BRITISH COLUMBIA COLLEGE OF TEACHERS
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARDS' ASSOCIATION
COALITION FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS IN ONTARIO
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF INDIAN FRIENDSHIP CENTRES
CONTENTS
Tuesday 16 April 1996
Education Quality and Accountability Office Act, 1995, Bill 30, Mr Snobelen / Loi de
1995 sur l'Office de la qualité et de la responsabilité en éducation, projet de loi 30, M. Snobelen
Ontario College of Teachers Act, 1995, Bill 31, Mr Snobelen / Loi de 1995
sur l'Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario, projet de loi 31, M. Snobelen
British Columbia College of Teachers
Bob Steventon, chair
Doug Smart, registrar, on leave
Bill Broadley, council member, zone 13
Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario
Sheryl Hoshizaki, president
Joan Westcott, executive director
Ontario Public School Boards' Association
Donna Cansfield, president
Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario
Greg Pavelich
Lynn MacGyver
Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres
Sylvia Maracle, executive director
Tim Thompson, education policy analyst
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Président: Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Gerretsen, John
(Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
*Agostino, Dominic (Hamilton East / -Est L)
*Ecker, Janet (Durham West / -Ouest PC)
*Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L)
Johns, Helen (Huron PC)
Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
*Laughren, Floyd (Nickel Belt ND)
*Munro, Julia (Durham-York PC)
*Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
*Pettit, Trevor (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Preston, Peter L. (Brant-Haldimand PC)
*Smith, Bruce (Middlesex PC)
*Wildman, Bud (Algoma ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Miclash, Frank (Kenora L) for Mr Gravelle
Ross, Lillian (Hamilton West PC) for Mrs Johns
Skarica, Toni (Wentworth North PC) for Mr Jordan
Froese, Tom (St Catharines-Brock PC) for Mr Preston
Clerk / Greffière: Lynn Mellor
Staff / Personnel:
Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1530 in room 151.
EDUCATION QUALITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR L'OFFICE DE LA QUALITÉ ET DE LA RESPONSABILITÉ EN ÉDUCATION
Consideration of Bill 30, An Act to establish the Education Quality and Accountability Office and to amend the Education Act with respect to the Assessment of Academic Achievement / Projet de loi 30, Loi créant l'Office de la qualité et de la responsabilité en éducation et modifiant la Loi sur l'éducation en ce qui concerne l'évaluation du rendement scolaire.
ONTARIO COLLEGE OF TEACHERS ACT, 1995 / LOI DE 1995 SUR L'ORDRE DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS DE L'ONTARIO
Consideration of Bill 31, An Act to establish the Ontario College of Teachers and to make related amendments to certain statutes / Projet de loi 31, Loi créant l'Ordre des enseignantes et des enseignants de l'Ontario et apportant des modifications connexes à certaines lois.
BRITISH COLUMBIA COLLEGE OF TEACHERS
The Vice-Chair (Mr John Gerretsen): I'd like to call the meeting to order. We have some representatives from the British Columbia College of Teachers on a teleconference line right now. I'd like to welcome them to our meeting. My name is John Gerretsen. I'm the Vice-Chair of the standing committee on social development. We have with us in British Columbia, Bob Steventon, who's the chair; Doug Smart, the registrar, on leave; Marie Kerchum, the acting registrar; and Bill Broadley, council member for zone 13 of the British Columbia College of Teachers.
Mr Bob Steventon: Mr Broadley was also the chair of the council for the first four years of its operation.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. Welcome to our meeting. We have about a half-hour set aside for your presentation and for questions from the different members of our committee. I would appreciate it, if there is a presentation you could make, if you could start that right now and if you could identify yourselves so that we will have the appropriate record in Hansard, please.
Mr Steventon: I'm Bob Steventon. I'm the chair of the council. We do not actually have a presentation as such. We're happy to respond to questions and in fact are responding to your invitation to provide whatever information we can that will be of use to you in your deliberations. I am assuming that members of your committee are aware of the work that the BC College of Teachers does and that you do not need a brief introduction to the work we do. Am I correct in that assumption?
The Vice-Chair: I see some heads nodding no and some heads aren't nodding at all. Could you give us a brief outline of how the British Columbia College of Teachers works and perhaps how long it's been in existence. Just give us a bit of background and then we'll have lots of questions for you. We appreciate your involvement, all of you.
Mr Steventon: The College of Teachers has been in operation since January 1, 1988. It was created in 1987 through the passage of what was then Bill 20, I believe, the Teaching Profession Act. I may be out of sequence; it may be Bill 19. It's sort of irrelevant at this point. That act was actually quite a surprise to the teaching profession. British Columbia did not go through the process you've been through of an investigation of the issue prior to the creation of the act.
The college council governs the affairs of the college. The council consists of 15 members elected in 15 geographic zones, from different parts of the province. The college council also includes five members who are appointed, one of whom is appointed by the deans of education of the faculties of education. Two members are appointed by the Minister of Education and two members are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. So there are five appointed members, 15 elected members.
Our functions are essentially to approve for certification purposes teacher education programs, to establish the requirements for certification, to issue teaching certificates and to be responsible for a disciplinary process that may lead to reprimand, suspension or cancellation of certificates and termination of membership.
Membership in the college is required of all British Columbia public school teachers, administrators and superintendents. Our membership is actually considerably larger than that. Many of the individuals who teach in independent schools in this province are also members of the college, but are not required to be.
Perhaps someone else at this table would like to add a point or two I have missed.
Mr Doug Smart: My name's Doug Smart. I'm the registrar, on educational leave. Just one terminology we might clarify: A superintendent of schools in British Columbia is equivalent to your director of a school division. So everybody up to and including your directors would be required to be members of the college.
The Vice-Chair: Are there any other comments you would like to make at this time?
Mr Bill Broadley: If I could add one specific detail, this is quoting from our act. This is the object of the BC College of Teachers. It states specifically, "It is the object of the college to establish, having regard to the public interest, standards for the education, professional responsibility and competence of its members, persons who hold certificates of qualification and applicants for membership, and, consistent with that object, to encourage the professional interest of its members in those matters."
The Vice-Chair: We have some questions now. I'll start with members from the government side and we have about eight minutes for each caucus.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): Thank you very much for your presentation. The legislation we have before us today calls for the establishment of a 31-member governing council with 17 members elected by the profession. There are some people, including the teachers' unions, who feel all of these elected members should be actual classroom teachers. Relative to your situation, I'm wondering, are department heads or teacher-librarians, board consultants, vice-principals, superintendents considered to be members of the teaching profession in BC and would they be eligible to run for election to your governing council?
Mr Steventon: Any member of the college, a person who has membership fees in good standing, who holds a certificate of qualification, is able to seek office as a member of the council. Of the 15 elected members currently, several are retired teachers, one is an administrative officer now and one is a retired administrative officer. The majority of the college council members are active classroom teachers, but there is no restriction other than that there are some specific geographical restrictions. One has to either reside in or work for a school board in a particular geographic zone, but there is no restriction based on whether a person is working as a teacher or an administrative officer or whether the person is teaching at all, as long as they have membership and are resident in that zone.
Mr Pettit: What role do you think parents and the public should have in setting standards for the teaching profession?
Mr Steventon: I'll let Mr Smart address that.
Mr Smart: We think particularly important the role of the two appointed members who are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. They really play a significant public role in that. The people who have served in that role bring that public perspective. Some of them have been school trustees previously. Others have been involved in community organizations. They bring that wider public perspective to the discussion.
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): I just had one quick question: What is the fee that teachers in British Columbia would pay to maintain the College of Teachers? Perhaps you could tell us a bit about the way in which it's organized financially.
Mr Broadley: In the first year it was a $50 membership fee. We found that provided us with a considerable surplus. We reduced the fee to $40 and $35. It's now back to $40.
Mr Smart: In addition to that, though, we should make clear that there are some fees for initial registration. There are evaluation fees and certificate fees for initial evaluation of applicants. The evaluation fees depend on where people have completed their education, so people who have a relatively straightforward application, who have completed their program in a British Columbia university and completed their teacher education in British Columbia, pay a lower fee than people who have much more extensive documentation and require much more scrutiny, who come from outside the country, for example. In addition to the annual fee, there are some initial fees.
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Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): Thank you very much for providing us with your input. Any words of advice or comments on informing or dealing with the profession about this change which some teachers have welcomed and other teachers have not? Secondly, any advice to give us on the powers of investigation, the keeping of information which a college has to do? That's something which has created some concerns in some groups when they look at the investigation powers colleges and registrars would have.
Mr Smart: In terms of your first question, informing the profession, be patient, recognize that it's going to be a long road, that there will remain people who have concerns. It does require some constant information to people about what role the college plays and what it doesn't play.
In terms of the investigation function, I think there are some differences between the proposed Ontario legislation and what we have here. We may be misinterpreting this, but we understand from reading your legislation, for example, that a school board could report a case to the Ontario college without having taken any action itself. Under our legislation, before a school board could report a matter to the college it would have had to have conducted some investigation and taken some action itself, unless of course the person resigned. Then they may decide it's in the public interest to report that resignation to the college.
Investigations are becoming increasingly complex. Our freedom of information and protection of privacy legislation is much newer than Ontario's and so we are just beginning to get some experience with balancing issues in public access to information versus the protection of privacy. We're not in a position yet to say how those are going to really play out, but there is a lot of sensitivity to those issues.
Mrs Ecker: There's been some concern that the school board process, when it's perhaps taking action against a teacher it has some reason to have some concerns with, and the college taking action against a teacher, that somehow those two separate things would interfere with each other or that it's duplication or putting the teacher at double jeopardy, or something like that. Have you had enough experience on this? How is that kind of dual role working out?
Mr Steventon: I'll do two things. I'll first describe the process that we follow, that is spelled out in our legislation and in our bylaws. Then I'll deal briefly with the issue of double jeopardy. The process we follow is this: There is a requirement in the School Act that school boards report to us all cases in which teachers are reprimanded at the board level, suspended or whose contracts are terminated. That must be reported to us. Boards must report resignations if the boards determine it is in the public interest to do so.
In order to prevent the kind of duplication you have referred to, in the case of a matter that comes under a grievance and may go right through the grievance arbitration process, our act actually requires that we not act on that matter until the grievance arbitration process is concluded. For example, in an instance where a teacher has been suspended for misconduct, we will not act on that. Although we will have received a report and may have opened an investigation, we will essentially not act on that matter until the grievance arbitration process has concluded, and the conclusion reached in that process may very well influence the decision we make with respect to the conduct of that particular case.
I will also briefly talk about the notion of double jeopardy. I think it's fair to say that teachers, as with other professionals, are in jeopardy, if you wish to use that phrase, in several different arenas. That includes, of course, matters which may result in either suits under civil law or criminal charges being laid, matters which relate to your right to hold an employment position within a particular school district with a particular school board and also questions that relate to your right to hold a certificate. In that sense, teachers are subject to scrutiny from several perspectives, but we work quite diligently to make sure the processes we follow are fair and the questions we scrutinize people for relate to their right to continue to practise teaching in this province.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): I just have a quick question. What was the reaction of teachers with the implementation of the College of Teachers in 1988 and what was it, say, two or three years later?
Mr Broadley: Teachers held rallies opposing the legislation. I personally spoke with some I know in Victoria, where I live. But then once the legislation was passed, the teachers' federation took the position that it should attempt to get federation activists elected, and generally that's the route that's been followed.
The official policy of the teachers' federation is still in opposition to the existence of the college, but there's much less discussion of that now at annual meetings. I think generally it's been accepted, but not publicly.
The Vice-Chair: We'll now turn to the official opposition.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): The establishment of the college, you've just indicated, was probably not at the request of the teachers. Through your remarks you indicated that. Was there a public request for it, a public demand for the establishment back in 1988?
Mr Broadley: Teachers had requested the establishment of a Teaching Profession Act some 20 years ago. At that time I was president of the teachers' federation, and in fact chaired the committee that sought that, and governments of various stripes refused to give teachers that authority. Part of the reason for denying it may have been because our proposal at that time was that it be within the teachers' organization.
In the mid-1980s, when teachers in BC didn't have bargaining rights, they were doing a charter challenge against the government because they didn't have the right to bargain all conditions of employment. I know the government believed it was going to lose the case and had to do something, and the something it did was to give teachers bargaining rights and at the same time -- there were two pieces of legislation -- implement the Teaching Profession Act, which gave the profession basically the autonomy it had sought earlier but in a separate organization.
I believe it was sold to a government that generally was not friendly towards the teachers' federation on the basis that two organizations would diminish the strength of the BC Teachers' Federation, and the result was the establishment of the British Columbia College of Teachers. But it's an interesting political boot that occurred to give teachers these rights, which I believe have been exercised quite well. The evidence of that is that there has been no significant change to the legislation brought by any government in the eight years it has existed. There have been changes, but they've been generally changes that the college has requested to facilitate its operations.
Mr Miclash: You've been around since your establishment in 1988, and I guess what I'm looking for are some examples as to how the colleges actually service the teachers in terms of the enhancement to their professionalism. Any other examples that you can give since 1988?
Mr Smart: I think one of the significant things is that there is clearly now a public perception, both within teaching and broader, that the College of Teachers is taking action against people who should not be teaching. We have a significant record of dealing with cases, of removing certificates. As a number of people have noted, we do that with the utmost due process and fairness. There has been relatively little -- with one notable exception early on -- public criticism of our handling of discipline cases. So I think there is a sense that we're dealing with that.
The college has deliberately stayed out of the areas of ongoing teacher professional development. The advice here, and it was confirmed by a royal commission that operated at about the same time the college was being established, was that there were enough players in teacher professional development activity, including universities, school boards, the teachers' federation, and that it wasn't necessary for the college to get involved in that area. So the college has focused very significantly in the area of preservice teacher education, and we have conducted a review of teacher education in this province.
We are now in the process of dealing with proposals to establish additional universities or university colleges that will have teacher education programs. We're conducting reviews in this area in a way that reviews of proposals for teacher education programs were never conducted in the past.
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Mr Steventon: In addition to that, with respect to teacher education, one of the things we do is conduct an annual forum which brings together representatives of teachers' organizations, other organizations in education, and people from the faculties of education. It's our belief that we have essentially been able to provide a forum where people who would not usually have an opportunity to talk to one another get an opportunity to do that and become perhaps a little more aware of the factors that impinge on all of their collective efforts in education, and especially in teacher education. Our role has been one of facilitating, essentially, communication, working with faculties of education to improve teacher education programs, as well as the role of approving the nature of those programs.
Just one other example: We have twice now conducted a fairly extensive survey of graduates of the British Columbia teacher education programs so that we could determine both strengths and weaknesses of those programs and identify trends in the nature of those programs. Frankly, the results of the second survey, while I can't summarize them in a few seconds here, point to very positive trends in terms of generally an increase in the quality of those programs and an increase in the number of graduates of those programs who see the programs as having addressed their needs well.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): One of my colleagues from another party alluded to the fact that the numbers proposed in this legislation had to do with the fear of undue influence of the teaching federations, and in fact as part of the background that was discussed there was a referral to your experience where that may have been the case. I gathered you do not feel that way today and that this has been worked out. Is that correct?
Mr Broadley: I would think so. People at the teachers' federation sometimes have expressed frustration in terms of -- we're not on strings. Even though the teachers' federation helped many of us get elected, each member acts pretty independently. There is overall policy that generally is accepted by teachers in the province, but the public interest is always in the forefront as well. I just don't see that it has been a problem. If the teachers' federation were to try to tell council members what to do, then we'd have a problem.
The Vice-Chair: I'll now turn to the members of the third party.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): I have a couple of short questions. First, can you tell us -- and you may have already done that; I may have missed it -- what the makeup is of your board of governors? How many teachers, how many members of the public?
Mr Smart: Sure, 20 members; 15 elected from members of the profession -- in other words, members of the college -- each from a separate geographic zone. One zone, for example, would be Surrey, if you know British Columbia at all. Another zone would be mine, which is the north-central interior, the heart of the province. There are 15 members elected from those geographic zones.
Five members appointed: One appointed by the deans of the faculties of education; two appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council -- those two people are essentially lay people -- and two people appointed by the Minister of Education, Skills and Training. In the case of those two people today, one is a person who's active with the independent schools movement in this province, and the second is a person who is a fairly senior official in the Ministry of Education, Skills and Training.
Mr Wildman: Clearly the teachers have the majority.
Mr Smart: Absolutely.
Could I add one more comment?
Mr Wildman: Yes.
Mr Smart: If you were to attend our meetings, especially those times when we have a fairly sharp difference of opinion on issues, you would generally find that some of the teacher members of the council and some of the appointed members of the council would be voting on one side, and likewise some of each category would be voting on the other side. I cannot recall an issue where there's been a clear division of opinion between elected members of the council and appointed members of the council.
Mr Wildman: Thank you. The other question has to do with questions of misconduct, or alleged misconduct, by a teacher and discipline. Is my understanding correct that in British Columbia the local board, as the employer, would investigate and take whatever disciplinary action was deemed appropriate, and then of course the teacher and his or her federation would have the right to grieve and so on, and that whole process would be dealt with first, before it would come before the college, if it did come before the college, on a question of whether or not the teaching certificate should be lifted?
Mr Smart: I just want to clarify. You're essentially correct, except that when the board makes its initial decision to take disciplinary action, it must report it to the college. If there is a grievance process that's then initiated, the college would not begin its investigation or not continue with its investigation until the grievance was resolved. But when the board makes its initial decision, it is required to report that to us. So we would be aware, and one of the things we try to do is keep on top of those processes to find out where the grievance is and when it will be resolved.
Mr Wildman: I understand. So the college would not be taking a position with regard to whether or not discipline was warranted or what type of discipline should be done, other than the board having you informed about what was happening. After the whole process was complete, the college might then proceed if it felt it was required to take action with regard to the removal of a teaching certificate.
Mr Smart: I have to clarify two other points. That is only the case if the matter initiates with the school board. If we received a report, for example, of a criminal conviction, the college might be involved in some cases simultaneously with the school board initially. It is not always the case that we follow the school board's dealing with a case. Particularly if somebody is not currently teaching, the college obviously would proceed with the case independent of action by a school board.
Mr Wildman: I'll just conclude then by asking one other question. Is it possible in your system for a parent or a student or a trustee or perhaps another member of a teaching profession to initiate a complaint with the college alleging misconduct of a member of the teaching profession, rather than having those people go through the local board first?
Mr Smart: There are two answers. Generally speaking, we would refer those people to the local school board. There is, however, provision in our legislation where the registrar can bring forward a case that comes to his or her attention, and we do have certain guidelines set out in our bylaws. It is possible that the registrar could bring forward a case to the council and seek directions on whether it should be referred to the disciplinary process, but by and large, certainly in the case of a trustee, we would expect a trustee to operate within their own board first. There are provisions in our bylaws; for example, if the college becomes aware of a criminal conviction, we don't have to wait for a report from a school board.
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Mr Steventon: Let me add one more thing. We also have a provision in our legislation, in our bylaws, for what is called a five-member complaint. In other words, we can receive a report on a teacher alleging misconduct if it is made by five members of the profession but not by an individual member. We have received relatively few of those complaints but we have received some, and that is one of the other avenues by which we receive reports on members.
Mr Wildman: You've answered my final question: Has it happened very often that the registrar has, on the basis of complaint, initiated a discussion with the board about whether or not action might be started?
Mr Steventon: Be clear that a five-member complaint is a particular source of reports for us. A five-member complaint is not a complaint initiated by the registrar; it's initiated by those five members. I'll let Mr Smart answer your question.
Mr Smart: We certainly have had cases where we've become aware of criminal matters particularly about people who aren't currently employed where we have initiated action. I'm not aware of any case where we have had a parental complaint that's gone forward by us without any action being taken by the school board.
Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): Could you help me out with the distinction between misconduct, incompetence and incapacity? Are they dealt with differently than the issue of misconduct, which you've been talking about?
Mr Smart: Yes. We think that misconduct deals with behaviour, and there's all sorts of case law on what misconduct is, but it's essentially inappropriate conduct with pupils of a physical, sexual nature. Incompetence generally deals with carrying out one's duties in the classroom in the instructional sense. Incapacity generally refers to being unable to carry out one's duties because of a medical condition. It could be alcoholism, it could be a mental condition and I suppose in some circumstances it could even be a physical condition.
We can cancel certificates for misconduct, we can suspend certificates, including indefinite suspension, for incompetence and incapacity, we can require medical evidence, we can require a course of study, but we cannot under our legislation just cancel a certificate for incapacity or incompetence.
Mr Laughren: The incompetence issue, though, is dealt with first at the board level and then it comes to the college.
Mr Smart: Yes. Incompetence issues are dealt with first at the board level. They must be.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your involvement and for all your information. We'll sign off now, and I hope that springtime has arrived on the west coast because it certainly hasn't here so far.
Mr Steventon: You're welcome. We hope it was helpful.
The Vice-Chair: I think we should handle question period that way. Phone it in.
FEDERATION OF WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS OF ONTARIO
The Vice-Chair: I'd now like to call on the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario, Joan Westcott, executive director, and Sheryl Hoshizaki, president. Thank you for joining us. You have half an hour for your presentation, and that includes any time for questions and answers from the different members who are here. Perhaps you could identify yourselves for the purposes of Hansard, please, and make your presentation.
Ms Sheryl Hoshizaki: I'm Sheryl Hoshizaki, president of the Federation of the Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario. We represent approximately 41,000 teachers in the elementary system and who are women in the public system. With me I have Joan Westcott, who is the executive director of the federation.
You have before you our brief. Some of you on this committee I know will recognize our format in brief, and hopefully you will find it helpful. I'm going to try to do an overview to give you the opportunity for questions.
We were part and parcel of the presentation from the Ontario Teachers' Federation. I'm sure you're well aware that there are five affiliates, and we believe it important to present to you on behalf of our members today. We would not necessarily like to restate the positions of the Ontario Teachers' Federation. In some cases we might want to emphasize them, but we also believe we have some particular issues that we would like to present to you on our own behalf.
We also represent a majority of teachers who teach in the classroom, and for that reason we have established today what we, as teachers in the elementary system, believe are two themes to our presentation, one being the issues of self-governance and the second being natural justice.
I would like to state at the outset that in the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario we believe that no profession is strengthened by incompetence. Our members have consistently stated, and our organization on their behalf, that we welcome the opportunity for self-governance, and we have been consistent with these beliefs. We believe it is our leadership responsibility to publicize this position.
We'd like to move to the area of self-governance. We believe that self-governance "offers teachers an opportunity to take collective responsibility for their own profession," and in the words of the parliamentary assistant, we also agree that this government has complemented our position by saying, "We are putting the responsibility for excellent teaching in the hands of those who are best qualified to know what a teacher should and must be today and in the future." In order to do this, we urge the committee to revisit the issue of self-governance and how this bill actually denies the opportunity for teachers in self-governance. We would like to refer to subsection 4(2), the composition of the council; section 12, the powers of the minister; and section 3, the objects. We have outlined them. I will briefly go through them.
The composition of the council: Our position is that classroom teachers should make up the majority of the governing council of the college, which is stated quite thoroughly in there, but I would like to state that this government has had an incredible amount of publicity around the importance of the classroom. We believe this is the opportunity for the government to ensure that the value of classroom teachers is part and parcel of the emphasis on not impacting on the classroom to the extent that they are suggesting.
In addition, we support the proposal that was presented by the Ontario Teachers' Federation, to ensure that there's representation from the public. We believe that it is not only key but that it is our responsibility and our accountability to the public, as was presented by OTF, in terms of representation on what we now have, the relations and discipline committee. It's not a new position of the Ontario Teachers' Federation.
We also support the recommendations of the implementation committee that there would be a balance of representation throughout the region, considering the enormity of this province; balance of representation in elementary and secondary; balance of representation in the publicly funded system, both in public schools and in the separate system, and of course representation of both the French and English communities. Under the proposed legislation, however, we still believe there is no guarantee that there will be any representation of classroom teachers, so we would like to have you peruse our presentation on that so you can recognize that that can happen.
However, we would like to emphasize that there would be a balance of gender and that it is addressed in the legislation. Teaching in Ontario is predominantly a female occupation. According to the Ministry of Education and Training statistics 1993-94, 74% of elementary teachers are women and overall in Ontario 62% of full-time teachers are women. We believe it would only make sense that the council reflect this representation. You already heard from the BC college, and I'm sure they didn't mention this, but it states right now the government of British Columbia has raised concerns because there is an imbalance and that as named right now they are only three of the five appointed positions.
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In addition, in the Privilege of Professionalism, the implementation committee noted that it is "important that the college monitor the achievement of gender, visible minority, and classroom teacher balance in the governing council and seek to remedy any emerging imbalances." We as an organization would support all three issues.
The power of the minister in the area of self-governance: We believe that the extensive powers given to the minister under section 12 of Bill 31 negate any assertions that this college would be a self-regulating body. We also recognize that the regulations are law, therefore the college can only make regulations with the approval of the Legislature. However, if it is true self-regulation, why does the minister also have the power to require the council to "make, amend or revoke" a regulation? These powers are extended even further than in the Regulated Health Professions Act, and only in Bill 31 can the minister also make, amend or revoke bylaws. It is our position, as an organization, that the Ontario College of Teachers should be truly a self-governing body, therefore this section of the act should be amended as outlined in the Ontario Teachers' Federation submission.
Objects: The notion of self-governance implies that a professional college has the discretion to set the professional and ethical standards for its members and to enforce them. Such responsibility is succinctly outlined in five or six objects in the colleges under the Regulated Health Professions Act, but there's a lengthy list of 11 objects in Bill 31 and they are inconsistent with the notion of self-governance.
On the one hand, it provides for the College of Teachers "to develop, establish and maintain qualifications for membership" and also "to establish and enforce professional standards and ethical standards," which are consistent with self-governance. However, Bill 31 then goes on to include objects related to ongoing education. Such details should not be described at all in objects. It makes no sense to say the college will set the standards and then add details that fetter the discretion of the college in deciding what needs to be done. The college already is given the means to deal appropriately with the maintenance of professional competence elsewhere in the statute, so we believe it is unnecessary and inappropriate to include these additional objects in the legislation.
Further, our organization does not agree that part 11 of the objects should be included. The objects of the college should be determined in this legislation and should not be open to the expansion of regulation.
The second scene to our presentation is in the area of natural justice, or what we usually say in schools, "the fairness of issues." I'm sure most of you recognize that fairness is what really drives the culture within our publicly funded school system and is essential to what children believe is their right, so it's only natural that teachers would believe the same thing.
It is our common understanding in our democratic society that every citizen has a right to expect natural justice or, as the Americans say, "due process," the right to be heard and the right to defend oneself. As an organization, it is only natural that we would believe that teachers should have the appropriate input into any decision that will materially affect them, certainly when the input may affect decisions being made about their professional lives. There are several sections of Bill 31 that have the potential to deny natural justice to teachers.
Right to counsel: Teachers' right to be represented by counsel throughout all the proceedings to do with registration, investigation or discipline should be clearly stated in the legislation.
Right to appeal: In Bill 31, the right to appeal to court is restricted under section 32 to proceedings before the registration appeals committee and the discipline committee. The right to appeal should be extended to proceedings before the investigation committee, as this committee may require a member to appear before it to be cautioned or admonished or take such action as it deems appropriate. Such an action by one's professional body should be seen by teachers to be a serious punishment.
There must be an appeal route available to teachers when such decisions are made by the investigation committee. At minimum, there should be an internal administrative appeal route to provide a sober second look at such decisions, and of course the right to hearings.
Bill 31 fails to protect fundamental principles of natural justice. At every case and at every level members should be allowed, at a minimum, to make written submissions based on full disclosure. In many situations, justice cannot be done without an oral hearing. Therefore, it is the position of FWTAO that "no hearing" subsections 20(6), 21(6) and 25(8) related to the registration appeals committee and investigation committee must be deleted.
In the area of complaints, it is essential that members be notified immediately when a complaint has been made against them to the college. Delays in doing so can prejudice the member's ability to gather evidence to refute the complaint. Immediate notification should be specified in clause 25(3)(b). We believe that to be only fair.
It is FWTAO's position that there must also be a provision for timely disposal of complaints and consequences for failure to comply with the time lines. Such a provision, while absent in Bill 31, is present in section 28 of the Regulated Health Professions Act. Teachers should have at least the same rights for timely disposal of complaints against them as do other professionals.
With the advent of the college, teachers may be subjected to what we refer to as triple jeopardy. They may face discipline by the courts, by the college and by their employers for the same matter. This makes the timely disposal issue even more important as members should have the right to deal with the issues separately in each arena without having the entire issue drag on for a long time.
The admissibility of evidence: Bill 31 fails to protect teachers by failing to circumscribe the admissibility of evidence at hearings. We believe that given the importance of professional discipline proceedings to careers and reputations, nothing should be admissible at a hearing that would be inadmissible in a court in a civil action, and the findings of the panel should be based exclusively on evidence admitted before it. Such protection is found in both the Regulated Health Professions Act and in regulations made under the Teaching Profession Act. It is the position of our organization that such a provision be included in the legislation establishing the College of Teachers.
Full disclosure: Three constitutional rulings have established the right of an accused to receive full disclosure of everything that has been found by the prosecution in investigating a case against them. In discipline cases, the college is standing instead of the prosecution and all their findings should be disclosed. Subsection 29(3) of Bill 31 only requires disclosure of documents that will be given in evidence at the hearing, thus allowing the college to withhold from the member other evidence that came to light in the investigation that might be helpful to the member. This incomplete disclosure is constitutionally inadequate. Full disclosure must be guaranteed in the legislation.
Incapacity: I know I heard a question on this. Clause 28(3)(b) provides that the discipline committee may find a member to be incompetent if "suffering from a physical or mental condition or disorder." A more humane, confidential, problem-solving approach is provided for members of other colleges under the incapacity sections of the Regulated Health Professions Act, sections 57 to 69. It is the position of FWTAO that where teachers' inability to carry out their professional responsibilities is the result of a physical or mental condition or disorder, they too should have the right to incapacity proceedings that are humane and confidential and are focused not just on punishment, obviously, but on problem-solving.
Under interim suspension, subsection 27(2) of Bill 31 gives the council or executive committee the power to temporarily suspend a teacher's certificate before a determination has been made as to the member's guilt or innocence in respect to allegations of misconduct or incompetence. This is an extraordinarily punitive and unnecessary measure, given that teachers are not self-employed. If there's any concern that the conduct of a member may expose students to harm or injury, the employer, the school board, has the power to remove teachers from their duties. It is not necessary for the college to suspend the teacher's certificate in order to protect the students. This section should be removed from the legislation.
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Powers of the investigator: Section 34 of the bill provides college investigators extensive powers to enter and search teachers' workplaces and homes if they receive a warrant from a justice of the peace. This is the issue that teachers are very concerned about. It is the position of our organization that such extraordinary powers for the College of Teachers investigators are totally inappropriate and unnecessary. Allegations against the teachers that require such serious measures should be investigated by the police, not the college.
Right to obtain information: As an organization, we have serious concerns about the power given to the college, an administrative body, to obtain personal information about teachers, under subsections 44(1), (4) and (5) of Bill 31. Under this section, the minister, college and school boards may collect and share personal information about teachers that is normally protected under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
This power goes beyond even that given to the courts, and I think you heard more of that this morning. Courts need a subpoena to get documents that are protected under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It is impossible to justify giving school boards, the minister or the college or anyone else the right to disregard the basic rights of teachers to protection of privacy. It is the position of our organization that these provisions be eliminated from the legislation.
Disclosure by school boards: Subsection 44(3) places an obligation upon school boards to notify the college in writing whenever they form the "opinion" that the "conduct or actions" of a teacher should be reviewed by the college. Reporting obligations should not be premised on something as vague as an opinion. How can boards be sure when they must report? It is in the best interests of the members, the school boards and the college that this vagueness be corrected.
Everyone is best protected if the obligation to report to the college is triggered only when a board has terminated the employment of a member. This is in keeping with the provisions concerning employer reports under both the Regulated Health Professions Act and the British Columbia College of Teachers.
FWTAO members support the concept of a college of teachers. However, we cannot support the college as it is proposed in Bill 31.
Teachers are prepared to be a self-governing profession. The 41,000 women elementary teachers who are members of our organization believe there should be clear professional and ethical standards for teachers. Teachers are lifelong learners committed to professional excellence. The members of our organization are committed to working with the public to ensure the high standards of our public education system are maintained and even strengthened.
The creation of an Ontario College of Teachers should be a positive step for the profession and the people in this committee can make it that. Yet Bill 31 actually denies teachers the right to self-governance. It even denies natural justice for teachers. Our organization urges that changes be made to Bill 31 to address these serious flaws. Do not deny teachers the real privilege of their own profession.
As teachers, we have given you a list of recommendations. I won't go through them. They're there. What they actually help do is focus in on the sections and parts of the bill that we know could be changed, amended and deleted to assist what we believe for our profession being strengthened in the province.
Mr Miclash: Thank you, ladies, for the presentation. Sheryl, I must say that the folks at Oxdrift do miss you. Sheryl's a former principal of Oxdrift public school and they quite often ask about you in my riding.
Sheryl, I've had a number of concerns expressed to me about the cost of the college. We heard earlier on today from the folks in BC that there were some initial fees, along with a $50 annual membership which went to $40. Are you hearing anything, any concerns about the actual annual cost of membership to the college?
Ms Hoshizaki: We would be hearing what everyone else is hearing in the province and the teachers believe that, again on the fairness issue, there hasn't been anything terribly fair in the idea that teachers would be paying, I think, a $90 fee for the college, to be registered with the College of Teachers, believing they then become the only profession to be actually taxed, considering that this is --
Mr Miclash: Another tax.
Ms Hoshizaki: Another type of tax, yes. I guess that yes, that has been expressed as a concern from our members.
Ms Joan Westcott: I would like to pick up on one point on that. One of the issues you will note as you go through the clause-by-clause section OTF has presented is that one of the clauses we're recommending be deleted is the clause that proposes the college pick up all the costs since April 1994 that have been incurred regarding the College of Teachers. Certainly we don't support that, and if we need to cover those costs for the government, and surely we will need to, teachers will be paying a large fee and we don't think that's fair.
Mr Miclash: You talked about the involvement of classroom teacher representation and I really quite appreciate your comments in that area. How would you suggest that representation be selected to serve in terms of representation on the college?
Ms Westcott: If I might respond to that, when the Ontario Teachers' Federation and the affiliates presented positions to the implementation committee, we identified some ways in which the representation could be worked out to ensure there was representation in all the different aspects, as Sheryl mentioned when she was making the presentation. Unfortunately, that hasn't been picked up.
Now we understand that wasn't worked into the legislation and will be worked in in other sections, but we clearly believe that there are ways of working out the election process to ensure teachers are adequately represented in all aspects we've identified, both the two school systems, ensuring both elementary and secondary, ensuring adequate classroom teachers, ensuring adequate representation of women teachers. We think it can be worked out and we hope to have the opportunity to give some input to ensure those systems are in place. We don't feel very likely that will happen, unfortunately.
Mr Wildman: Have you suggested the amendments that you've raised here to the government, to the Ministry of Education and Training officials, and if so, what response have you received?
Ms Westcott: I believe the ministry is aware of the proposals we have made and we are not aware of any proposals the ministry may be making to change what is currently in Bill 31.
Mr Wildman: As you know, we're having hearings this week and next and then a week of clause-by-clause. Because of the shortness of time, Mr Chair, I would suggest, if it's appropriate, that Mr Skarica, the parliamentary assistant, indicate to the committee if the government intends to introduce amendments, and if so, what they are so that we will not then have presentations for the rest of these two weeks dealing with all the proposed amendments if some of them are already covered by proposals the government is going to make.
I hope we could do that to ensure we get an adequate presentation from everyone about the proposed bill as the government intends to amend it, not just as it is currently drafted. I hope that a number of the proposed changes, such as membership on the board and so on, that have been suggested by FWTAO and others could be incorporated in the government's amendments.
Mr Pettit: Sheryl and Joan, it's nice to see you again. It would appear on page 2 that you obviously object to three of the 17 positions on the council being reserved for a supervisory officer, a private school teacher and a faculty member. If you would, how would you define "classroom teacher"? Beyond that, do you feel that the department heads or teacher librarians or vice-principals or consultants should be prevented from running?
Ms Hoshizaki: First of all, I don't think they're prevented. It depends on how it's going to be determined people are going to be on the council. I think our position is that there isn't a guarantee that a faculty member, for example, or a supervisory -- not that they wouldn't be on the council or have a place on it, but there's no guarantee that they are classroom teachers. Our point to emphasize here is that there's representation from teachers who are in the classroom. The way it is set up now and is being proposed, there's no guarantee that any teacher who is presently, right now, teaching in a classroom has the opportunity to have representation on this council.
I don't believe personally, for example, that a supervisory officer, private school teacher or faculty member doesn't deserve to be on the council. It's the fact that they may not represent the classroom teacher or the teacher who is being proposed be represented. That's the problem with it.
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Mr Pettit: Why do you say that a private school teacher does not come under the definition of a teacher?
Ms Hoshizaki: I guess as an organization, what we would like is the assurance that a classroom teacher who's teaching in the publicly funded system be represented.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): I just want to follow up on that question. Actually, that was sort of my question, but I just wanted to ask, when you say that you wanted classroom teachers to be a part of the college, and yet when it comes to supervisors, superintendents, vice-principals and that, you have a little bit of difficulty there because you don't classify them as classroom teachers, I guess the problem I have is that many of these people have worked their way up through the classroom and are very, very knowledgeable, and that's why they've moved up. I have a real problem with saying that they shouldn't be a part of that college.
Ms Hoshizaki: I don't think we're suggesting that they shouldn't be a part, but they shouldn't be as representation of classroom teachers. I don't want to argue or debate the point, but we do have supervisory officers who work within boards of education who have not come through that system. They're supervisory officers in the business component, which means that without that experience, if we were only to have representation by supervisory officers who only come out of the business section, then we do not have representation from the classroom. So it's not an insistence that all representation be classroom, but we have to have guarantees that if this is truly a college that's representing teachers, we should have practising teachers on it.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): Thank you for your presentation. Yesterday the OTF used some fairly strong language and alluded in their presentation that the college would perhaps lead to the detriment of the education system. Given your support for the idea of the college, and I recognize your comments on self-governance and natural justice, is that a view that you would hold and perhaps agree with in terms of the college impacting and being a detriment to the education system?
Ms Hoshizaki: We don't believe the college's concept would be a detriment to the profession, but the college as proposed under this bill could impact on the profession.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. The half-hour is completed.
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL BOARDS' ASSOCIATION
The Vice-Chair: I would now like to call upon the Ontario Public School Boards' Association, Donna Cansfield, president, and Lynn Peterson, executive vice-president, if you could come forward, please.
Ms Donna Cansfield: My name is Donna Cansfield. I have brought with me this afternoon Mike Benson, the executive director of the Ontario Public School Boards' Association. We're very pleased to have the opportunity to appear before this committee on two very important issues in education.
First off, we would like to say that the Education Quality and Accountability Office is a very important body which the Ontario Public School Boards' Association fully supports and endorses. Of this office, under the capable leadership of Joan Green, the only request we have is that it should remain at arm's length from the government.
Four years ago we brought forward this proposal to the government that testing must be an integral part of what occurs in the life of a student and that it is every student's, parent's and taxpayer's right to know where children stand in terms of the local, provincial and international testing. The issue of credibility is important. So we again state that it should remain at arm's length from the government.
The other is the important focus that it started out with, and that is that we always want to improve student learning, not to prove it. That is the main reason for testing to begin with.
The school boards' association represents over 90 public school boards serving 1.7 million students in Ontario. It's important for us to be able to say to you that we support the principle of the College of Teachers, as set out in the 1994 royal commission report For the Love of Learning. In a submission to the royal commission, we stated that teaching should be addressed as a valued profession of accountable, qualified teachers, and as a professional body, the College of Teachers will assist in that regard.
We also, though, recognize that we are employers, and as employers, it is imperative that school boards have representation on the governing council of the college. School boards, through regulations accompanying the bill, should be given the opportunity to play a much more significant role than providers of information.
Our recommendation is that the Ontario Public School Boards' Association must have representation on the governing council of the College of Teachers.
Paragraph 7 of subsection 3(1) of the act states that the college will establish and enforce professional standards and ethics applicable to the college. While we understand that it is not particularly clear at this time what those standards would be, it is important for us to recognize that they may be regarded as minimum standards only, and as school boards try to attract the highest qualified candidates for employment, we must have and should maintain that ability to do so.
Our recommendation is that we support the setting out of professional standards and ethical standards through the College of Teachers. We recommend that the act should state that school boards may require employee standards that are above those that may be set out in the act.
In paragraph 8, the college receives the power to "receive and investigate complaints against members of the college and to discipline members." The college will have two committees set out to conduct this process. The association recognizes that it will be difficult for the discipline committee to exhaust the many forms that misconduct may take, and as employers, school boards should not be excluded in that process.
The bill fails to take into account the arbitration process that is already in place in school boards, and we are concerned that the bill sets out an additional bureaucratic process, including investigation and adjudication. We are concerned in particular that children who appear as witnesses in an arbitration process would be required to repeat this. The personal anguish is a concern to us.
We ask that the discipline committee of the college should first review the findings of a school board arbitration and then the committee should determine whether a certificate should be revoked, suspended or otherwise limited.
Our recommendation is that the discipline committee be required to accept as conclusive the rulings of an arbitrator, arbitration board or board of reference on matters of fact. We also recommend that the regulations to Bill 31 include a mechanism to inform the board of education in all cases where a complaint is forwarded to the discipline committee of the College of Teachers. As you know, we have recommended that the association must have representation on the governing council of the college and that this appointed representative should retain membership on either the discipline or the investigation committee.
Part III, clause 22(2)(c) refers to the removal of information from the register and states a "a notation of every revocation, cancellation and suspension of a certificate of qualification and registration." We maintain that this information, while not public, should be permanently maintained on an employee's record. It is important for employers to have this information when hiring teachers.
Therefore, we recommend that Bill 31 be clarified to ensure that the revocation, cancellation or suspension of a member's teaching certificate become a permanent notation on the registry of the college.
In our submission to the Royal Commission on Learning, we called for "teacher education which reflects the new workplace skills and attitudes required to prosper in our changing economy." We also stated that the association would like to see teacher education described as "an integral component of all government initiatives, reflected in policy statements and in documentation."
Paragraph 9 of subsection 3(1) provides for the ability of the college to "develop, provide and accredit additional educational programs" leading to certification, "but not limited to certificates of qualification as a supervisory officer, and to issue, renew, amend, suspend, cancel, revoke and reinstate such additional certificates." This is also unclear in the act, and we feel there is not necessarily a connection to what occurs within the school boards. Since these certificates will be used for the promotion of individuals to more senior positions, as employers, school boards should be given the opportunity to have input into the issuing of certificates of qualification additional to those required for membership in the college.
Therefore, we recommend that the college set out criteria and issue certificates for teaching positions only.
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In our last comment, under professional development, the role of the college in terms of professional development, training and education must be clarified. In part II, paragraph 4 of subsection 3(1) states that the college will "accredit ongoing education programs for teachers offered by post-secondary educational institutions and other bodies." We support this initiative, but it should be clarified so that it complements the work currently being carried out by school boards which do provide in-service education to their own teaching employees. The responsibility of the college in professional development should focus on courses that school boards are not able to provide to their employees, rather than duplicate.
The Ontario Public School Boards' Association recommends that Bill 31 be amended to clarify the role of the college in terms of professional development, training and education. A consultation process should be put in place to ensure that the courses offered by the college complement the work currently being done by school boards.
In conclusion, the Ontario Public School Boards' Association supports the principle of the College of Teachers. We would like to restate the need for school board representation on the governing council of the college. Bill 31 encompasses many areas in which school boards currently have some jurisdiction and, as such, boards should be given a direct representative who can assist in communicating the work of the college.
We also understand that in the beginning, the setting up of a College of Teachers will have its areas of problems and difficulties. In supporting the college, we would also like to offer an opportunity to work with the college, to assist them in any way to get around some of those problems and to find solutions in order to make this a valuable contribution to our profession as a whole, which is education in the province for the children and youth.
I had an opportunity to speak to some folks from New Zealand and from Scotland, both of whom have something very similar in their jurisdictions. They also indicated that in the beginning there were difficulties in getting their college or their council up and going. Certainly in Scotland it's been up and going for some time. In New Zealand it has as well, and it is now looking at expanding its mandate. It was seen as a threatening opportunity in the beginning, but later they realized there were things that could be done to enhance good education for the children in their jurisdiction.
I would like to restate that we would like to be a part of the solution to enhancing educational opportunities for the children and youth in this province and to offer our assistance in any way that can come about.
Mr Wildman: Thank you, Donna. You may not have heard, but at the beginning of the session today we had a presentation or a discussion between us and the representatives of the British Columbia college about how their college is organized and operates.
One of the things that came out of that discussion was that in British Columbia, on questions of alleged misconduct, the boards exercise their responsibility as employers and of course the teachers have access to arbitration and so on, as you have mentioned in your presentation. All that happens with regard to the college is that the boards are required to inform the college of any such action, and it isn't until subsequent to the arbitration or whatever that the college might become involved if the college felt it was serious enough to consider the lifting of a certificate.
Would you be in favour of that kind of approach in Ontario rather than what is proposed here? I note that you do express concern about duplication, and some teachers have expressed concern about double jeopardy.
Ms Cansfield: We are very concerned about the issue of duplication, and because the bill is not clear on the jurisdictional issues around the responsibilities of the school board for its employees, we've asked for that clarification. We understand that in British Columbia, as created, it was the other way and it was changed because they recognized that it was an area that could use some clarification. Certainly the school boards are looking for ways to enable this to occur. It's supposed to assist processes, not inhibit, so obviously we would be in favour of anything that would assist.
Mr Wildman: If that were the case, if that amendment or change were made, would it then be necessary, do you still think, to have representation of boards on the governing council of the college, particularly if, as in British Columbia, boards and federations and faculties of education were left to have the responsibility for ongoing professional development rather than the college as is proposed in the legislation before us?
Ms Cansfield: I would say yes, it is important that we have representation. One of the things I've discovered in my very limited political life is the great need for communication of what happens in this world. When things seem to appear in isolation and we don't talk to each other, then problems seem to be created. I see the opportunity by working together in the format of sitting on a committee to enhance rather than to take away from.
When we spoke to the chap in New Zealand, he agreed and that's one of the reasons why they have a lot of different representation. This is a large province; like you say, it's about the size of western Europe. It has over 170 school boards, 5,000 schools. You can see where there's some need obviously for some communication to take place. What better way to do it than on this type of governing body?
Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much for your presentation. One of the things I wanted to ask about is you've said that you would like to be represented on the governing council and also the discipline committee. If this is to be a self-governing operation, so it's teachers governing teachers, which is modelled on the regulated health professions sort of model, I was curious why you thought as an association that you should be specifically represented in those two forums. The hospital association, for example, is not represented on the governing councils or the discipline committees of the many colleges that regulate the people within their employ. I was just curious as to why you felt that was so necessary.
Ms Cansfield: As it's set out currently in the complaints process, the discipline committee, as we've indicated, does not have to take into consideration the arbitration process that is currently in place in the school boards. We've indicated that in fact it sets out another process. You can easily see where it puts us at cross-purposes if we already have something in place. Part of our responsibility is to protect the people who work for us in addition to children who might come forward as witnesses. There's nothing in here that would preclude the college demanding the same witnesses to come forward and go through the whole process again.
Mrs Ecker: But that's similar to what would happen in employee situations in hospitals. I guess what I'm trying to wrestle with is, why are you, if you will, unique in this circumstance in terms of needing this kind of representation?
Ms Cansfield: Because we deal with children. We're not dealing with adults. That's the critical issue. We're dealing with children who are as young as 3.8 and go to 21 years. It actually is our fiduciary responsibility to provide a safe environment for those children in all parts of their educational experience. If we were to permit this to go forward without indicating the difficulty that could arise, and especially since this has been an area that has increased and not decreased in the recent past, then it is our responsibility to ensure that if we can stop that process, we would. By being a part of that, it just makes some sense.
Mrs Ecker: Why would you wish to have information in all cases where a complaint's been forwarded to the discipline committee if the discipline committee's job is to assess the validity of the complaint? Given the fact that there may well be complaints and issues that are brought forward, which a discipline committee may wish to find a teacher innocent of the allegations, why would you want to have that information before that semi-judicial test has been conducted on the accuracy of the information?
Ms Cansfield: It's important as employees, again because we're dealing with children and youth, that we have the opportunity to scrutinize any potential employee's record in terms of what has been held as a complaint against them. I don't think that's any different than any other jurisdiction. If you have an employee and there is a serious complaint that has gone to the College of Teachers, and we are the employer, I think it's incumbent upon them to let us know that this has occurred, for two reasons: one, we are the employer, and secondly, it already may be in place and ongoing in our own process. So again, why would you want to duplicate something that doesn't make any sense? What we're trying to do is reduce those types of duplication rather than encourage them to continue.
Mrs Ecker: So you think confidentiality wouldn't be a concern, that it would be able to be observed?
Ms Cansfield: Obviously, as employers we respect that confidentiality. It's there anyway in all other matters. Certainly all those things that are currently part of the process within a school board -- my school board alone has 3,000 employees. I can assure you that confidentiality is a standard we set very highly in our board.
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Mr Pettit: I'd like to applaud you, first of all, for wanting to be a part of the solution, and I commend you for that spirit of cooperation. Sometime last year the OTF circulated a paper suggesting that public representation on the council be limited to 25%. Then about two weeks ago during second reading, I think actually it was Mr Patten who suggested that 10% to 15% would be sufficient. That would be three or four seats out of 31, shared among trustees, parents, faculty, students, business, labour and multicultural interests. Is that sufficient to protect the public interest, and if not, which of those would you suggest not be represented?
Ms Cansfield: One of the difficulties is, if you limited the representation to such an extent and then went out to all of those folks you identified, I'd like to figure out how you'd pick anybody to begin with. That is part of the problem. We all have very vested interests in our employees. You certainly create a problem.
We don't see this opportunity to be a part of the college as presenting a "them and us" but rather an "us," and how we can work together to enhance the teaching profession on behalf of the children and youth we serve in this province. Our participation is not meant to be anything but to assist the college in doing its mandate or what is proposed as its mandate. We would certainly see that reduction as problematic, and we would be petitioning, obviously, to be a part of that number.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): I have one question. You indicated that you didn't have any representation on the board, and the implementation committee recommends the appointment of three school trustees. Could they not look after the school boards' interests, or if they can't, why couldn't they?
Ms Cansfield: Certainly that's a possibility, but obviously as a school board association we represent 1.3 million students and 500,000 adults. An individual trustee may not be a representative of the association but rather a representative of himself or herself and a board. So they come with a different perspective, whereas from an association perspective, obviously we would try and bring a broader position or a broader provincial thinking to the College of Teachers as opposed to a local board thinking. Again it makes some sense, because we have the ability to bring together the kind of information that might be required in order to assist the college from a provincial perspective, whereas an individual representing just himself or himself and/or a board certainly couldn't do that. They wouldn't have the tools with which to do it, the measures with which to go out and solicit that kind of broad-based information.
Mr Patten: One of the questions that was raised earlier -- and this is around the whole debate about representation -- was, "I'm not so worried about it but some of my colleagues and some other parties are worried about the influence of federations," this sort of thing. It would seem to me that what the representation suggests is direct representation from teachers. If your association was to select the three or be the three from your board, then I would think the federations might say, "Well, listen, we represent teachers in a similar manner on a provincial basis, so therefore we should be the ones who make the selection." It creates a difficult position for the college in terms of, where do they come from. Should they be directly or should they be indirectly, or is there some kind of a combination?
Ms Cansfield: Your point is well taken, but again I think it's the premise from which you come. The association is prepared to work to assist to find ways to find solutions to the difficulties that might arise. We see great opportunities in terms of professional development, working together. We obviously have our difficulties in terms of some labour issues, but the association and the federations have a long history of working together on a number of issues around curriculum, parent councils, and there are many more. We see this as an opportunity to be collaborative, to work together to find solutions and to be cooperative. We don't see it as them and us, as I indicated before.
Mr Patten: No, I agree. I mean, it would seem to me that at some point -- it's difficult to legislate cooperation. It would certainly be useful, either in a preamble or certainly if the college moves ahead, that there be some identification of the accountabilities with others who have a body of knowledge that would be of value, and certainly your body would be one and so would the federations, OTF and whoever is in the field.
If I could ask, you made one comment about Bill 30, and that was that you felt it was somehow not arm's length enough from the minister. Was that one way of putting it?
Ms Cansfield: We would like the bill to remain at arm's length from the government, whatever the government of the day is. We think that's really important to the credibility and accountability and we know that can occur, but it really is important so that when results are published, they are received not with scepticism but with a healthy attitude. We think that's important on behalf of the children and the youth.
I would like to comment again on the other, working together. I know, as I indicated before, there are always areas of difficulty, but it always has been my feeling, when I go out and speak with teachers -- people don't come together in a mean-spirited kind of way, especially in the educational field. They really do come together to try and work on behalf of the children and youth in this province. They just don't come from the other kind of attitude. There are areas, obviously, around labour. That's different. When it comes to doing good things for children, people really are well-intentioned and good people.
Mr Patten: I agree. I wonder, some representations we've had have stated that in both instances, in both Bill 31 and Bill 30, the assurances of the arm's-length relationship really be maintained. I'm wondering if you have similar thoughts related to Bill 31 as you do Bill 30 on that issue.
Ms Cansfield: Certainly. There's no question. Again, if you want to, for the credibility of the College of Teachers, the mandate is that it's set up at arm's length and it should remain so as well. That is its general accountability to the public as a whole, as well as to the profession. Nobody would like to think that there's a third party interfering in that process and I think that is very important.
Mr Dominic Agostino (Hamilton East): Just a quick question: As a member representing school boards across Ontario, do you not feel that the tools and the mechanisms in place for standards for discipline and for complaints be handled through the current process, which obviously would involve a number of steps, up to and including the board and then the minister ultimately with the recommendation at the end -- do you not feel those provisions in place are adequate to deal with the issues of competence and discipline as it comes to classroom teachers?
Ms Cansfield: Certainly, there are provisions that are there, but I believe it's really important to us today, since we are under such public scrutiny, that we have to continually look to improve the practices and policies we have. To be seen as being complacent is just not appropriate today. I think it's really incumbent upon all of us to look to how we can continually improve the system. We have a very fine system. We educate our children probably to the best in the world, yet our belief in our broader community is continually lessening. Part of that is we need to bring forward to the public those structures that enable them to believe again in the credibility of the system, because it is a very fine system.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms Cansfield. Just for the record, I believe the gentleman with you is Mike Benson and not Lynn Peterson.
Ms Cansfield: Right. Lynn was ill and left.
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COALITION FOR LESBIAN AND GAY RIGHTS IN ONTARIO
The Vice-Chair: Next we have the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario. Greg Pavelich and Lynn MacGyver are the spokespersons. Welcome to our meeting.
Mr Greg Pavelich: My name is Greg Pavelich. I'm with CLGRO, the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario, a member of the sexual orientation and eduction project working group.
Ms Lynn MacGyver: My name is Lynn MacGyver. I'm a member of CLGRO. I'm also a member of the sexual orientation and education group. I'm a teacher with the Peel Board of Education.
Mr Pavelich: "The other students were able to talk about their dates, their sexuality, the issues that were important to them. I couldn't. I would have risked humiliation, rejection and physical injury." Miguel Rosales, Harbord Collegiate, 1995, Toronto.
Ms MacGyver: Greg is reading from our brief which we've brought to you.
One of my former students hung himself the night before his commencement. At that commencement, I was to have given him an academic achievement award. I found out later that several of his teachers suspected he was struggling with his own sexual orientation. I still to this day wonder if he would have killed himself if he had known that he had a lesbian teacher.
Mr Pavelich: Most lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers live in fear of having their sexual orientation known. Their heterosexual colleagues are able to openly discuss their relationships, community involvement and interests, making no secret of their sexual orientation. In contrast, most lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers hide.
Why? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, stereotypes and myths about lesbian, gay and bisexual people persist. Stereotypes and myths include that homosexuality and paedophilia are somehow linked, and that lesbians, gays and bisexuals are negative influences on children.
In an environment fraught with such beliefs, lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers are profoundly more vulnerable to conscious and unconscious scrutiny and monitoring than heterosexual teachers. At its most extreme, myths result in witchhunts against lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers. Discrimination and harassment are frequently the result when a lesbian, gay or bisexual teacher's sexual orientation is discovered. Administrators, other teachers, parents and students have all been party to such discrimination and harassment.
Fear of discovery means that cases of discrimination, harassment and sometimes hate-motivated violence against lesbian, gay or bisexual teachers are almost never reported to authorities, such as sexual harassment officers and the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Ms MacGyver: None the less, a few teachers are willing to have their stories told.
Last winter, a male student returned to an eastern Ontario school after a disciplinary suspension and climbed on to a table. His male teacher wrapped his arms around the student's legs to prevent him from jumping. The student accused the teacher of sexual harassment. After intervention by the teacher's union, the complaint was recognized as motivated by homophobia and dismissed. None the less, the accusation resulted in the teacher's sexual orientation being questioned by students and staff.
A girls' sports team in a Toronto-area high school lost a very competent coach when the lesbian teacher did not feel safe due to the potential of stereotyped misunderstandings and charges of harassment.
In one school in southern Ontario, a lesbian teacher made a comment at a staff meeting. Two thirds of the staff yelled out, "Don't listen to her, she's a lesbian." The administrator did nothing.
In an Ontario Catholic school, a gay teacher came to work one morning to find his portable spray-painted with "Fag," "Gay" and "Faggot." His administrator felt it was not an issue until a parent called asking to know if the teacher really was gay. The administrator told the parent there was a misunderstanding and left it at that.
Unfortunately, gay, lesbian and bisexual teachers do not have recourse to some of the very basic mechanisms for stopping discrimination and harassment. For example:
Some people still argue that simply by being lesbian or gay, a teacher violates the Education Act's requirement that teachers "inculcate by precept and example respect for religion and the principles of Judaeo-Christian morality" -- subsection 264(1), duties of teachers.
Furthermore, when you look at the Ontario Human Rights Code, in subsection 19(2), it suggests that the Ontario Human Rights Code does not apply to the duties of teachers under the Education Act.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual students face similar difficulties due to prejudice, stereotyping and myths. Justifiable fear of verbal harassment, physical violence and ostracism take their toll. There is very often low self-esteem among lesbian, gay and bisexual children and adolescents. There are high rates of school dropout and alcohol and drug abuse among lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents; this is from a study noted at the bottom. Up to 30% of youth suicides that are completed are believed to be accounted for by lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents; that's from a United States Department of Health and Human Services report. Finally, a disproportionate number, 30% to 40%, of those living on the streets are lesbian, gay or bisexual.
When young lesbian, bisexual and gay students are asked, "What would be most helpful for you in your learning environment?" they most often state, "Positive role models," in the form of openly lesbian, gay or bisexual staff, yet as described above, the same myths and stereotypes affecting children and adolescents are the same forces that keep many lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers from being role models.
Mr Pavelich: Bill 31 and the Ontario College of Teachers: Within this context, Bill 31 will have a severe negative impact on our education system and the lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers and students within it.
First, Bill 31 will thwart the achievement of the Common Curriculum's desired outcomes. "Understanding diversity and valuing equity" are key goals of the education system, as described in Ontario's Common Curriculum. The Common Curriculum states:
"The intent of an inclusive curriculum is to ensure that all students -- regardless of gender, racial and ethnocultural background, social class, sexual orientation or ability -- develop confidence and are motivated to succeed." Page 11.
"An important aim of the education system is to enable students to develop the knowledge, skills and values they will need to help build and preserve an equitable society.... Through working with people with other backgrounds, students can learn to understand others and to respect their views and rights and can thus develop a sense of social responsibility." That's right from the Common Curriculum.
Bill 31 will increase the reluctance and fear of teachers to discuss with students issues of lesbian and gay rights and realities. The education system will continue to allow all young people to grow up with little respect for the rights of lesbians and gay men. What will be the outcomes?
Young heterosexual people will continue to be responsible for the majority of violence against lesbians and gay men. The murder of Kenn Zeller, a staff member at a Toronto school, by five high school students in the 1980s remains a prominent example of what happens when young people fail to "understand diversity and value equity."
At the same time, lesbian, gay and bisexual students will be denied the positive role models they need. The epidemic proportions of substance abuse, school dropout and suicide among lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents will continue.
Second, Bill 31 will provide dangerous tools to facilitate witchhunts against lesbian and gay teachers. Bill 31, section 25, would allow anyone to launch complaints against teachers for unsubstantiated and perceived "professional misconduct or incompetence."
Subsection 25(2) states, "The investigation committee shall refuse to consider and investigate" complaints that are "frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process" or unrelated to "professional misconduct or incompetence." The act does not define the critical terms "frivolous," "vexatious," "abuse of process," "professional misconduct" or "incompetence."
Today's reality is that some people believe that being lesbian or gay is sufficient grounds to dismiss or not hire a teacher. Bill 31 would allow such people to submit complaints to the college solely on the grounds of a teacher's sexual orientation. Without definitions for the above terms, the act provides investigation committees with no guidance on how to handle complaints on the grounds of a teacher's sexual orientation.
Third, Bill 31 will ensure youth will continue to be denied positive role models. Bill 31 will strengthen the forces that keep lesbian, bisexual and gay teachers in fear of discovery. It will deny lesbian, gay and bisexual youth positive role models. The opportunity will be lost to help reduce the rates of substance abuse, school dropout and suicide among lesbian, gay and bisexual youth.
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Ms MacGyver: The fourth area of our concern is that Bill 31 will abrogate basic rights to privacy. I believe yesterday you got a letter, dated March 26, from the privacy commissioner, Tom Wright, in which he addresses some of the concerns in section 44 of Bill 31. However, since he's still in negotiation with the minister and with the legal staff at the Ministry of Education and Training, it's pretty clear what he suggests on Bill 30, but it is not as clear in this letter what he's proposing on Bill 31. So I would like to highlight some of our concerns to you, even though Mr Wright has been to speak with you.
Bill 31, section 44, does override basic human rights guaranteed under section 38 and section 28 of the two provincial acts. In British Columbia, where they have a professional regulatory body for teachers, it is subject to protection of privacy legislation. There is a precedent within Canada for teachers having a professional college but still retaining their privacy rights. To our knowledge, it would also make the Ontario College of Teachers, if section 44 is left in, the only professional regulating body in Ontario to have the power to override the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Furthermore, denying teachers basic rights to privacy is not necessary for such a college to be effective in carrying out its duties and functions. Overriding this legislation would allow the college to demand information completely unrelated to a teacher's professional conduct or competence. For example, it would allow the college to collect and to use in a hearing information about a teacher's sexual orientation; a teacher's HIV status; a teacher's membership in community groups, such as a gay baseball league; a teacher's opinions on lesbian and gay rights; the views or opinions of others about the teacher -- hearsay and gossip; and a teacher's financial transactions, such as a donation to a lesbian or gay charity.
All of this information is unrelated to a teacher's professional conduct or competence. It can reveal a teacher's sexual orientation. It can lead to discrimination, harassment and potential witchhunts.
It's important to note, especially if you listened to the last presenters, that a lot of the information related to my professional conduct and competence is already available to my school board, even with Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act restrictions and provisions. CLGRO does not see any reason why the College of Teachers would require more information than school boards now need when faced with dealing with the competence of their staff.
The fifth point we would like to bring to your attention is that Bill 31 will deny teachers due process in the investigation committee to have complaints to be dismissed as frivolous, vexatious or an abuse of process or unrelated to professional misconduct or incompetence.
In section 1 of Bill 31, where the definitions are given, it does not define these critical terms: "frivolous," "vexatious," "abuse of process," "professional misconduct" or "incompetence." There are no definitions for that in the legislation. Therefore, teachers have no grounds for arguing that these complaints should be dismissed. It is unacceptable that any piece of legislation should establish a process with such little guidance.
Mr Pavelich: Our recommendations, other than getting rid of the bill completely, would be to:
First, define "professional misconduct" and "incompetence" to be independent of a teacher's sexual orientation and status related to other grounds of discrimination prohibited under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Second, define as frivolous and vexatious any complaint against a teacher on the grounds of their sexual orientation and status related to the other grounds of discrimination prohibited under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Ms MacGyver: Our third recommendation is to restore a teacher's democratic right to privacy by deleting in Bill 31 subsections 44(1), (5) and (6) and amending subsection 22(2), which deals with the register of the college, to allow public access to the college's register only to that non-personal information held by the college.
Fourth, we recommend that teachers' democratic rights to due process be restored by amending clause 25(2)(a) by defining "professional misconduct or incompetence" within the bill itself.
Mr Pavelich: Fifth, and lastly, amend the Ontario Human Rights Code to allow teachers the same non-discrimination and anti-harassment rights as all other people.
Ms MacGyver: Quickly, the three appendices:
Appendix 1 simply lists the members of the coalition.
Appendix 2 brings you the personal information designated under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act -- that's section 38 of that act -- so that you can see what is now protected that could be taken away.
The third appendix is a letter of support from the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, the last paragraph of Mr Earl Manners's letter reading: "We are gratified to know that groups such as CLGRO are concerned enough about the contents of Bill 31 that you seek to make a presentation to the standing committee on social development." Mr Manners continues: "We would encourage you to take your concerns forward to the committee hearings and would request that you send us a copy of the brief which you present."
Mrs Ecker: Thank you very much for a presentation with some very excellent points in it. I can certainly appreciate your concern about the privacy and the issues that Mr Wright has raised and, as you noted, it is something that the minister is going to be, and the ministry is, dealing with to try and make sure that we have adequate protections in the legislation. I just wanted to clarify something.
I thought you said that you wanted only non-personal information on the public register, because it includes notations of disciplinary convictions, that kind of information. Would you consider that to be something that shouldn't be on the public register, because my understanding is one of the reasons that we wanted to have that kind of information on there was as a public protection if someone had actually gone through discipline and some serious step had been -- they thought that it was necessary that that should be in the public record.
Ms MacGyver: That's on page 7 of our brief at the top. I think by "non-personal information" we meant the information protected in section 38 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. In other words, that the private information which section 44 of Bill 31 seeks to cancel not be part of the information in the public register. If the college has access to things like medical history, psychological history, psychiatric history, financial records, which section 44 creates, that that not be the information held within the register.
Mrs Ecker: It wouldn't be. It was my understanding that there would be a protection on there, but I appreciate the concern.
Ms MacGyver: The bill itself doesn't say there's a protection.
Mr Pavelich: It doesn't.
Mrs Ecker: No. Okay. I appreciate the concern about that. The other quick question: I'm not a lawyer, but do you think you would have to take the human rights anti-discriminatory legislation and actually repeat it in this legislation? My understanding -- again, I'm not a lawyer -- is that those provisions apply regardless; they don't need to be written in the legislation because those apply anyway; that it would be, if you will, a legal redundancy, if I understand my law correctly.
Mr Pavelich: The problem exists in that the connection between the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Education Act is somewhat tenuous. The duties of teachers -- there's an override provision, it says they override, and among those provisions are teaching Judaeo-Christian ethics, teaching purity. I mean, who's to define those, number one? Secondly, when CLGRO went a few years ago to ask an opinion from the Ontario Human Rights Commission as to whether sexual orientation would be protected, the Human Rights Commission said, "We don't know." So there seems to be some tenuous link. Also, the provisions of protection for separate schools is not there, so teachers in the separate system could very easily be outed and dismissed holus-bolus and, like I say, in very much of a witchhunt manner.
Mrs Ecker: Is this something that people within the health field have experienced, because there are not these specific provisions in the Regulated Health Professions Act?
Ms MacGyver: Catholic teachers have a morality section in their contract that they sign with the separate school board.
Mrs Ecker: That would be it, yes.
Ms MacGyver: There has been a teacher released from her position in Ontario that went through the system, where she was released because she was married to a divorced man.
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Mr Skarica: I have two quick questions. Section 45 outlines basically that anyone who learns anything in the course of his or her duties in complying with the act or enforcing the act is to keep it secret. Why does that not address your concerns? Secondly, section 44 indicates that the college may require the provincial schools authority, the school board or anyone else to provide it with personal information. Do they now keep any information on sexual orientation? I would be surprised if they did.
Ms MacGyver: I don't believe they do now, because they have to comply with section 38 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, but section 44 removes that protection. So then they could, and they would. As to your question -- can you just repeat your first question again? It was about section 45?
Mr Skarica: Yes.
Ms MacGyver: It's the investigation committee that's in the earlier part of the bill. Once you get into the investigation and you get into the hearings, they are open to the media and they're open to the public, and so I don't see how you can keep your information that you've gathered confidential if you're going to have a hearing with the media and the public there.
Mr Pavelich: Or they can be.
Ms MacGyver: They can be. It says "may."
Mr Newman: On page 5 of your presentation it says, "Examples of information that Bill 31 allows the college to collect include: the teacher's sexual orientation; a teacher's HIV status; a teacher's membership in community groups, such as a gay baseball league; a teacher's opinions on lesbian and gay rights; the views or opinions of others about the teacher (gossip and hearsay evidence); and a teacher's financial transactions, such as a donation to a lesbian or gay charity."
I've read through the bill and I don't see it in those terms. What I see is as it relates to the member's professional responsibilities. Can you indicate where in the bill that --
Ms MacGyver: Yes, it's in subsection 44(6) of Bill 31 and subsection (5). In my copy of the bill it's on page 29. Section 44 deals with the right to obtain information. Subsection (5) is the information provided by the minister to the college and subsection (6) is information provided by the college to the minister. It says in subsections (5) and (6), "If required by the college, the minister may provide to the college information, including personal information within the meaning of section 38 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act...." It's much the same wording in subsection (6).
So what that does is, all of the protections in section 38 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act which are listed here are null and void. So if you turn these protections around and treat them instead as investigative devices, then this is the kind of investigative device they could do within lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers' lives.
Mr Agostino: I want to thank the presenters for I think an excellent presentation, and clearly I think you outline some very serious and very legitimate concerns as to the loopholes that are in the bill. I do agree that the way the bill is put together right now, it does open up the real possibility of witchhunts, it opens up the real possibility of people using this bill as an opportunity to attack gay and lesbian teachers and as an opportunity to go down and try to in a sense make life miserable, harass and very clearly drive gay and lesbian teachers out of the profession. I think you have raised some very legitimate concerns that touch at the heart of what this bill's all about.
I guess one of the concerns is the powers that the investigators have and the fact, as is mentioned, that the investigators in a sense would have the power without warrant to go into a teacher's home to gather information, which then takes it beyond not only the realm of the classroom and the workplace, but they can actually search your home now to gather information about you as part of the investigation. Without the protection of section 38, the information that is gathered then becomes open-ended to the judgement of the person who is gathering that information, for whatever purpose that is.
Concerns are expressed along the lines as well as to what happens with that information. Even if it is gathered in confidence, even if it is agreed to be kept in confidence, the fact that it is gathered, the fact that it's collected as part of this process I think opens up the door to that being released, to that being leaked, to that being passed to other individuals, which then takes it out of that realm as well.
Do you have concerns as to that, not only the process for an investigator to come into your home and gather any information that he or she feels is appropriate, but also the possibility that once the information is gathered, recorded and collected, that there's a possibility of again it being leaked, being used for other purposes and obviously being used for witchhunt purposes against teachers?
Mr Pavelich: Exactly. The fact is that it's not defined what information will be kept on a register, so at this point in time that's so open that that information could be collected, gathered, put down on the register, and since the register is totally open to the public, they could pick it up, look at it, take it off and say: "Hey, guess what? We know this, this, this and this about that teacher." We feel that will really drive a lot of lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers out of the teaching profession.
Mr Agostino: With the powers of coming to your home to gather information.
Mr Pavelich: Yes.
Mr Patten: After having heard your representation, I think you do have a point under section 44. I believe the privacy commissioner acknowledged and he was indeed prepared to make a recommendation to the ministry, which we have not yet seen. My question to you: Have you shared your brief with the commissioner's office?
Mr Pavelich: At this point, no, but we intend to.
Mr Patten: Yes, may I recommend that, or on your behalf, may we submit this, in the light of your specific concern, to the commissioner's office for his consideration in coming up with the protections that I think you're trying to address?
Mr Pavelich: I think, yes.
Mr Wildman: Thank you for your presentation. Obviously you have a number of concerns but I guess your most important one is the right to the protection of privacy. Would it be acceptable, in your view, if there were the protections under section 44 that you've said are necessary, to members of the lesbian and gay communities who are in teaching to then proceed with the college, or are you opposed to the concept of the college as well as the particulars that you've raised?
Mr Pavelich: I think that CLGRO as a whole doesn't have an opinion one way or the other on that particular issue. I think as teachers there's another, but CLGRO as a whole --
Mr Wildman: Okay, that's fine. You emphasize in the initial part of your brief the need, from your standpoint, to have positive role models and you point to the Common Curriculum and what it says as well. Is there a problem for lesbian and gay teachers who are out as well in this legislation, as you see it, or is it those who are afraid of their privacy being invaded in such a way and that information being available to the public alone? Is there a problem in terms of the gay community as well for those who are already declared and their sexual orientation is not a matter of privacy as opposed to someone who is not out?
Mr Pavelich: I think there's sort of a dual thing there. I think there is some concern for those who are already out who may also have, for example, particularly if they're out -- someone may come from the public to the school and say this is a lesbian or gay teacher and they can't uphold these provisions of the Education Act because they're lesbian or gay, that's totally inconsistent; take it to the college, put them through a whole process. Whether it's dismissed or not, you've had all the costs of going to the college and then in the end there's no recourse that the person has to the college to clear the record. This could probably go on their record. So there is grave concern there, but the concern for someone who is not particularly out is even doubled or quadrupled. It's just like a whole weight that suddenly comes upon them that makes them even wonder why they'd even attempt to go into the teaching profession.
Mr Wildman: But you're also saying that just by the very fact that someone has a sexual orientation that is not heterosexual, that that might then, because of the way the bill is worded now, be something that might lead to a complaint that a person would then have to defend herself or himself against.
Mr Pavelich: That's right.
Ms MacGyver: And then you have to pay the costs of both sides after you've had your case dismissed, if there was a hearing; and you're suspended, if there's a hearing, during the course of the hearing, so you've lost the pay.
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Mr Wildman: So it's not a question of misconduct; it's just that if someone doesn't think your orientation is appropriate, they could lay a complaint and you might have these problems.
Mr Pavelich: That's right.
Ms MacGyver: The investigative committee also has the right to dismiss such a complaint as frivolous, vexatious or an abusive process, but those terms aren't defined in section 1 where it says "Definitions."
Mr Wildman: And you point out that they should be defined.
Mr Pavelich: Our recommendation is that those things should be defined, exclusive of sexual orientation, and also that there should be provisions in the Human Rights Code to allow non-discrimination around teachers but that anti-harassment provisions be put into the Human Rights Code, and therefore there's some recourse. If the act is made to supersede, then a lot of those concerns would be taken away.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for your presentation. Your half-hour is completed now.
ONTARIO FEDERATION OF INDIAN FRIENDSHIP CENTRES
The Vice-Chair: Next I'd like to call on the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, Sylvia Maracle, executive director, and Tim Thompson, the education policy analyst, if you'd like to come forward, please.
Ms Sylvia Maracle: I'm Sylvia Maracle. I'm the executive director of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres.
Mr Tim Thompson: I'm Tim Thompson. I'm the education policy analyst with the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres.
Ms Maracle: We both have other names. Mine is Skonagelehira, but Visa won't take it, so it's unfortunate. But we have names we are known by, and my hat today is the federation. Thank you very much for encouraging us to come and see you. We found out yesterday, so hopefully we'll be fairly efficient.
For those of you who know about friendship centres, great. For those of you who don't, I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the organization I work for and set some of the context for our remarks with respect to the Act to establish the Ontario College of Teachers.
Friendship centres have been around in Ontario since the late 1950s, early 1960s. They serve as a focal point for those of us who leave our first nations communities and come into urban areas and they provide a spectrum of services. Certainly they're a social safety net in terms of things like housing, employment, social assistance. They are also cultural education centres. They provide us with an opportunity to go to meet our own people and to be able to share with the larger community who we are.
Friendship centres also are involved in the whole process not only of community development of the aboriginal community, encouraging the creation of institutions to meet our needs, but also of community development in the broad sense of dealing with the word that we'll call "mainstream" as opposed to "non-aboriginal" or "non-Indian."
The friendship centres are primary service providers not only to aboriginal people, not only to Indians, to Metis and to Inuit people in Ontario, but our services are consumed quite a lot by mainstream service providers, by schools in particular, which is why we're here to talk about it. We have a very long history in terms of addressing the educational needs of our students.
Remember, our students may come from first nations territories, because there are tuition agreements; our students may be multigenerational residents in terms of urban people -- they may have been born and raised in the city -- or they may be migrants from other provinces, other territories, or simply coming back and forth between their home territories and towns and villages throughout Ontario.
Probably one of the most frequent services we provide to the educational system is when we have students who are in crisis. A teacher or a principal may call the friendship centre and say, "We're having problems with so-and-so," or "We're having problems with a group of children." They may call the friendship centre and say: "We are about to deliver a native ancestry series or curriculum. Could you help us? Could you make it contemporary? Can we get away from just talking about toboggans, snowshoes and tepees?" We didn't bring any today, but we can offer a contemporary context for urban development.
The other primary role that friendship centres play is in cross-cultural sensitivity awareness. We are involved in educational institutions that are educating the future teachers of Ontario and we provide a number of community-based activities, powwow socials, elders' gatherings, ceremonies, traditional teachings, where people can come and learn about who we are. All of that wraps up into why we're here and why the College of Teachers and the legislation creating that may have impact on us.
One other significant element I want to talk about before I go into what we would like to see changed in the act is we have great numbers of dropouts, huge numbers. In communities where we're doing really well we can say, "Gee, only 30% of our students drop out." In communities where we're not doing very well it's as high as 90%. There are communities in this province -- none of you represent them or I might pick on one or two of you -- where we have never had an aboriginal student graduate from the high school in that community.
I need to tell you this because you need to understand that a primary motivator, the role model, the encouragement that young person is going to get, is often from a teacher or teachers, and if those teachers do not have any understanding of the cultural context we come from, of the socioeconomic context, they may or may not be able to help. In some communities -- and there are wonderful people out there -- they have simply not been able to meet our needs.
As a response to that, the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres several years ago developed a pilot project with the Ministry of Education -- now the Ministry of Education and Training -- to look at putting secondary schools in our facilities, in the friendship centres. We have three: one in Sudbury, one in Fort Erie and one in London. Between those, we have several hundred aboriginal people who are now going to school.
This is an economic impact for those of you who are interested in fiscal realities, because you would be getting nothing for those people. Often they will be on social assistance. Now we have several hundred of them in secondary schools for which there is a tax base because we live off-reserve -- so let's throw out the notion that aboriginal people don't contribute to the tax structure of this province -- and we are having success in that we are having graduates. Our retention rate is averaging around 80% or 85% versus the dropout, the 70% in the best situation and the less than 10% in the worst situation, so we're not doing badly.
Part of our success is that we have taken teachers -- some aboriginal teachers, some from mainstream -- and we've gone through a process in the secondary schools of trying to educate, to train and to orient them to see aboriginal issues differently, to see the student they teach in terms of the pedagogy and in terms of what that young person brings into that environment differently and, as I said, we're having some success.
We're obviously interested in the legislation and what's going on because they are going to be regulating qualifications, and qualifications are clearly important to us in a community where we're not having success, issues around teaching credentials and who's going to do that, particularly the pre-service programs.
You have to understand that when we're talking about aboriginal issues we're not talking solely about our students. We are talking about your own children and the education they get about aboriginal people. We can have the opportunity in this legislation to say that we are going to correct some of the historical lies, inaccuracies, inequities that are created by the curriculum, the materials the teachers are given, and by the way we train them.
We know as well that the issues around establishing standards are going to have significant impact on us. No one, for instance, can teach our language but our language speakers. If I ask you all what my name means, it doesn't mean anything to you. It means, "She brings greetings from a special place," and the Mohawk elders, who gave me that name, are the ones who need to teach not only me in my language but other children to understand those sensitive issues.
The way the act is, it has the potential to ignore our elders, our traditional people, our medicine people and our language speakers because of qualifications which may or may not apply. You've got to understand there's been a systemic issue and we have not been on an even competitive ground the whole process, which is why we're not being successful in mainstream.
While I appreciate the people who spoke before, who are worried about some of the more technical aspects of the legislation, we're worried about the legislation in terms of educating teachers, in terms of issues around our standards of performance and our capacities in terms of the people who are learned, who are teachers in our community, and their recognition. So we have some recommendations for you.
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You should know that our recommendations come from the committee itself having suggested that the needs of teachers of aboriginal students have to be paid attention to. Certainly that's commendable on our part. What happened in terms of the consultations with the aboriginal community and how we suggested they were done simply have been left out of the process subsequent to saying: "Gee, we should do something about this. We should pay attention."
Our recommendations: You should know that we would have preferred that aboriginal issues be dealt with very distinctly. For instance, one of you raised the Regulated Health Professions Act. In the Regulated Health Professions Act traditional healers and aboriginal midwives are exempted and so aboriginal language teachers, aboriginal elders or traditional spiritual teachers also could be exempted from your legislation. You have a precedent, you have the capacity, you also have the power to simply ignore us again, and we recognize that.
However, we hope that you will be compelled that you want the truth taught, that you want Ontario to be a place where we can all participate, that that participation is not guaranteeing us a life where we cannot achieve success in an education system and have only the downside in terms of social welfare to look at.
Since that possibility is there, we are also interested in making sure that aboriginal people are directly involved in the design, the development, the delivery of training as it affects aboriginal people or as it affects people who will teach aboriginal students, meaning everyone.
We also want to make sure and we have recommended that an aboriginal teacher education governance committee be created and that that committee consist of representatives appointed by aboriginal organizations and aboriginal educators.
It is further recommended that the aboriginal teacher education governance committee have representation on the executive committee and the other standing committees being created by the college through the legislation.
It's finally recommended, as I suggested, that aboriginal teachers and aboriginal language teachers, traditional teachers and language teachers be exempted from the scope of the authorities of the college. As the matter now stands, the college can exclude our traditional teachers and language teachers from the classroom, and you'll have to admit that they're going to have a very difficult time teaching Ojibway or Cree or Mohawk or, for that matter, teaching about moccasins, toboggans and snowshoes.
None of our recommendations is new. They've been around for a long time. We have spoken not only to the people constructing the Ontario College of Teachers. In 1972 the National Indian Brotherhood created a policy called Indian Control over Indian Education, and every subsequent study, released provincially or federally, has identified the need to look at aboriginal initiatives in education, teaching training being a priority and the recognition of our own resource people. We've raised them with the Teacher Education Council of Ontario, we've raised them with the Royal Commission on Learning and we raise them with you.
I look forward to any questions or the consideration you will give with respect to our recommendations.
Mr Patten: Skonagelehira, thank you very much for your presentation.
I found this presentation to be very succinct and to the point of what I'm sure you face every day.
I personally have had some connection with friendship centres. The former director, Peter Lee -- I don't know if you know Peter -- and I were very good friends. Of course the implications of what you're suggesting in terms of native students goes beyond the scope of this particular area. You suggested you've talked with a number of groups. Have you talked with some of the teacher federations in terms of their support of this?
Ms Maracle: We've done some work, yes, with some of the federations. Aboriginal issues tend to be sexy sometimes and people want to be on the bandwagon -- it's a great thing to do -- but, "Gee, we have other priorities, and we really need to worry about our own issues in terms of credentialling and whatever." Yes, we have talked to them, and in some instances, for instance, from the women's federation of teachers, we can point to numerous resolutions where they've supported the need to change education of teachers, the need to make sure that aboriginal issues in the classroom, either as resourced by those teachers or demonstrated, are addressed, but we haven't gone out of our way with respect to this legislation to say, "We need all these amendments." We probably could point to other forums where we've had those conversations and bring them forward, if you wanted.
Mr Patten: Personally, I support your recommendation. I think it's a good one. I'm sure you can point to other areas, non-educational areas, where your community, in having been able to assume full responsibilities for the leadership, has almost instantaneously done away with some of what I call social schizophrenia that often takes place on reserve or with native people, especially young native people, in terms of their allegiance, their values, their future, their relationship historically. I, for one, think this is a very good one, and it is also, for this committee, a very specific way of acknowledging the position of first peoples.
Ms Maracle: Thank you.
Mr Miclash: I'm familiar with the work done by your friendship centres. As you may know, I represent a fairly large native population in the riding of Kenora. I know about your students in crisis and your involvement in the schools, and I'm certainly aware of the dropout rate throughout some of the communities in northwestern Ontario.
When it comes to the selection process of people you would see acting on your behalf, how would you go about that?
Ms Maracle: We would certainly have a conversation with the leadership in terms of what are called the aboriginal provincial territorial organizations in Ontario: Grand Council Treaty 3, Nishnawbe-Aski Nation, the Union of Ontario Indians, the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians, Metis Nation of Ontario, Ontario Metis and Aboriginal Association, Ontario Native Women's Association, and our own, and the independents. I think we have both the history and the constructs to look at teacher training, to look at the issues, to make sure, for instance, if one proceeded with an aboriginal teacher education governance committee, we could do that.
We also have an opportunity through the Aboriginal Education Council, where we already work, where we've already done papers with respect to teachers, to continue that process. I don't think it would be difficult. We certainly have teachers, resource people, educators among our own population as well, and they would certainly be high on our list of people who might be selected to be involved in the process.
Mr Miclash: Thank you for the presentation.
Mr Wildman: I'll say meegwetch in Ojibway. I think this is a very major issue. As you say, sometimes they're sexy and sometimes they become a little passé.
As a very young teacher, about 30 years ago, I was faced in my classroom, as were other people in the secondary school where I was teaching, with a significant minority of aboriginal adolescents from the far north, as well as aboriginal adolescents from adjacent reserves and the urban community where we were teaching.
I found, particularly with those from the far north, although there were difficulties with the others as well, that these students found themselves in some sort of no-man's land, or no-person's land; that they came to live in an urban centre and learned, I guess, although they didn't participate very much in class, and then went home and found they had very little in common with their families and the far northern communities they had come from. Inevitably, particularly among the boys, but also the girls to a lesser extent, they didn't last very long, and they left.
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In the 30 or so years since, not much has changed. As a teacher, I wasn't given any training by anybody in how to try to reach out to those students, more than I was trying to reach out to all my students, so I have some sympathy with your proposals.
There was a question about the federations. Have you had any discussions with the implementation committee of the College of Teachers and/or the Ministry of Education and Training officials about your concerns about standards and the training of teachers in cross-cultural issues as well as curriculum and how to deal with, and serve better, aboriginal students?
Mr Thompson: Back about 3 years ago or 4 years ago, the ministry invited us to participate in an aboriginal teacher education work group. Essentially, it arose out of the recommendations of a group called the Teacher Education Council of Ontario. It was a forum where all our organizations worked together to try to address the issues affecting aboriginal teacher education. Those issues were raised, working documents were prepared, but the process was brought to an end without any conclusion or action on the recommendations.
Ms Maracle: We have met with the implementation team in terms of the college and received several responses. One is that they're going to be bound by legislation, which is why we think there need to be aboriginal references in the legislation. Second: "We'll get to you. We have a multitude of priorities. We want to be sensitive; however, you're not our biggest priority right now."
It's the usual process, and that process is what's resulted in the fact that anywhere from 30% to 90% of our students are not successful going through a process. Teacher education, but also the governance structures and making sure that people can see that aboriginal people are involved, are fundamental to changing that tide and equally to changing our community so that we can be educated, can live in home communities or in urban areas, and that that's recognized. I don't believe it is now.
Mr Wildman: In Sault Ste Marie there are, in both the public and separate systems, aboriginal language classrooms, Ojibway classes, taught by aboriginal people who are not holders of teaching certificates. They are holders of a different kind of teaching certificate, I guess, in terms of their traditional culture. I think your suggestion about some reference to an exemption or something that would ensure that those kinds of classes might not be jeopardized by this legislation is very important. I appreciate the presentation.
Mr Newman: Welcome, Tim and Sylvia, to the committee.
Page 2 of the brief states: "Our experience as aboriginal people in provincial schools demonstrates that there is a need for all teachers to be aware of aboriginal cultures and issues, not only for the benefit of aboriginal students but for the benefit of the Ontario population as well. This does not currently occur on a systemic basis. The Ontario College of Teachers provides an opportunity to ensure that all teachers are required to have training in aboriginal cultural sensitivity/awareness." Do you feel that Bill 31, in its present form, paragraph 3(1)6, where it talks about providing ongoing education to the college, handles your concerns?
Ms Maracle: No. It's too generic. Unfortunately, if you do not mention aboriginal people as one would mention the francophones or as one would mention special needs, we simply get left off the list. It's too generic, and because there are no references to the aboriginal community, to our standards and to our relationship, we will be at the very best an afterthought. And we're coming here to say we don't want to be an afterthought; we want to be mentioned in this legislation, even, as the minimum, to exempt our credentialed educators, meaning our language teachers, our traditional teachers. We would prefer there to be some very specific references, the creation of a change in the governance structure to recognize us, and certainly recognition in the legislation that aboriginal education for teachers and aboriginal teachers may require different developments.
Mr Skarica: The implementation committee report indicates that on the governance structure they're recommending the appointment of one aboriginal community representative nominated by the Aboriginal Education Council. That's one of the 31 that's ensured. Would that give you adequate representation?
Ms Maracle: No. That's tokenism. We went to them and said, "We're prepared to negotiate." We would prefer four out of 31, but we would have taken two. There are very distinct issues between north and south in our community, very distinct, and that super Indian teacher from Ontario you can find who represents all that -- please identify them to us, because we have 25 or 30 jobs for them in terms of policy development. From our perspective, it really is tokenism.
Mr Skarica: You mention the differences between north and south. I'm sorry; maybe, just to help me out, you could elaborate.
Ms Maracle: There are education issues and tuition agreements, for instance, in very northern communities where our children are flown out to go to publicly funded education institutions. Those children are coming out perhaps without language backgrounds, perhaps from a family without literacy issues. They don't even have urban life skills: They don't know how to cross the road and catch the bus. That's versus, perhaps, the population in the south, who are much more interested and zealous in terms of maintaining their culture and finding out the truth about who they are than basic urban life skills. Those are two very extreme examples, and I don't want to generalize too much.
There are more issues with respect to language education, particularly in languages, for instance, that don't have a written form or we're at risk of losing because there are so few speakers left.
Other people will come to you -- in fact, I may come to you with a different hat and talk to you very specifically about what this is going to do about first nations schools where you're proposing to regulate teachers as well. That's a big issue nobody has considered, both in terms of fiduciary responsibilities -- your agreement with the federal government around the provision -- and how you're going to apply those standards through this legislation on a reserve.
There are a number of issues where people will say, "They're too difficult, so we're just to be silent on the matter." That one person out of 31 votes may, if we find the right person, be able to raise the issues. I'm not convinced the response will be there or that the resources will be allocated the way we should to look at creating a level playing field.
Mr Wildman: Could I help with that, Mr Chairman? As a matter of interest, in terms of students from the far north coming even to Sault Ste Marie, the Batchewana First Nation has set up a program for helping far northern students from Oji-Cree communities gain urban life skills in Sault Ste Marie. They suggested it might be a good idea to fly the teachers teaching the students to the reserve in the north for a couple of weeks to give them some life skills, but that never actually happened.
Ms Maracle: You could say the same thing for the Sudbury teachers to Manitoulin Island. We did say it for the London teachers to Oneida or Chippewa. I mean, it is a very different world, and I'm not convinced one person can adequately represent that and that they're going to be considered.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation and thanks for coming to the committee.
That's the last delegation. We'll adjourn until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
The committee adjourned at 1800.