 200,000 students at the post-secondary level through $535-million in spending on student assistance. That represents a 30% increase over 1995-96 spending. The largest share of this amount is in the form of direct grants to students through the Ontario student opportunity grants program, which was introduced this year.
The Ontario student opportunities trust fund initiative, which was launched in 1996, will generate $600 million for student assistance at universities and colleges, and will help 185,000 students over 10 years.
In partnership with the private sector, the Ontario government will reward excellence in studies in science and technology through a new graduate scholarship. Over the next 10 years, $75 million will be awarded to students through this initiative.
We have taken a new approach to post-secondary tuition that establishes greater accountability to the university or college community for the use of tuition fee revenue. It allows colleges and universities to enhance the quality of their programs while providing more funding for student assistance. It also provides greater opportunity to offer programs for qualified students in areas where there is student demand, as well as employer demand for graduates, and substantial starting salaries for those graduates.
Our economy is growing, and we face the challenge of providing Ontarians with the skills and knowledge they need to participate in and to create continuing prosperity. We are addressing this challenge through the reforms we have begun to introduce to Ontario's education system, starting in the early years and kindergarten and continuing through elementary and secondary education, and post-secondary education and training. At all levels, we have not only provided greater opportunity; we have made access to learning opportunities more equitable across the province, based on clear and high standards that will demand not only that our students give their best, but also that they receive our best.
We have invested our resources strategically to support our students, making sure that the priority is on the classroom rather than administration and bureaucracy. We are committed to making an Ontario education an education that offers our students a passport to jobs and hope, opportunity and growth, right into the 21st century. Employers will then have access to the skilled workers they need to compete and succeed in the global marketplace. People will have greater access to training and jobs. Our economy will continue to grow, create jobs, investment and opportunity.
Thank you very much. How did I do for time?
The Chair: Minister, you still have four or five minutes, if you want to add to your prepared remarks.
Hon David Johnson: I guess I didn't time that out. I will say that there are aspects of the quality program that are particularly pleasing to me as a minister. I came into this portfolio about a year ago, with considerable municipal and some provincial experience, but not with background at a school board, let's say, although with background as a parent. But the improvement in the quality, and the response I'm receiving when I'm out and about in terms of the new curriculum, have been phenomenal. People have expressed strong support in terms of designing a new curriculum at the elementary level, and those kinds of comments are now starting to come in at the secondary level, although the secondary level curriculum will not be implemented for another year, beginning 1999, but there is more rigour in it. Parents understand at each grade what the child has learned. Formerly, that was not the case. It might have been the case in grade 3 and grade 6, I guess, but in the intervening grades there was no clear expectation. Parents and teachers felt they were in the dark in that regard.
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I think back to a day in early August, I believe -- the middle of the summer, at any rate -- when I attended, just to get a little experience in the marking of the testing that was taking place. The testing is now based on the new curriculum. This was mathematics, of course, that I was attending. The mathematics curriculum was introduced over a year ago.
The thing that caught me by surprise was the enthusiasm of the elementary teachers for the new curriculum, for the fact that there are grade-by-grade expectations and for the fact that this testing process was an excellent professional development tool. So many of them came up to me and expressed the view that they were delighted to be involved in the process because it assisted them in teaching this new curriculum in their classes, which they seem to feel very highly about.
The EQAO, in determining staffing for it, I believe needed somewhere in the vicinity of 1,800 teachers, but there were about 5,500 volunteers to fill these 1,800 spots. When 5,500 elementary teachers step forward to be involved in this process in the middle of the summer, when people might have other things on their minds, I think this shows that they felt very highly about it.
Another aspect, the literacy test, is something that many people in Ontario feel is long overdue at the secondary level. We recognize that some students will need assistance. That's why we have introduced the literacy test at the grade 10 level, with the opportunity that if a student fails, of course, there will be remedial action and another opportunity for a test and, if there's still a failure, more remedial action and more opportunities. But there seems to be strong support that when our students graduate they have a basic level of literacy.
One other aspect of the secondary school curriculum that I don't think was mentioned in my notes but that seems to resonate throughout the province is the volunteer component. This is not new in the world. There are other jurisdictions that have a volunteer component. I believe New Brunswick does -- don't raise this in the House if I'm wrong on that. What we're hoping to achieve through this is that not only will our students have the benefit of a wonderful academic program through the new curriculum, but also the opportunity to become well-rounded citizens.
My experience has been that many young people already exceed the 40 hours, whether it's --
The Chair: Minister, I'm going to interrupt you and --
Hon David Johnson: Have I run out of time?
The Chair: You've run out of time. If you just want to finish.
Hon David Johnson: Many students already exceed this, but some students haven't had the opportunity to volunteer. Through this program -- this 40-hour period through the high school period -- I think that all students will get the opportunity and they'll become not only great students and graduates but well-rounded citizens of our province.
The Chair: We now turn to the official opposition.
Mrs McLeod: I'm going to direct my comments to elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, and my colleague, who's the critic for training and youth, will make some comments on the areas of apprenticeship training and the employment programs.
Dealing first of all with elementary and secondary education, we're going to be approaching this in the context that this is the first set of estimates we've had to deal with when the government was 100% responsible for the funding of education. That means that the government is 100% responsible for not only the funding and development of the programs, but the awareness of the impact of those funding decisions and programs on the classrooms across Ontario.
We want to be sure that the words the minister is offering today are matched by the realities of the funding and by the reality of what's actually going on in classrooms. It's in that light that we're going to be placing a large number of questions over the course of this estimate period. Our preference, quite frankly, would be to have an independent review of the funding formula. We'll be calling for that independent review tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic that the government is likely to agree. So this estimates period may be our only opportunity to shed what I hope will be some factual light from the government on some of the statements that have been made over the last month, which I think are subject to considerable dispute in light of the facts.
I'm just going to outline the areas in which we are going to be raising our concerns. Minister, I know you have another half-hour to respond, so I'm giving notice of a lot of areas you might like to respond to now. It would save us some time a bit later.
We'll probably be starting with the issue of pension funds. On page 50 it's quite clear that the payments of $464.8 million, which you expected to have to pay into the teachers' pension fund until December 2030 and which are shown in full in your estimates statement for the full budget year of 1998-99, in fact cease as of January 1, 1999. That statement of clarification is in the estimates book. Our question is going to be, where do we see that allocation of the $464.8 million in terms of reinvestment in the operating budget for elementary and secondary school education?
I know you have made statements about the stability of your operating funding, but you've not been forthcoming about the stability of overall funding, which includes the teachers' pension fund. So that leaves the question of the reinvestment of the $464.8 million that is now unallocated as of January 1. It's somewhat open to question, and we'll appreciate your clarification on what you intend to do with that.
We are going to be asking some questions about per pupil funding. The statements you make about there being an increase in classroom funding, and that there has been no further cut in spending on elementary and secondary education, of course beg the question of increased enrolment over the next three years. You've not been prepared at any point to factor in to any of the statements you've made publicly the increased enrolment expectations.
If we were to go back and use the Ernst and Young report, which your predecessor commissioned, that was a spending report for 1995-96 and use their calculations of per pupil spending in elementary and secondary education in Ontario, in 1995 it was $6,032; in 1996 it was $5,942; in 1997-98 it appears to be $5,496, which is a steady decrease in per pupil funding for elementary and secondary school education since your government came into power.
We want to know, because you are making public statements about having made no cuts to education spending and because you're increasing classroom spending, what the actual per pupil spending will be over the next three years, in which you've provided for your supposedly stable funding.
Further to that, I want to take issue with the fact that in all the statements made on the funding formula, at no time did you take into consideration enrolment increases. I would like to have a figure from the ministry that clearly shows that if you had a stable population -- no increases in students, so that the dollars that are going to be applied for increased population over the course of the next three years were not called on -- what the actual cuts in your funding formula would have been. Essentially taking today's students and today's school system, what is the total impact of the cuts in their program spending?
I've been able to take from your funding formula announcement a total of $900 million in cuts to the existing system. It's larger than that because there are some figures on which I've not been able to get data from the last estimates period, so I didn't have those data. I'd like some clarification as to exactly what the cuts were to the program as it now stands.
I'm not sure you'll be able to give me this, but I would like to know exactly what budgeting went into the funding formula for teachers. We know what the budget was for salaries. It was a very rigid, inflexible figure, and that is certainly creating tremendous difficulties at collective bargaining tables across the province. But what I'm also interested in knowing is exactly how much of a reduction in teaching staff you built into your funding formula. According to the backgrounder that you put out this week, you were anticipating the retirement of 9,500 teachers this year, or had received retirement notices from 9,500 teachers. You're expecting to hire 6,000 teachers and, as I pointed out in the House, there is a balance of 3,500 teachers. I want to know whether your funding formula estimates for the cost of teachers in the system was based on the assumption of 3,500 fewer teachers.
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The balance of my questions will also deal with the funding formula: with the inadequacy in funding, the inequities in the funding formula, the reversals in your funding commitment -- and in some cases the disappearing funds -- as well as the sheer confusion in the way the funds are being allocated.
I will want to know what Justice Cummings meant when he said that for some school boards to implement Bill 160 they would have to cannibalize the rest of their education system. I think the truth of that statement is being borne out by the fact that it is possible for some boards to reach collective agreements under the terms of Bill 160 and it is proving virtually impossible for other boards to reach similar agreements. I think that ties into Justice Cummings's statement that some boards would be forced to cannibalize their education systems, and I'd like your comments on that, as well as some explanation of why there should be such inequities in the funding formulas that apply to different boards.
I'm obviously going to be very concerned about the special education envelope. I raised an issue with you today, Minister, in terms of the decision that was made by the ministry to apply the mitigation funding to special-needs students. My understanding at the time the funding formula was released was that the mitigation factor was not to apply to special-needs students. It's clearly inequitable to apply the mitigation factor to special-needs students and it clearly creates two classes of special-needs students: those who received funding under your ISA program and those who did not. I would be interested in knowing, by the time the estimates committee meets next, whether boards indeed have received their special education funding. As of this morning, although you assured me that the cheques were in the mail last week -- it must be a very slow postal service -- the boards I spoke to had not received their special education funding.
I would like some information about the expert panel. You indicated today something I heard only yesterday, that there is an expert panel which is reviewing, I assume, the individualized funding program. I find it hard to imagine that we can have an expert panel reviewing something that is not yet up and running. I am hearing perhaps suspicious comments that you have abandoned the individualized funding formula and are providing not ISA funding but envelope funding to school boards to use at their discretion. I suspect it's because your funding envelope proved to be too limited to meet the needs you received, and I'd like some information as to how many applications you received, how many were granted and how your funding envelope has been adjusted to meet that demand.
I want some information about maintenance funding. I provided estimates based on the data put out by the Ministry of Education, in fact the data that were provided to each school board, on the accommodation factors. I know that boards are being rocked by those accommodation numbers. In many cases the excess space that is shown is greater than the boards themselves were calculating and enrolment numbers in some cases are lower than the boards believed they had in terms of numbers of students in their schools. But I simply took your excess space numbers and your provincial average school size and determined that over 600 schools could potentially be driven to closure simply by your numbers, recognizing the fact that you ceased maintenance funding for all spaces that you considered extra. I have only your numbers to work with. I would very much appreciate what estimates the Ministry of Education made, using its own numbers, on how much dislocation of students, in terms of school closures, would be necessitated by the decision to withdraw the maintenance funding on September 1.
I'd also like to know the rationale -- since you did move away from the requirement that boards close their schools by September 1 of this year -- when you recognized that it wasn't possible for boards to close their schools by September 1, why you were not prepared to extend the maintenance funding for the similar year's period that you gave for boards to actually bring about the restructuring you were demanding.
Incidentally, my figure in terms of strict maintenance funding, and again all I have to work with is your extra space calculations and multiplying them by the 100 square feet per elementary school pupil and the 130 square feet per secondary school pupil that you say you were using in your funding formula, and then by the $5.20 per square foot that you're prepared to provide for maintenance funding, that the extra space numbers would actually mean that boards are missing about $185 million in maintenance funding this year. I'd appreciate your clarification of whether my numbers are accurate, and if you feel they're not, I'd like some accurate numbers from you, please.
I want to deal a little with the cuts to early childhood funding -- and if it takes me as long to get answers to all the questions as it's taking me to ask them, I know I'm not going to get to all these areas. But I want to know what's happening on the junior kindergarten front; I want to know whether you're doing tracking data to show how many junior kindergarten classes are in fact higher than 25 students per teacher. I know that the $147 million that was cut from the early childhood budget -- the money that would have been used to keep grades 1 and 2 lower -- has not been picked up by boards exercising the bribe of the early opportunities grant. I know that about three boards are looking at picking up the early opportunities grant. But I am very interested in knowing what data you're getting on class sizes in grades 1 and 2 particularly, because that's clearly where we're going to see class size increases with the withdrawal of the $147 million.
I'm going to want to have some questions answered about textbooks, the fact that the prices were indeed much higher than list prices -- the ministry acknowledged that last spring. The indication from the ministry was that you were going to negotiate lower prices. Nobody has seen a lower negotiated price. The question is: Was there in fact to be a rebate, is there a rebate, is there a lower price? If there is, why is the ministry charging the full ministry list price to the schools, and are you indeed going to have some purchases this fall that are based on the discounted figure that should actually have been charged to school boards for their textbooks?
Just very briefly before I move to post-secondary, I take issue with the fact that you have said in your statement that the budget for teaching assistants in the province is up and that the budget for guidance and libraries across the province is up. Minister, I have to tell you that I find that -- I guess we still have to use parliamentary language in the estimates committee. But looking at the teaching assistants number, you budgeted $5 per elementary school student for teaching assistants, and the stories we get from parents are that that's not enough money to provide noon hour supervision, let alone any other form of teacher assistant. In secondary schools, you've provided no money at all for teaching assistants. If the reference in your statement is to special education funding, then that means you are using the same dollars to make two kinds of statement. There is no way that that's an increase in teaching assistants from the perspective of most boards.
In library and guidance, I'd be very interested in knowing how you could make that statement. Those two categories are combined in your funding formula, and your funding formula allows for one library or guidance person for 5,000 elementary school students and one library or guidance person for 385 secondary school students. I'd like to know: On the basis of what data do you make the statement that you've increased the funding in those areas?
On post-secondary education -- I'm going to have to do this too quickly, and that's why it would be a good idea to devote some time to post-secondary. Obviously tuition increases and debt load increases are something we're interested in. I'd like to know whether the ministry is doing anything to track the increased debt load because of deregulation or whether that is simply an institutional responsibility now and data we may never be able to gather.
I want to get some information about student assistance. One specific question that comes from your remarks today is: How is much of a 30% increase in student assistance is actually due directly to loan default? When we have looked at this budget increase in the past, any increase in student assistance has been entirely due to loan default.
I want to know how many OSAP applications there have been, how many have been rejected, what the actual student assistance budget is as opposed to the loan default budget. I'd also like to know what the OSAP staff changes have been. I can't separate that out in the estimates book and there appears to be nobody there to answer the phone even if they're prepared to pay $2 for the 1-900 number. So I'd like to know exactly how many staff are there. If I get time, I'd like to know why the provincial contribution to the bursary program for disabled students has gone down from $2.2 million two years ago to $1.2 million now. It seems to me that that's a very unfortunate way of using the federal government's money to decrease your own commitment to disabled students.
I'm wondering about capital funding, $165 million needed just for maintenance in colleges and universities alone this year, over the course of the next 10 years. I can't find a line in the estimates that's specifically devoted to maintenance, and I'd like to know whether that is expected to be covered under the operating budgets or whether there is a specific maintenance budget and how much it is.
I'd like to get into the issue of the satellite campus budget and the limitations that that is placing on the ability of northern colleges to offer satellite programs. The discounted BIUs, the fact that the $29 million which was welcomed by the universities was still not enough to deal with the discounted BIU issue which COU says would take $60 million to cover.
I'd like to clarify the fact that there is no new provincial money in the millennium scholarship fund, that indeed the money that was put into that fund was the loan forgiveness money you redefined as grants this year. I'd like some public clarification of that fact.
A couple of smaller issues that it might seem I missed are the reduced funding for independent learning centres and what that does to distance education and, while I'm at it, how you can expand the grade 6 testing program when you're reducing the budget for the EQAO by some $3 million.
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Lastly, before I turn it over to my colleague, I'd really like some clarification on the double cohort that the colleges and universities are so concerned about. I know that they're asking for additional funding to deal with the double cohort, and I appreciate their concern. But I've looked at your secondary school reform proposals and I can't find where the double cohort is going to come. At this point, you have retreated from earlier proposals to limit the number of credits or the number of credit hours, and it appears that every student will require the same number of credits with exactly the same number of credit hours.
I don't know how you have taken a year off the secondary school program, and I would like some clarification of exactly how that is to happen: whether there is going to be a limit on the total number of credits a student can take, whether students are going to be asked to pay for any additional credits, and when the colleges and universities might expect the double cohort, if in fact you have one coming.
Mr David Caplan (Oriole): Mr Chair, how much time remains?
The Chair: Approximately 13 minutes.
Mr Caplan: I'm very glad to have the opportunity to make an opening statement here, and I'm hoping this minister will be held accountable for his actions as they relate to the young people of Ontario.
I'm going to speak in three areas: first, the minister's record regarding the management of his youth employment strategy; second, the minister's incredibly regrettable approach to reform of the apprenticeship system; and finally, how our Minister of Education and Training is limiting opportunities for young people in our province.
Let me start with this government's lamentable record on its management of youth employment programs. It has quite a history that culminated on March 5 of this year in an announcement of the renaming and reorganization of the career and employment preparation program. That name has reverted to the job connect program. I agree that this announcement is long overdue. When youth employment levels are at twice the provincial average and when you have to drop the program targets because you didn't promote it properly, it is unbelievable to me that the minister didn't act sooner.
Let's review the history of the program. In April 1997, the government cancelled Futures and replaced it with the career and employment preparation program, CEPP. In October of last year, at about this time, the ministry revised its placement targets by 40% from 94,000 placements, which was again reiterated by the minister today, to 50,000 placements.
On January 29 of this year, CEPP was finally given increased flexibility to deliver services to those who need them most, the hard-to-serve and the hard-to-employ. Strict criteria for clients regarding the time they need to be out of school, training and work made it difficult to actually enrol young people in this program. At the end of 1997, youth employment agencies were given a small budget to develop their own local promotion programs. In March of this year, a year later, the minister finally started to put some money where his rhetoric was, to promote a program and at least try to make it work for young people. I'll be very anxious to ask the minister what successes he has realized with his advertising campaign.
I'm glad this government finally started to do what I had been lobbying them to do. When the design of this program makes it impossible for people to utilize it, and when you don't tell anybody about the program, of course it's going to be an abysmal failure. I am very sorry that unemployed young people in this province have had to wait a year for this minister and this government to pay some real attention to employment programs.
I'd like to turn my attention to the minister's regrettable approach to apprenticeship reforms. Last night I outlined my concerns at great length; it will be quite a bit abbreviated today. Just at the outset, it was extremely regrettable that the minister could not be there to address this very important and significant piece of legislation.
Last night I spoke about the record of consultation in regard to this bill. It is quite appalling. The parliamentary assistant to the minister spoke at great length about how the legislation is a reflection of what the provincial advisory council, the PAC, had been telling them all along. I want to state categorically and without any doubt: That is not the case. Let me briefly review the record of the minister and the ministry in this regard.
In December 1996, the government released a discussion paper and said it wanted to consult with all stakeholders in the apprenticeship system. After the consultation was complete, the participants were informed that they would be given a report regarding the consultation in the near future. That was interesting, because in the meantime a document called New Directions, a leaked ministry document which, as I understand it, had been signed off by nine assistant deputy ministers, was somehow made public.
That document outlined changes that were widely criticized by all participants in the process and by stakeholder groups. What did they criticize? They criticized the elimination of minimum educational requirements, the removal of full trade certification, tuition fees -- the first time in Ontario's history that tuition fees would be imposed on apprenticeship -- and the elimination of a two-year minimum program.
What did the government do? What was its next step? They said they would continue consulting before the legislation was introduced. In good faith, stakeholder groups continued to give input. They said: "Do not impose tuition," or, as I would say, an education tax. "Do not remove minimum educational requirements. In fact, do the opposite; raise the educational requirements. Don't eliminate the two-year minimum program."
When the government made its announcement, when the minister was up in Newmarket on January 19, his announcement was, "There will be tuition fees. We will deregulate the wages. We will eliminate the minimum educational standards," everything that the stakeholder groups, the employers, the employees, the journeypeople, the apprentices themselves, had said not to do. So this minister said: "Don't worry. Tell me your concerns. The legislation isn't drafted yet. Changes can be made." In good faith, those stakeholder groups, although I can't imagine why, given that history, gave input again. They said: "Don't impose tuition fees. Don't remove minimum educational requirements; in fact, raise them. Don't eliminate the two-year minimum program."
Then on the last day of sittings this spring the government tabled its legislation, Bill 55. What did it contain? The minister's promise to impose tuition fees, the deregulation of wages, the elimination of minimum educational standards, everything the stakeholder groups, the employers, the skilled journeypeople, the apprentices and other groups, told them not to do. So much for this government's listening and consultation process.
The stakeholders have asked for public hearings. The opposition has demanded public hearings. To date, the minister has refused to commit to them. I'm not surprised, given this history of consultation. You haven't listened before. But I was very interested to hear, and the minister will know, that the member for Simcoe Centre yesterday did commit to public hearings. I will be asking the minister to live up to that commitment and to make public his promise that there will be province-wide public hearings on Bill 55.
Aside from the consultative aspects, I have some serious reservations about Bill 55. The tuition fees are a significant impediment. We've seen this government's record on tuition. It is appalling that over the course of the mandate, tuition will rise 60% and that does not include deregulation. In fact, when the ministry's own user survey asked the question about tuition fees, half the respondents said they would not enter the skilled trades field. So the question is simply: Given that, why the imposition of tuition fees?
The elimination of the journeyperson ratio is a significant problem. It does put public safety at risk. It also reduces the number of journeypeople positions because, obviously, you're adding more apprentice positions and you will limit outcomes for apprentices because they will have fewer positions and options to go into.
The removal of minimum educational standards is absolutely appalling, given that most trades and stakeholder groups called for increases, but also because you do require a solid academic background to deal with the sophistication of trades and to deal with the changes of industry retraining, upgrading and skilling. In fact, a study in British Columbia shows that for those who have completed secondary school, their attainment and their skill bank in apprenticeship is enhanced for those who do not have that level.
The deregulation of wages in conjunction with the tuition will place a real burden on young people and older folks who wish to get into the apprentice area.
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The change in the role of the provincial advisory councils is a very interesting one. Prior to the introduction of this bill, the role of the PACs was, and I quote, "all issues pertaining to apprenticeship." The new role and mandate is changed to read "to promote high standards in training and apprenticeship training," clearly a diminished role.
Another thing is the change of employers to sponsors of training. We wish to understand what the rationale is behind this. Does this mean that municipalities looking to employ social assistance recipients will be able to use this designation and call them apprentices? If that is the case, let that be said very clearly, because that is not what apprenticeship is all about.
The time requirements: Why the need to remove the two-year minimum requirement? By the way, a minimum can be a maximum of five years in the current system. To allow part-time, contract and self-employed workers to become apprentices is particularly mind-boggling. If anyone on this committee or anywhere else can explain to me how a self-employed worker can be an apprentice, I have yet to find that person. We'll be looking for some answers there.
There are other system administration issues. Apprenticeship will now be governed exclusively by regulation, quite interesting, given what we've seen, the fiasco of the government's education reforms, which take the same tack as found in Bill 160. With regulatory power, there has to be a level of trust. I must say that this minister has shown that he cannot be trusted to make these kinds of decisions. He has not taken the advice of stakeholder groups. He has not taken the advice of all interested parties. To give himself that kind of power certainly will be a betrayal of trust.
Finally, as the youth critic, I think it's my obligation to comment as well on the overall direction of this ministry and how it has limited opportunities for young people in Ontario. The post-secondary record of this government is absolutely abysmal. It's interesting to note that the business plan for the Ministry of Education and Training is virtually silent on the issues of post-secondary education. The record on tuition fees has been well gone through, and I'm sure we'll have some opportunity to review that as well as issues around deregulation.
There have been significant reductions in the funding to universities and colleges. Ontario now ranks 10th out of 10 per capita in terms of funding of universities. Of course, each year we get an announcement from the Ministry of Education and Training of reforms and changes to the ability to access the Ontario student assistance program. It's interesting to note that these changes only make it more difficult for students to access that program. There are many examples. I can't wait for this year's round of changes, making it even more difficult for students to access much-needed assistance, given the cost burdens, particularly the cost of schooling but others as well. The cost of accommodation has certainly increased, given this government's record on removal of rent controls and vacancy decontrol. That has placed an enormous burden on students.
Further, I'm very concerned -- and this is something that was highlighted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. They said very clearly that what was needed was to remove the stigma from the skilled trades area. I can tell you, Minister, that you will be further stigmatizing the area of skilled trades by imposing tuition, by lowering wages and by removing minimum educational standards.
The Chair: We now turn to the third party.
Mr Wildman: At the outset, I will indicate that we also intend to raise questions and try to get specific information about the funding formula as we go through these estimates. My colleague the member for Windsor-Riverside will be joining us. He's at another committee this afternoon, but he will be joining us later and raising issues with regard to post-secondary education and apprenticeship.
I'd just like to make some comments at the outset that I hope the minister will be able to respond to, either immediately or during the estimates. The minister indicated his satisfaction with what he refers to as the support for the curriculum. There has been some indication that there have been improvements in curriculum, but I'm wondering if he can comment on the fact that the new curriculum may not fit exactly with what he is doing with his textbooks.
I'll just read, for your information, a brief passage from an e-mail I received from Chuck McFadden on behalf of the Atlantic science curriculum project. He says:
"For the 60 leading science educators from coast to coast who have joined us in the Canadian science curriculum initiative and to all who were looking forward to the publication of SciencePlus Technology Society and the Environment as a choice for grades 7 to 9 science, we have some bad news.
"The Canadian Publishers' Council has informed Harcourt Brace Canada that the Ontario Ministry of Education will be announcing on the MERX Web site a December 1998 deadline for the publication of K-8 science materials for possible inclusion on their list. In response, Harcourt Brace Canada has just informed us that it is cancelling its agreement with the Atlantic science curriculum project to publish a new edition of SciencePlus. With the loss of half of its potential market, it feels that it is no longer feasible to produce the kind of edition of SciencePlus that would be competitive."
Further on, he talks about the work on SciencePlus:
"We believe the result would have been a most worthy contribution to grade 7 to 9 students and their teachers across Canada. To say the least, we are greatly disappointed that this work will not be available as a choice for Canadian schools."
The effect of the deadline for new textbooks in Ontario, and what effect it's having not just in Ontario but across Canada, is something I hope the minister will respond to in terms of new curriculum and in particular the development of the science curriculum here.
Also, I'd like to know how many additional staff the ministry has taken on for processing and reconciling the textbook orders that the ministry has been involved in across Ontario.
With regard to testing, I really would like to know, as my colleague mentioned, how the new universal grade 6 testing that was announced last week will be achieved if the budget for the EQAO has been reduced, when you consider that moving from random testing at grade 6 to universal testing will double the cost from $3 million to $6 million. Also, I'd like the minister to indicate clearly whether the EQAO recommended moving from random testing at grade 6 to universal testing or whether that was a decision by the minister and the government, requiring the EQAO to comply. Also, I'd like to know what empirical evidence the ministry has to show that a universal test of all the students at the grade 6 level will give you more valid or better results than a well-designed random test.
I would like to get some figures. My young daughter is in junior kindergarten this year and she's in a class that was to be 27. It has now gone down to 25 because I understand two parents have withdrawn their children. It's 25, one teacher with 25 students, a combined junior kindergarten and senior kindergarten class, all day, two days a week one week, three days a week the next, 25 students with one teacher's aide. There's not much room in this classroom. I'd like to know what the numbers are: How many junior kindergartens are individually in these numbers and how many combined with senior kindergartens are we seeing that are having substantially above the recommended number of 18?
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I noticed you mentioned and indicated pride in the work that Dr Fraser Mustard is doing for the ministry. Since many of us are very familiar with the work of Dr Fraser Mustard, and I guess the minister expects -- indicates he believes what he will report -- anyone that's ever talked to Dr Mustard and knows about his work will know what he thinks about early childhood development. I hope then the minister, if he's so proud of this, and I think perhaps he should be, will make a commitment today that he will embrace Dr Fraser Mustard's recommendations in his report and implement them.
I'd like to also deal with, in terms of curriculum, the issue that was raised in the Legislature today by my leader. I'm tempted to refer to this as an innuendo to project managers from Karen Allan, rather than a memo, since the minister used the term "innuendo" when my leader was reading from it. This is dated September 14, 1998, and it clearly states, "delete violence prevention, delete anti-discrimination, delete education about native people."
Why? How can you justify this in terms of curriculum in grades 9 and 10, particularly when we see the kind of multicultural community that we have become and the strains that that sometimes unfortunately puts on the school system and creates for students individually and collectively at the secondary as well as the elementary level. How can you accept a decision to delete violence prevention and anti-discrimination from the curriculum? And why on earth, considering the importance of our heritage, would we be deleting education about aboriginal people in our schools?
The suggestion that this somehow could be dealt with through a policy on how the schools are to operate rather than in the curriculum, if that's the explanation, is completely inadequate. A policy on how to organize and deal with violence in school, for instance, does not give indication and assistance to teachers on how to deal with that in the curriculum. How to involve questions around anti-discrimination in the English curriculum, for instance, does not come through in a policy statement on the organization and operation of schools.
I'd like to deal also with the questions around the numbers of teachers and this whole dispute that has led to the controversy and the lockouts and strikes and led to the back-to-work, back-to-school legislation and now the passage of Bill 63, which I understand is to be proclaimed by Her Honour this afternoon. I'm sorry to disappoint the minister but I did not accept the government's invitation to attend the proclamation of that. But I'd like to deal with this whole dispute.
Obviously the governments ads say, "We're only asking teachers to teach 25 minutes more. Is that too much to ask?" which of course is quite simplistic and doesn't deal with the real issues. If that's what the government were really asking of teachers, can the minister please explain why when teachers offered to lengthen the periods that they were teaching, the government refused, particularly when the minister says that he's not involved in the negotiations. Why would the minister write out a letter, a directive to boards? Why, if teachers are prepared to teach the same number of students the required number of minutes that the ministry wants them to teach, would the government say no? Why would the government say: "No, no, no, that's not what we want you to do. We want you to teach an additional period"; in other words, 25 more students.
How could that be, unless it's clear that the government intends that there be fewer teachers, and that's what this is about, saving money by cutting the number of teachers. If that is what it's about, why don't you be honest about it and say so? Because what we're ending up with is fewer teachers teaching more students, not more time for an individual student with a teacher, as you know the minister full well knows, so why not just say so. If you don't understand the situation and you've said your staff has told you that they have to teach an additional period to get the required minutes, I'd like to hear that too. You haven't given any explanation of that despite the number of questions that have been directed to you about it, and I'd like to get that straightened out.
I'd also like you to deal with the fact that Bill 63 to this pass does not make any mention of guidance or library. Now, in my view, a library teacher is already teaching eight periods a day, if he or she is doing his or her job. They are teaching, they are carrying out their responsibilities as teacher-librarian eight periods a day. But there's no mention of this. What does this mean for the future of guidance and library since you've brought in a regulation, or are bringing in regulations, that are so strict on what everybody can do that there's no mention of these two types of teachers? What does it mean for the future of teacher-librarians in the system? What does it mean for the future of guidance counselling for adolescents in our secondary schools?
I've raised in the House the question of what's happening with the francophone boards and their negotiations with AEFO and how that relates to Bill 63. As the minister knows full well, these new large francophone boards did not exist prior to September so it was impossible for them to negotiate prior to September. So those boards in agreement with the teachers have decided to negotiate together across the province. They are working towards agreements by December.
The AEFO has made it very clear that the statement the minister made that, "If there were agreements reached before the legislation was passed, they could stand for the two-year duration of those agreements," would be used as discriminatory against the francophone teachers of Ontario since they had no chance to seek such agreements. Ms Chénier has requested that the proclamation of the Bill 63 be put off until September 1999. Since the proclamation is going forward this afternoon, obviously the government has rejected her request, and I'd like to know the rationale.
With regard to the new francophone boards and the need for the division of assets, I'd like to raise one particular concern I have, and that is in northeastern Ontario. We know that the English public and Catholic boards were asked by the government to reach agreements with the new French Catholic and French public district boards for the division of assets. If they couldn't come to amicable agreements, then it was to go to arbitration by the Education Improvement Commission. In this particular case, the francophone community in northeastern Ontario, Espanola, Blind River, Chapleau, Wawa and Elliot Lake, all made it very clear what they wanted.
There were literally -- I'm not exaggerating -- thousands of petitions signed in these small towns. There were public meetings in which the francophone community made it very clear what they wanted. They went to a hearing with the EIC, they made it very clear before the EIC what they wanted and the EIC made a recommendation which was the opposite of what they wanted. Despite the fact that the francophone community said, "In northeastern Ontario there was this historic compromise that there would be Catholic education at the elementary level for francophone students, and in order to ensure a critical mass of students at the secondary level for francophones that they would have public secular education at the secondary level," the EIC listened to the recommendation, apparently, of an academic from the Laurentian who said that most of these assets should be transferred to the Catholic board, even though the francophone community was saying -- I emphasize the francophone community both Catholic and non-Catholic -- was saying they wanted it to remain with the public French board.
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Now I understand there has been a subsequent agreement of sorts arrived at between the new French public board in the northeast and the new French Catholic board in the northeast which is different from the EIC recommendation, and they are appealing to the minister to have that implemented. I'd like to know what the minister intends to do, because this is certainly not an indication that the EIC in any way listens to what people want. I'd like to know who they listen to. If these schools are to serve people, surely they are to serve the people who finance them in the province. How on earth can the EIC justify an attitude which seems to be, "We know better than what the community itself knows and what they want"?
With regard to the funding formula and what effect it's having and what it means for the closure of schools, I'd like to refer to a couple of media reports that I've just been given. This is from CBON-FM Sudbury, which is the French-language service of the CBC. It is stated that the funding formula will mean the closure of 10 primary schools in the north, and according to Francis Beauvais, many rural areas will lose their schools. This is for the new Catholic district school board of Nouvel-Ontario. Again, this is a representative of the board making it very clear that this is related directly to the funding formula.
The minister repeatedly says: "Boards have closed schools in the past, both under the Liberal government and the NDP government and other governments in the past. This is nothing new." The question is, if it's nothing new, why are there so many more boards being closed under your administration than there were under any previous administrations, except going back to the 1950s and 1960s when we closed one-room schools in the province?
The minister referred to a media report from the London Free Press today in the House where he referred to the Thames Valley board. It is true that the Thames Valley board says it may not have to close schools, as the minister indicated. He was pointing to that as evidence that the funding formula is indeed flexible. My question is this: If the board proceeds on the basis that they will not have to close schools, they hope, and doesn't meet the province's December 31 deadline, and then subsequently comes to the conclusion that they do have to close schools, does that mean they will not be eligible for the funding if they need to construct any new schools?
The minister keeps saying that the boards don't have to meet a deadline, that it's up to them, but he also points out that if they want to get funding for new schools, they can't have what the ministry considers to be excess funding. It doesn't sound to me like a decision that is solely up to the boards, but is shared, and of course the minister holds the purse strings.
Another media report: This is CBCS-FM, the English service of the CBC in northern Ontario. This is quoting Doreen Dewar from the Rainbow District School Board. Ms Dewar, as you may know, is certainly not a supporter of my political party. She tends to be more along the lines of the minister's political party. She makes it very clear, and I'm reading verbatim from the transcript.
"Here in the Rainbow District School Board it cost $14 million to operate our schools, that's in Espanola, Manitoulin and Sudbury district, and we are getting $11 million so that's a shortfall of $3 million. Now that's pupil accommodation grants. That means the schools, the operation of the schools, the maintenance of the schools and so on. We actually have three options that I think we're looking at. One is that we might close rural schools and bus kids into the larger urban centres. Another possibility is to put 7 and 8 into secondary schools and distribute the JKs to 6 among the other urban elementary schools and therefore close some smaller schools within the city. And a third option is to close some large secondary schools in the urban area. So we've got at least three possibilities we can look at."
Then further on she's asked if the new funding formula takes into account the needs of the north with respect to distances between schools and communities and the harsh winter conditions and the problems with busing that brings on. Ms Dewar says:
"I don't think it does. And certainly it doesn't take into account things like, well, washrooms, lunchrooms, computer labs, libraries, music rooms. You're funded strictly on a per-square-foot basis. You get $5.20 per square foot and each student is allotted in elementary school 100 square feet and in secondary schools 120 square feet. Now it's a very elaborate formula but the bottom line when you work it through for the Rainbow district board is that we are $3 million short."
As I say, this is not a New Democrat or even a Liberal. This is a Tory saying this. The minister keeps saying that this is just up to the boards, but she goes on with a rather interesting comment:
"We're trying to convince the minister that we require, especially our outlying schools and our community schools in the outlying areas -- that is a very important part of any community."
Then she's asked whether she has a deadline, farther on. She says:
"Yes, we have a deadline. We have to get this under control for...the schools will have to be closed for September 1999. That means we're going to be starting looking at the reports from our administration no later than November and then we will start the school closure process in early 1999."
Ms Dewar makes it quite clear that the funding formula leaves that board short $3 million; that it doesn't take into account the real needs of schools; that it is the minister and the ministry that have done this, not the board; and that their closing schools is not because they're short of students but because they're short of cash from the ministry. She also points out that they do indeed have a deadline.
In those schools that are not closing, I would like to point out what has happened as a result of the funding formula, even where boards are not closing a school. We're finding that maintenance has dropped substantially, that schools where they used to clean the rooms, the washrooms, the gym, the labs, everything every day or every evening, they're are now being cleaned every second day. There have been lots of complaints about what this means for washrooms in particular. Now some boards are saying, "We will clean the washrooms every day but we won't clean the rest of the school as much."
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In some math classes teachers have complained substantially about the amount of chalk dust because of the failure to clean the boards every day. When this is raised with the minister he says: "These are just decisions by the board and their administration. It's not anything to do with the government." Of course it is directly related to the funding formula.
Mr Young: Come on, Bud. Chalk on the chalkboards, come on.
Mr Wildman: If you had to breathe in that chalk dust all day, you would know what they're talking about. Maybe I should relate to the parents and the teachers who have complained about this that the Conservative members find this amusing.
Mr Young: You are, you're amusing.
Mr Wildman: They find it amusing that people are having to breathe in chalk dust. The kids with asthma are particularly concerned about it.
Mr Wayne Wettlaufer (Kitchener): I am an asthmatic and I don't find that a major issue.
Mr Wildman: I'm glad to hear that. I'm not sure that all the parents would agree with you.
I'd like to know, particularly with regard to the funding formula, why is it that the government decided that schools have to operate at 100% capacity? In other words, they have to be overcrowded. Why is it that when the panel making recommendations on the funding formula to the ministry made the suggestion that schools be able to operate at 95% or 90% capacity, the ministry didn't accept that?
You've caused an enormous problem for school boards. If a school board in an area in southern Ontario has an inner-city school that is at 95% capacity, that means according to your funding formula, your spatial requirements, that they have extra space. You add up all that extra space in all those inner-city schools and it may come out that they have one too many schools, or more than one too many schools. They need to build schools in the outlying areas, in the suburbs, where the population is growing. But unless they move all those kids around in the inner city and close some of those schools to get rid of the excess space that you've decided is excess, they won't get the money to build the schools they need in the suburban areas.
Why is it that a school that has a classroom built for 25 kids has to have 25 kids in that classroom to be considered proper? Why can't they have 23 or 24 and still be able to build a school out in the suburbs where they need the classroom? Why do you have to close down all the schools in the inner city and tear the heart out of the neighbourhood, and completely separate from the educational issues, destroy the recreational programs that are carried out in that school during the evening and on weekends, as the school is the centre of the community? Why do you have to do that?
Why is everything put in the terms of these rather unreasonable numbers, and then you get up and say, "It's not our decision; it's up to the board"? Everybody who knows anything about this knows that it is in fact your decision. You're the one who decided on the funding formula. You're the one who decided these schools have to operate at 100% capacity. You're the one who is deciding that inner-city schools have to close, not because they don't have enough kids, but because you say unless they have 100% capacity, they don't have enough kids.
One of your backbenchers got up in the House last night and make a speech on Bill 63, a very sincere speech, in which he said he didn't understand why the teachers were upset: "After all, there is all this more money being spent in the classrooms. There is a new curriculum. There is a new report card. The teachers should be happy." I know that member and I know he was sincere. After he finished in the comments and questions, I tried to explain to him why the teachers were upset, because his central question was, "Why would secondary school teachers be unhappy about having to teach another 25 minutes?" I said to him: "They offered to teach 25 minutes more, for the same number of students they're now teaching, and the government said no. That's why they're upset." It wasn't the board, it was the minister, because at the bottom line this is about money, it's about taking money out of the system, it's about spending less per pupil for education.
The Chair: One minute, Mr Wildman.
Mr Wildman: If you're going to do that, you have to have fewer teachers, you have to have fewer staff, because between 70% and 80% of a board's budget is for salaries for staff, support staff and teaching staff. If you're going to take an enormous amount of money out of the system, as you and your government have decided to do, you have to have fewer staff. It's a very simple equation. It's not hard math to figure out. So what this is all about is eliminating teaching jobs and having fewer teachers per student. Even though we've got more students this year as enrolment climbs across the province, we have fewer teachers. So we don't have more time for individual students with teachers; we have less.
Mrs McLeod: Mr Chairman, may I just take one moment to correct my own record? I made a statement earlier about guidance and library figures. I've gone back to my notes and the figure I read was actually for guidance. At the elementary school the funding formula allows one librarian to 752 students in the elementary panel, and one to 990 students in the secondary panel. I wanted, for the sake of accuracy, to correct that.
The Chair: Thank you. Minister, you now have 30 minutes in which to respond.
Hon David Johnson: I'm delighted to respond. There's quite a scope for response here, I might say. We started with the teachers' pension fund on page 50. As you'll appreciate, I'm not going to be able to respond to each and every question in the infinite detail that the questions were put, but with the teachers' pension fund I may call on staff from time to time to assist.
The Chair: If you do that, could I just ask that the staff who are called to the table and provide answers introduce themselves for the purposes of Hansard each time. It would greatly assist the recording of the proceeding.
Hon David Johnson: OK, they'll all take note of that.
I wasn't here, either at the provincial government or in the ministry, back in the late 1980s when I guess this started, with the government -- at that time the Liberal government -- wishing to make an arrangement whereby there would be a change in terms of the management of the teachers' pension fund. My understanding, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong, is that the government was fully responsible at that point in time and there was a desire this would be a shared responsibility of the pension fund. I'm seeing nods from behind me in that regard. So the Liberal government of the day, the way it has been explained to me, essentially made a decision that there would be a shift to a shared pension fund at that point in time.
However, it didn't get done. There was an election, an early election I guess after about three years of government at that time, and the people of Ontario didn't shine too brightly on the government of that era. As a result we had a new government in 1990, and that new government, the NDP government, attempted to pick up the pieces of this particular issue, albeit, as I understand it, the matter was basically laid at their doorstep; it was sort of a done deal, and make the best you can of it.
I believe it was somewhere around 1992 that the then NDP government reached a deal, presumably with the OTF. The government as part of that deal agreed to make payments of some $400 million or $500 million with regard to an unfunded liability that presumably existed at that point in time. Those payments were in addition to the regular payments, which I think now -- I don't know what they were then -- are probably approaching the $700-million to $800-million mark or thereabouts, so the kind of total expenditures for the teachers' pension at this time is somewhere in the area of $1.1 billion or $1.2 billion. That may be reflected in the notes in front of us.
Over the years, you may appreciate that teachers, like people in any other profession, after they put in many years of excellent service wonder about the possibility of retirement and early retirement. In many public or private bodies there are sometimes opportunities for early retirement, sometimes as a result of reorganization or whatever reasons. The teachers had what's called the 90 factor, which meant that if age and experience added up to 90, then they had the opportunity to retire at essentially an unreduced pension. This is the best way of explaining that.
However, in other fields, there were many opportunities that were more generous than that, and there had been discussions with regard to, for example, an 85 factor. Many teachers had expressed great interest in this. These may be teachers who have had 30 or 35 years' experience and when added to their age might come up to 85, might not come up to 90. But many teachers felt that after that number of years' service, perhaps they were deserving of consideration for early retirement. I'm sure many teachers have undoubtedly made submissions in that regard to everybody around this table through those years, made submissions to the OTF and made submissions to the government, encouraging any sort of resolution of that matter.
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We were pleased to sit down with the OTF and to make that arrangement. As a result, the 85 factor is in for a period of about three to four years, I think it is, until the end of the year 2002. Part of the arrangement is that if the experience gained in the plan is such that there is no unfunded liability, then I guess the payments for the unfunded liability would essentially cease and desist. But nobody knows for sure when that's going to happen. There may be speculation, and I guess the speculation here is that it's expected to occur in January 1999, but we don't know that. I don't think anybody in this room knows that for sure. An actuary will be looking at the plan and determining, I guess, if it has happened in the new year, and if it has, then that will click in. But it's a little premature to be spending monies that may or may not materialize. One can always hope that the experience gained is such that the unfunded liability has vanished, but one might be prudent to actually see if that's the case rather than guess at what an actuary is about to uncover and recommend in that regard.
Nevertheless, I will say that perhaps the funding in education shouldn't be solely determined by the luck of the draw or by the experience gained in the pension fund, or the lack of experience gained. Surely we want our elementary and secondary education to be on a much stabler footing than that, and that's the way we've gone about it.
The fair funding formula, an issue that has been raised in a number of the submissions, perhaps all of them, does allocate for the first time I'm aware of, fair funding to all the school boards across Ontario. I believe that everyone in this room has had it brought to their attention that there has been an inequity in the funding available to school boards in the past. I think that really hits home when you look beyond the boards and into the schools and the classrooms. What it means is that the children, the students in the classrooms across the province, have not had the same amount of resources directed to them. There has been a variance, a variance that I find impossible to explain.
Why should a child in a certain board in a certain part of Ontario have access to more resources than a child in another part of the province simply because of the accident of birth or of where the child happens to go to school? Does that seem fair? No. I find it hard to believe, and I'm sure nobody in this room would believe that was a fair situation. I'm going from memory now, but my recollection is that some boards, particularly in rural Ontario, would have had access to somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 per student on average, whereas other boards in more urbanized areas may have had in the vicinity of $7,000 per student on average.
Again, the reasons that this has developed obviously pertain to the assessment base. In certain areas the assessment base is very strong and the local boards had the capacity to tax and to raise funds, whereas in poorer areas of the province the boards didn't have that same capacity and as a result didn't have access to the same number of dollars and had to make do, which translates into lower resources for each student. I don't know. I guess some boards, even with lower resources, have put forward excellent quality programs. It's more of a challenge. But I think we'd be hard pressed to say that the students right across the province received the same educational opportunity as a result of this vast difference in funding. This government felt that that could no longer be tolerated, that in the province of Ontario a student is a student, a child is a child, and they all need to be treated the same. As a result, we have the funding formula that's before us today.
There's another basic aspect of this funding formula which is important, and that is the amount of money that's directed into the classroom. I know that one of the highly respected former cabinet ministers of the province, John Sweeney, was appointed by the previous government.
Mr Wildman: Highly respected.
Hon David Johnson: Highly respected. He did an investigation. I'm not sure what the full study was, but part of the study at any rate, and an integral part of the study, was the funding that was involved in education. It was his conclusion that around 50% of the funding going into elementary and secondary was directed outside the classroom, was not ending up in the classroom. This is a suspicion, I guess, that --
Mr Wildman: It depends on how you define "classroom."
Hon David Johnson: It's his report. He defined it. I'm only telling you his conclusions.
Mr Wildman: I think he took your definition.
Hon David Johnson: If you have a row with Mr Sweeney, then I'm sure you and your colleagues to your left, the Liberal Party, may want to have a row with Mr Sweeney, but I'll leave that to you. I'll simply leave it that he was a highly respected member of this Legislature, which we have all agreed on, and I'm sure his report deserves a good deal of respect.
Parents have long had the suspicion, and certainly I can remember from the days of being involved at the municipal level when the tax bills would come in, people looking at their tax bills -- and as we're all aware, the education portion of the tax bill in Toronto was about 65% and in many areas it was 75% or thereabouts -- senior citizens, working-class people with families struggling to get by, small business owners, you name it, people who were trying to make do in our society were really expressing concern to me as a local elected representative, whether at the councillor level or at the mayoral level, directly through the public forums we had.
At those public forums around tax time where there was a representative from the school board, a representative of the local municipality and a representative of the region, invariably the vast majority of the discussion focused on the school board and were the monies being well spent. There's no question that the input I received through those years was that people were not happy with the way the money was being spent. They agreed with Mr Sweeney that too much of the money was ending up outside the classroom, in a bureaucracy, in administration, not being effectively used, and not only were the children not getting the advantage of this money to its full extent but the taxpayers were being taxed beyond their ability to pay.
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Those are two pretty important concepts going into the funding formula and, as a result, the formula does direct more money into the classroom. We haven't entirely used Mr Sweeney's definition. Our definition was that formerly about 61% of the monies were directed to the classroom, whereas through the new funding formula we've increased that to about 65% with a difference of maybe 4% or 5% more going into the classroom as a result of the new funding formula, which is certainly a step in the right direction.
Inevitably, that means less money is going outside of the classroom, to which most people would say, "Hurray." Most people might say, "It should even be less yet," that the 4% or 5% decrease in monies going outside the classroom should be even lower. But there certainly is a role for non-classroom activities, the administrative functions etc, at a certain level. That's basically what we've ended up with.
I might say there's been a question about the operations component, going into the maintenance of schools. Again, there's a vast variance across Ontario in terms of monies which have been allocated for the operation and maintenance of schools. I think we do a disfavour to some school boards by saying that those boards which have spent the highest automatically know the precise, right way to approach operations and maintenance, because there are many other boards across Ontario that have spent less money on operations and maintenance. They have found more efficient ways to deliver that service and there's quite a remarkable difference. Best practices, I would call it. So the question is, on behalf of the taxpayers of Ontario and also on behalf of the students and teachers: Should we not take advantage of those best practices and should we not insist that all boards look at the best possible way to deliver the kinds of services that are not being directed directly into the schoolroom? If some boards can deliver basic operations and maintenance at a lower cost, then all boards should be encouraged to look into it and be more efficient.
In terms of the funding formula, we have taken a median. Some boards are already spending less than that. So on a square-footage basis some boards will actually see an increase in their budgets and may not know what to do with the extra money. Other boards which have spent beyond the norm, beyond the median, will see a reduction, but we're not asking them to do anything that other boards are not already doing. If board A can deliver an excellent level of service for less money, why can't board B do the same thing?
I might say that when you look at the numbers in general, some people may say, "Well, those boards that are spending less are probably new boards with new schools and different circumstances," but it doesn't seem to be that easy. Some of the big boards are spending less money, and some of the big boards are spending more money. The same with small boards. Some boards with older schools are spending less money and vice versa. We've also taken into account in the formula that there is an extra adjustment for boards that normally do have older schools though.
That is the basic approach to the funding formula, which I think is a fair one. It allocates more monies to the classroom. The reckoning of the finance division of the Ministry of Education is that there will be some $580 million more directed into the classroom over the next three years. Those monies are spent on the kinds of services that I guess I have outlined in the House many times. You're probably bored to death from listening to me recite them, but they do include teachers. The bulk of the money of course is for teachers. The bulk of that $580 million more will be for teachers, but it also includes supply teachers, textbooks, computers and supplies. These are computers going into the classroom, I might say, not computers that are used for central administration. It also includes library and guidance. It includes paraprofessionals such as speech pathologists, for example. Across Ontario more money has been allocated to each and every one of those categories.
Can I guarantee that each and every board has a higher allotment of each of those categories? No, that's not possible, but each and every board will have more money in total in the classroom. They have room within the classroom funding to vary the expenditure. Some boards may feel they need fewer supply teachers and more teachers or vice versa. That's up to them. They can make those kinds of decisions. They are restricted in terms of special education. We have put an envelope around special education so that they can't spend those monies on anything else. Beyond that, they do have flexibility. They also have the flexibility, I might add -- those boards, for example, which are spending less on operations and maintenance and which do benefit from the funding formula are free to take some of that extra money and invest it in the classroom. They may wish to buy more textbooks, they may wish to buy more computers, they may wish to have more teachers: those freedoms they do have.
Mr Wildman: How much of the $580 million is for cleaning, lighting and heating?
The Chair: You'll have your chance, Mr Wildman.
Hon David Johnson: In terms of beyond the classroom, as I mentioned, the monies in total will be reduced. But again I think the people of Ontario would say, "Hurray," to that.
Bill 63 was alluded to a couple of times here tonight, particularly since it's receiving royal assent today. Bill 63 came about because it was certainly the government's intention last fall when this whole topic was debated that we would be looking at defining -- instructional time was generally known. It was never defined in any act. No party had ever defined it in any act. The term "pupil" is another term that's not defined in any act. I think there are other examples of common words. Can you think of one of them? Class. "Class" is not defined in any act. The Liberal Party didn't define it, the NDP didn't, we hadn't in previous years. Lots of these terms aren't defined. Our view is that parents and the government and the people of Ontario would deem instructional time to be teachers' time in the classroom teaching kids.
But with the negotiations underway, obviously other factors were creeping into this definition and I might say that many of them, perhaps all of them, are legitimate in their own right. Supervising cafeterias, I'm sure, is something that has to be done. Supervising and monitoring of hallways, I'm sure, is a necessary task that's important in some or all schools, but it's not instructional time. Instructional time does not take up the full day. Instructional time is defined in terms of 1,250 minutes per week at the secondary level and 1,300 minutes per week at the elementary level, and when you factor that on a day-by-day basis, it works down obviously to the four hours and 10 minutes at the secondary level. That still leaves the rest of the day for other activities, all required activities and certainly preparation time is one of those activities which we would all insist be part of that extra day, and hall monitoring and cafeteria monitoring and that sort of thing. But in terms of our definition of instructional time, they would not be included. We indicated through this process that since there was, in some minds, a lack of clarity on this matter that we wouldn't rip open any contracts that have been signed until this matter was dealt with by the House.
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The matter has now been dealt with by the House. If royal assent does indeed occur today, or has occurred, then my understanding is as of midnight tonight that will be the definition of instructional time. While that won't be retroactive, and my guess is that most people here would at least say it shouldn't be retroactive, it does pertain to any future agreements that are reached.
Testing has been alluded to. My recollection is that the Royal Commission on Learning also had a good deal to say about testing and was a proponent of testing. The EQAO certainly has views on testing. The EQAO's Joan Green was in attendance at the announcement of grade 6 testing, very supportive.
You know who I think the ultimate authority on testing is? The ultimate authority is the parents. If you really want to know about testing, why don't you talk to parents? Certainly I get a lot of input from parents and parents are very supportive of the testing. It gives them a good window, not only into their own child's progress -- parents want to know how their child is progressing and the testing allows that to happen. It gives a window into the progress of schools. Parents want to know how their school is faring. Under the previous system it was difficult to know if their child was getting the benefit of the kind of education that other children in Ontario or in other provinces were getting, if they're having an education that is competitive in this world that we're involved with as we come into the 21st century.
It was really hard to understand, but now, with the test results, the parents know how their child is doing, how their school is faring, how their board is faring. The board, in terms of making decisions, will know how schools are faring, how the board is faring. If a school is not doing too well on the testing, the board will have the opportunity to address it through resources or whatever is required. Some parents -- I'm sure you've all heard this -- will say that even within a board the money has not always been allocated, in their estimation, in the fullest of fairness. I think this will assist the school councils, the school boards, everybody involved in education to ensure that every child is treated equally and fairly in our system.
The EQAO is getting its $6 million to do this. They've assured us that for the $6 million they'll be able to do this. Grade 3 testing is carrying on. They have the adequate funding to do grade 3 testing, grade 6 testing. My personal desire, I might say, is to expand.
There's no announcement here today. I'm not making any announcement. I'm sure you're all sorry to hear that I'm not here to make an announcement in that regard, but I'd like to expand it even further. I think, as we get experience, that's something that could well happen in the future. I certainly will be looking at it with a positive eye.
The textbooks were mentioned a few times today. I can't remember all the exact points that were made. I'm sure they were all positive points because this has been one of the best successes in education in the province of Ontario and one I can tell you this government is extremely proud of. It's been a battle along the way because there have been people trying to stall this and slow it down and deny those books flowing into the classrooms.
If you're a principal in a school you may have received a discount from a particular board. If you look at the list price which has come out from the distributors in the first instance, before we know what the discount will be -- because the discount pertains to the volume of books, so you can't know what the discount is going to be up front until you know the exact volume of books. If you compare a discount you may have received in the past with the list price, and the list price also includes shipping and handling, for example, on top of that, then it may look as if the price is more expensive. But in each and every one of the examples we looked into -- two science books, a language book -- we've determined that the price the ministry has received has been better than the price at which the individual has formerly purchased the book.
We've had excellent value for these books, a $13-million discount, and that $13 million is going to be plowed right back into the system -- science equipment, more textbooks, computer software. It's going to be great.
Mrs McLeod: So you are using the rebate for more textbook purchases?
Hon David Johnson: Sure, there are going to be more textbook purchases, more science equipment.
The Chair: We'll just do a quick segue. The next component is 20 minutes per caucus. We'll start that with the official opposition today and then continue into our next session.
Mrs McLeod: It's tempting to pick up where the minister just left off.
I said I was going to start with the pension issue. I understand you to have said at the outset the $464 million which is not going to be paid out as of January 1 for the next year you're holding in abeyance because you're not confident with the actuarial figures that you have on the stability of the teachers' pension fund. Did I understand that correctly?
Hon David Johnson: I'm not an actuary and to presuppose that the experience gain -- you see, what's happening here is the fund is gaining because of the investments they make.
Mrs McLeod: Right.
Hon David Johnson: But you only need to look at the market over the past few months to realize that you can't guarantee that investments go up continually. Many investments have gone down.
Mrs McLeod: So what you're telling me then is that at the ministry you have two options. You've reached an agreement with the teachers that I thought was actually a bilaterally reached agreement, but you may suspend that agreement on January 1 if you're not satisfied about the security of the fund and you would then continue to invest your share of the $464.8 million. You would invest that in a pension fund to keep it stable. Obviously you can't require that that be matched because that was a part of the bilateral agreement. Can I have your assurance then that if you're satisfied that you don't need to continue to invest that $464.8 million in the pension fund, you will reinvest it in operating on elementary and secondary schools, on top of the current funding levels on the operating line?
Hon David Johnson: First of all, I need to correct -- when you say "suspend" an agreement, there's no suspension. The agreement will be carried through in its entirety. The agreement will be honoured in its entirety.
Mrs McLeod: Then tell me what that means. Does that mean $464.8 million in payments stop on January 1?
Hon David Johnson: If I can get a word in here, yes, the agreement is that once the experience gain essentially wipes out the unfunded liability, then the payments would cease and desist at that point in time. But only the actuary can tell that. This requires somebody with considerable experience and financial ability. It's not something that the minister or any politician could say when that's going to happen. There's an expertise involved. When that happens, that will cease.
Our approach to education is not based on what happens or doesn't happen with the pension plan, because the experience gain might not be wiped out until a year later. We can't base education funding on something that may or may not happen, so what we've done is base it on a solid footing, on a per pupil basis right across the province. We've guaranteed the funding over the next three years, at least $13 billion, plus there will still be pension payments to be made. The regular payments will be made -- it's only the unfunded liability payments that are in question -- plus all the other investments we've made. This school year will total pretty close to $15 billion. That will be more spending in secondary and elementary education than ever before in the history of Ontario.
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Mrs McLeod: That does confirm what we thought originally, which is that the annual reduction in teacher pension funds will be withdrawn from your overall funding for education and will be a saving to the government directly and not reinvested.
With that in mind then, can you give me your per pupil funding estimates for elementary and secondary over the course of the next three years of your supposedly stable funding? I'd like to have your enrolment numbers, your projected enrolments, in order to know what basis you're using for the per pupil funding.
Hon David Johnson: I'm not sure if anybody here has come equipped with precise numbers. My --
Mrs McLeod: I'm prepared to have it tabled.
Hon David Johnson: Nancy Naylor, I guess you want to introduce yourself.
I have to go back to the statement that the administration and non-classroom monies are being reduced. I think that's key. I bear no shame in that. I'm proud of that, because we want to spend more money in the classrooms. But per pupil, the non-classroom funding will go down. That's what people have been asking for for many years. In terms of within the classroom, my understanding is that over the three-year period the per pupil funding will be higher than it was in 1997.
Mrs McLeod: I'm asking for the figures, including your enrolment figures, please.
Ms Nancy Naylor: The minister's statement is correct.
The Chair: Excuse me, could you introduce yourself for the record.
Ms Naylor: I'm Nancy Naylor, the director of the education finance branch in the ministry. As I said, the minister's statement is correct. Our analysis is that classroom funding does go up on a per pupil basis. Although we don't have the figures here at the moment, we could provide those.
Hon David Johnson: The other point is that in terms of enrolment, nobody knows precisely what the enrolment is going to be.
Mrs McLeod: I'm looking for the estimates on which you base the statements that you make publicly. I'll expect those on Tuesday then. Thank you.
There are several kinds of figures that we would like and obviously we've raised a number of the areas. I suspect that you will not be able to give me an estimate on how many fewer teachers you based your allocation for teachers on, but I would appreciate some figures that would give me some sense of what you put into the funding formula.
Hon David Johnson: In fact, the funding formula is based on at least 3,000 more teachers over the next three years.
Mrs McLeod: I'm asking for this year. I'm asking for current enrolment levels.
Hon David Johnson: We've been attempting --
Mrs McLeod: If you're going to give me future figures, I want those always in the context of enrolment. I want to know teachers per student, if that's what you're going to give me. I want to actually see whether or not you are calculating more teachers for your students rather than fewer teachers.
Hon David Johnson: We will certainly do our best to get all of this information. I will say that with the caps on the class size, that --
Mrs McLeod: And the increase in instructional time.
Hon David Johnson: -- the teachers will be no longer teaching classes with increasing numbers of students in them, which --
Mrs McLeod: You provided a funding formula which was supposed to be adequate.
Hon David Johnson: -- is most important. One interesting thing is that I've heard boards with average class sizes of 29 are having to reduce that down to 25 at the elementary, or boards at the secondary level having average class sizes of 25 or 26 having to reduce that down to 22, which means that creates more classes and more teachers. All of those new teachers have been factored into the formula.
Mrs McLeod: It's a very straightforward question. I can trade statistics with you all afternoon. I'll show you how many classes are increasing.
Hon David Johnson: That's why over the period of three years there are actually more teachers.
Mrs McLeod: Why don't we, then, ask you for your statistics, if you're keeping any statistics. I'd like to see how many classes actually exist that are over your 22 and 25, and how many are under 22 and 25. You may not have those statistics yet, but let me put on record that I would like to see the kind of tracking so that we know exactly what happens when you apply averages.
But my primary question now is, I want to know what went into the funding formula in terms of your calculations of numbers of teachers that would have to be funded, or is that, like school closures, not something that even gets considered by the ministry? Have you just come up with arbitrary figures: "Here's the salary; here's a lump sum per student; here's our given budget"? How did you come up with the figure that you gave to the school boards for the funding formula for providing teachers per student? Did you not base it on how many students per teacher you were going to have, including your increased instructional time?
Hon David Johnson: First of all, I don't want you to dismiss the average class sizes --
Mrs McLeod: No, I'm not. I just want the instructional time included.
Hon David Johnson: -- which you did in terms of your introduction. Yes, there are class sizes which are larger, no question about that. There always have been. When you were in power there were; when the NDP were in power --
Mrs McLeod: The average class size stays stable. I appreciate that.
Hon David Johnson: The average class size has gone up, and they've gone up at the elementary level each and every year. I haven't gone back into the 1980s, but --
Mrs McLeod: You froze the average class size at the current levels.
Hon David Johnson: Right.
Mrs McLeod: That should not have increased or decreased overall teachers. I want to know how much you've estimated --
Hon David Johnson: But it has before. Over the seven years before, it went up each and every year at the elementary.
Mrs McLeod: That's not the question.
Hon David Johnson: And then we stopped it. If we hadn't done that, they would carry on and continue to grow, and you know what that means. Yes, there are class sizes that are larger, but that means a class size of 35, which there are in the province of Ontario, would be 36 or 37 and the smaller classes would be larger.
Nancy, maybe you can respond in terms of the formula and the --
The Chair: Minister, I'm going to interrupt you just to say that we will resume this questioning tomorrow. We have a brief point of order.
Mr Wildman: Just a point of order for the clerk and Hansard to respond to.
The Chair: Pardon me, I want to just correct that we will resume next Tuesday at 3:30. Minister, is there any reason that you'd like to share at this time that you can anticipate being delayed for that session?
Hon David Johnson: The reason I'm delayed, if I am, is because I'm involved in speaking in the House, but that can't be possible, presumably, because we wouldn't sit here, or because the media have an interest in talking to me. I wouldn't want to presuppose what the media would have in mind next Tuesday afternoon. I feel an obligation, as I'm sure you can appreciate, to speak to the media if they wish to ask me questions.
The Chair: We appreciate that. I just want to apprise you on behalf of the committee that the segments are seven and a half hours, and right now we're looking at some makeup time. If that became consequential, there may be ways we can work it out informally. I hope we can, but if it becomes more consequential, we're looking at an additional day and inconvenience. We'd like to work with you to avoid that.
Hon David Johnson: I assure you I'll do my best to be here promptly, given all my other obligations.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr Wildman, do you have a question?
Mr Wildman: I've just got a short question. Perhaps the clerk or Hansard could respond. How soon will the draft transcript of this session, the immediate Hansard, be available?
Mrs Beth Grahame: I think I'll request that this have immediate transcription.
Mr Wildman: Good, because that way, when I get my 20 minutes, it'll give the minister the opportunity to answer the questions I asked.
The Chair: I just want to ask Mr Young, and perhaps Mr Wildman and Mr Cleary -- there were just two very informal, brief matters.
Thank you, Minister.
The committee adjourned at 1758.