ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
ONTARIO CATHOLIC SUPERVISORY OFFICERS' ASSOCIATION
ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
CONTENTS
Monday 22 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
Ontario Parent Council
Lynn Beyak, chair
Kathy Anstett, member
Barbara Smith, member
Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation
Earl Manners, president
Malcolm Buchanan, general secretary
Maurice Green, legal counsel
Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association
Joseph Rapai, president
Eleanor Shannon, past president
Mearl Obee, vice-president
Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation
Reg Ferland, president
Dave Lennox, general secretary
Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association
Marilies Rettig, president
Marshall Jarvis, first vice-president
Pat O'Neill, coordinator, counselling and membership services
Claire Ross, general secretary
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 Gerretsen
Ross, Lillian (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC) for Mrs Johns
Skarica, Toni (Wentworth North / -Nord PC) for Mr Jordan
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Bartolucci, Rick (Sudbury L)
Clerk pro tem / Greffier par intérim: Doug Arnott
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1535 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.
ONTARIO PARENT COUNCIL
The Acting Chair (Mr Michael Gravelle): Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the continuation of our public hearings into Bill 30 and Bill 31. My name is Michael Gravelle. I'm the acting Chair for the next couple of days and I welcome everybody here. We will begin right away; we're running just a little bit behind now. We welcome the Ontario Parent Council.
Mrs Lynn Beyak: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lynn Beyak. I chair the Ontario Parent Council and I'm from northwestern Ontario, Fort Frances.
On behalf of the entire parent council, I would like to thank all the members of the standing committee on social development for the opportunity to present our briefs on Bill 30 and Bill 31. With me for the presentation today are Kathy Anstett from Mississauga, Barbara Smith from Markham and Richard Zelinka, our vice-chairman, from London.
Other council members present in the audience are Gisèle Acheson from Navan, Susan Bistrovich from Grimsby, Gabrielle Blais from Orléans, Mary Margaret Laing from Cambridge, Carole Lamoureux from Chelmsford, Valerie Mills-Daly from Kenora, Sonia Reid-Cudjoe from Toronto and Catharine Shanahan from Windsor.
Part of the Ontario Parent Council membership is nominated by regional selection committees comprised of parents, teachers and the greater community. You can see that we're a diverse group. We represent many geographical areas of the province. We also have a standing seat for members of the three recognized parent federations in the province; that is, the Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations, la Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario and also the Federation of Catholic Parent-Teacher Associations of Ontario.
We're proud of our briefs, and without further ado, I will turn the floor over to Kathy Anstett who will present the Ontario Parent Council brief on Bill 31.
Mrs Kathy Anstett: As Lynn has indicated, I will be presenting our position on Bill 31. We would like to begin this afternoon by strongly endorsing the establishment of a College of Teachers as an important means of improving the accountability of the educational system in this province. Recent education initiatives recognize that education is a responsibility to be shared among parents, students, schools and the broader community. Parents value teachers as true partners in education and are pleased to support the establishment of a vehicle which will enable teachers to take fuller responsibility for the practice and conduct of their profession, for their ongoing professional education and for the accountability of their profession to the public.
The Ontario Parent Council would like to specifically comment on certain aspects of Bill 31, beginning with the composition of the governing council and of the committees. The Ontario Parent Council is strongly committed to the recommendation that the public have significant representation on the governing council and committees because this mechanism will allow for input from the other partners in education and will help to increase accountability to the public. Inclusion of the public in these committees will help to identify the broader community perspective and will provide valuable feedback from the public on decisions affecting our students.
The governing council and committees must reflect the balance between those directly involved in the provision of education and the people they serve. The Ontario Parent Council is very supportive of the recommendation that the public be represented on all committees to help ensure this objective is met.
Concerns have been raised with regard to the number of members who are to be appointed to the governing council from the public at large. It is our position that the proposed composition of the public representation on the governing council suggested by the implementation committee's report, The Privilege of Professionalism, will allow for a true accounting and monitoring system that will best serve the interests of all of the partners in education. We agree that the duty of the college is as it is stated in Bill 31, and that is to serve and to protect the public interest. Ontario must have a College of Teachers that best represents the interests of all of its citizens.
The trend to greater public accountability in professions that serve the public has accelerated in recent years. A fundamental shift in the way we look at education and education delivery is occurring, and with that it must be recognized that the public is demanding the right to participate in meaningful ways. Significant public participation on the governing council is essential to this evolution which acknowledges the benefits of greater participation of the public in the public education system.
For this reason, the Ontario Parent Council will not support any recommendations to reduce the amount of public representation on the governing council or committees. Any reductions to the number of public appointees will cause the loss of a significant portion of the diverse group that is being proposed. This would be unacceptable considering that our education system is currently being remodelled to allow for the meaningful participation the public is now demanding.
Ontario parents should be represented by a minimum of three of the public appointments in order to address the perspectives of parents in the public, separate and francophone systems. A standard for public participation in professional bodies of this type is set out in the Regulated Health Professions Act, which provides for approximately 45% of the council to be chosen from the public. The precedent is clear: Significant public participation on councils of self-regulatory bodies is an idea whose time has come, and the Ontario Parent Council is pleased the Legislative Assembly of Ontario is acknowledging this.
We would also like to comment briefly on the process recommended by the implementation committee that the Ontario Parent Council nominate the three parent representatives to sit on the governing council. The Ontario Parent Council agrees that ours is the logical organization from which to nominate the parent representatives, but we acknowledge the importance of including our other parent partners in the process. We have approached the Ontario Federation of Home and School Associations, the Federation of Catholic Parent-Teacher Associations of Ontario and la Fédération des associations de parents francophones de l'Ontario to solicit their participation in the development of the nomination process.
We would also like to comment on the recommendation that the governing council and the discipline committee meetings be open to the public. We support this recommendation as it is important that the principles of openness and transparency be upheld to ensure public accountability. The Ontario Parent Council would like to address subsection 29(7), which deals with the exclusion of the public from a discipline hearing. We support clauses 29(7)(a) and (b) as they mirror what is currently found in the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, which is the act that governs the 85 tribunals that comprise the administrative justice system in Ontario. We agree with the inclusion of clauses (c) and (d).
However, we feel that clause (e), which states "the committee will deliberate whether to exclude the public from a hearing or a part of a hearing," should be reworded for clarification. It is our understanding that the intent of this clause is to ensure that a decision to exclude the public from a discipline hearing cannot be made arbitrarily by the chair of the discipline committee, but that the committee must publicly deliberate on whether or not to exclude. We support this concept, but we feel that the current wording of subsection 29(7) is a grammatical non sequitur and could lead to a misunderstanding of intent. Open disciplinary hearings are an important part of the administrative justice system in Ontario and we support the Ontario College of Teachers following this model.
Concern has been raised that having disciplinary panel hearings open to the public may be unfair to the teacher whose conduct is being reviewed. We feel it should be noted that an investigation committee will be established to consider and investigate complaints regarding the conduct or actions of a member of the college and that the investigation committee will not be open to the public.
The investigation committee may refer the matter to the discipline committee, or it may choose to caution the person who is being complained against, but the investigation committee will have the authority to refuse to consider and investigate a complaint if in its opinion the complaint does not relate to professional misconduct or incompetence, or if the complaint is considered frivolous or is an abuse of process. It is a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that any matters referred to the discipline committee will not be frivolous and indeed will be worthy of further review. With the discipline committee having the authority to exclude the public under subsection 29(7), the Ontario Parent Council feels the rights of a teacher whose conduct is under review are thus protected. The significance of having disciplinary hearings open to the public reinforces the principle that the teaching profession is accountable to the public it serves.
We would also like to address the recommendation that teachers participate in ongoing professional learning. The Ontario Parent Council supports the recommendation that the College of Teachers be charged with ensuring that all teachers in the province of Ontario participate in career-long learning. Mandatory participation in a career-long program will result in higher standards of practice in the teaching profession and will benefit both teachers and students. It is important, though, that courses complement the day-to-day work in which our teachers are engaged so that our children may directly benefit from our teachers' ongoing learning.
The Ontario Parent Council also sees great potential for this initiative to improve the ability of teachers to provide the best possible assistance to all students in our multifaceted, global environment. Teachers will provide students with a first-hand example of the benefits of life-long learning.
Finally, the Ontario Parent Council is strongly committed to equal access for all students to quality education and training, and we believe that parents across this province will support the concept of an open central registry where teachers' registration information can be accessed.
In closing, the Ontario Parent Council would like to state again our support for this initiative that signals continuing evolution in the education system. Parents and teachers all wish for the same thing: a quality education system that delivers the very best we have to offer to our students. It is clear that structural and program adjustments will continue to occur in education. Parents and teachers must work together for change that enhances and does not detract from our ultimate goal of providing equitable, quality, publicly funded education across this province. The College of Teachers is a vehicle for us to work together in ensuring this goal is met.
I'll be pleased to answer any questions.
Mrs Lillian Ross (Hamilton West): Excuse my voice; I have a little bit of laryngitis. Welcome to all of you.
The teachers' federation has suggested that public appointments to the governing council be reduced, and you're recommending that they stay as they are. As a matter of fact, Mr Patten has suggested that 10% to 15% representation on that council would be sufficient. Do you think the federation should be concerned about the need to have public participation on that council?
Mrs Anstett: Absolutely not. The Ontario Parent Council agrees, as it is explained in Bill 31, that it has a duty to serve and protect the public interest. If you accept that -- and the Ontario Parent Council certainly accepts that -- then significant public representation on the governing council becomes an imperative.
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In doing research for our presentation today, I was reading some debates with regard to the Regulated Health Professions Act in 1991, some amendments, and there were some extremely valuable points made in those debates by all members of the House. If I may, I'd like to quote Elinor Caplan. What she said was: "Ultimately what is important in the public interest will be the accountability by the professions, by the professionals, to the public and for them to understand fully that this framework legislation empowers the professions to act in the public interest.... It is my hope that we will always remember, as we go through the debate and the discussion of this historic package of legislation, that the primary and overriding interest must always be the public interest."
If we accept that the public education system is an essential public service, then it cannot be exempt from the principle of public accountability.
Mrs Ross: I think the important words that you're mentioning here continually are that it is in the "public interest" that this college is being established.
Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): Along the same lines, the OSSTF proposal -- and they are here, so perhaps they could address this -- is indicating that they feel that the appropriate composition of the council should be changed from 17 to 18 to 25 and to alter the public-appointed representation, reduce it from 14 to six to eight. Perhaps you could address whether you think that would be a feasible composition of the council. Basically three to one is what they're suggesting.
Mrs Anstett: No, we do not. We of course support a teacher's right to join a federation and we acknowledge that the purpose of their federations is to enhance their members' rights, to protect their members and to be accountable to their members, but we must acknowledge that their primary duty of course is to their members. The primary duty of the College of Teachers is to protect the public interest, and no one organization can be seen to control the college when the protection of the public interest is not their primary duty. Significant public participation, as is outlined currently in the bill, does address this.
Mr Skarica: Do you feel the three-to-one ratio being proposed by both the OTF and the OSSTF would address your concern, or would that create an imbalance that would not be in the public interest?
Mrs Anstett: The Ontario Parent Council is pleased with the representation that is outlined in Bill 31 and would not like to see that changed.
Mr Richard Patten (Ottawa Centre): Welcome this afternoon, and all of your other representatives who came with you this afternoon. It's a good, healthy sign, and I'm very pleased to see you here today.
I suppose it's that balance, the balance of what constitutes a professional body and what constitutes public interest. It would seem to me that for a professional college of any sort, any kind of professional body, its first and primary responsibility is the upgrade of the quality of its own profession, and then I agree that accountability is one of the objects as well. But I feel that unless there's a sense that the profession itself wants to feel, "We now have a responsibility, yes, to the public and to ourselves and to the students to upgrade our capacity to make sure that we have in place all the things that will help us be the very best we can possibly be as professionals" -- I agree with that.
I think we're talking about a balance. The debate really revolves around -- and while I did indicate that I thought that for some professional bodies, 10% to 15% of public participants on that council or governing body was typical, in other areas it's smaller. For example, the nursing profession has a much higher percentage of public representation, and this is what is proposed here. But many of the teachers are saying that out of those 17 that are recommended, they dispute three categories: one from the area of private schools, one from a supervisory area and one from a faculty of education. They're distraught and feeling, "This is not really our professional body."
I'm not talking great numbers. It may be a balance of two or three, and frankly, keep all the representatives who are there; maybe it's adding a couple more. But it seems to me fundamentally important that teachers feel this is their college, that they truly feel this is their college professionally, with a high degree of participation and a high degree of involvement of others within the sector and of course parents.
Given that kind of balance, would you still feel that there might be some basis on which we can help look at the possibility of teachers feeling, "Okay, we do have the majority"? Because you can make the case that they really don't at this point, practising teachers.
Mrs Anstett: It's my understanding that this is to be a College of Teachers not strictly for classroom teachers but to encompass the entire teaching profession. It seems entirely reasonable to me that the three positions that are in dispute by some of the teacher federations should indeed be represented on the governing council, particularly supervisory officers, because they must hold teaching certificates and the college will also be responsible now for issuing certificates to qualify supervisory officers. I believe it's close to 80% now of private school teachers currently hold teaching certificates, and I view this as a great incentive to bring that percentage up higher with participation in the college.
As the college will now be accrediting educational programs offered by the post-secondary institutions, it seems eminently reasonable that an academic staff person should also have a place on the college.
Our position is that 17 positions are held by members of the teaching profession. They have a clear majority. Fourteen positions will be held by the public. We feel this representation will serve both interests. It will protect the public and it will allow the teaching profession to be a self-regulatory body.
Mr Frank Miclash (Kenora): I too thank you for the presentation. In your opening comments you indicated that you're an advisory body to the Minister of Education and Training. My question is one around the actual drafting of Bill 31 and what kind of involvement you, as an advisory body, would have in the drafting of this legislation.
Mrs Anstett: We were not involved in the drafting of the legislation. We commented upon the implementation committee report and have commented on the bill to the minister, indicating our full support.
Mr Miclash: So those comments have been solicited by the minister and the ministry?
Mrs Anstett: Yes, and we have relayed them.
The Acting Chair: One minute left.
Mr Patten: There's considerable debate around the issues of the extent of powers for investigation, one issue raised of openness. Frankly, a number of us are concerned about the broad basis, to the point where the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Tom Wright, has provided some counsel to us, and the concern is a legitimate one. That is, people can be accused of certain things and be, by virtue of public exposure, deemed guilty even if they are not guilty. As a parent of students, believe me, I feel the same way. You want to make darned sure, for whoever may be charged with something, especially in relation to students, that this is a good process, that it's credible, and that you believe in it and you trust it and you have total confidence in it.
On the other hand, the other side is the nature of information gathered on people and what will go into that registry of information that's gathered. A person may be absolved of something but find that they're asking things like blood type and sexual orientation and issues of race, these kinds of questions. I wonder if you have any sensitivity -- I know you must have sensitivity to it. Do you have any comment on that kind of concern?
Mrs Anstett: This is an issue that we have considered carefully, but we feel the interests of privacy are addressed by the fact that the investigation committee, where the complaint must first be raised, is not open to the public. We also feel that as the College of Teachers will be under the same stringent guidelines that are contained in the Statutory Powers Procedure Act that regulates the other administrative justice tribunals in Ontario, it is fitting that a College of Teachers should work or operate under the same guidelines as the other administrative justice tribunals. We do not see a reason for exempting the college in that way.
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Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt): I probably shouldn't have to ask this question, but I will anyway. Are any teachers or trustees allowed on the parents' council?
Mrs Anstett: On the Ontario Parent Council?
Mr Laughren: Yes, your council.
Mrs Anstett: We have a trustee.
Mr Laughren: A trustee?
Mrs Anstett: We have a trustee. Our chair is a trustee.
Mr Laughren: Help me out again, then. I'm glad I asked that question. Are you here today representing the trustees or the parents? What hat are you wearing today?
Mrs Beyak: Thanks for the question, Mr Laughren. I'm first and foremost a parent. I've been involved in education since 1982, for two years in the classroom, from 1982 to 1984. I saw things in the classroom that I didn't like. I didn't see teachers with the power they deserved or needed. I joined the home and school association, and from 1985 to 1990 I represented the West Rainy River District Home and School Association as their delegate. I became a trustee in 1990. I'm still a trustee with the Fort Frances-Rainy River Board of Education.
Throughout that time I wrote letters to Dave Cooke, the Minister of Education and Training, and suggested to him that he might like to have a parent trustee on the parent council so that work done at the Ontario Public School Boards' Association wouldn't be duplicated, the masses of paperwork that we all know and love so much.
Mr Laughren: Did he even respond to you?
Mrs Beyak: Yes, he did. He wrote back and said it was an excellent idea, told me to write to the parent council, which I did, and when the new minister, the Honourable John Snobelen, became the Minister of Education, he thought it was a good idea as well and appointed me as chair of the parent council. I believe my interests and my educational background for all these 14 years stand me in good stead. I am a parent first and foremost, and this is the Ontario Parent Council.
Mr Laughren: So there are no rules against having a trustee?
Mrs Beyak: No.
Mr Laughren: And presumably no rules against a teacher being on the parent council either. Am I right?
Mrs Barbara Smith: No, there aren't. Our bylaws do state that anyone who is employed by a school board cannot sit on the Ontario Parent Council. Trustees are not employed by boards, but teachers are.
Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): They're paid by the boards, aren't they?
Mrs Smith: But they're not employed by boards, and I think that's where the distinction is. That's our understanding.
Mrs Beyak: They're accountable to the public, not to the board.
Mr Laughren: The last thing I'd want to do would be to belabour this. However, I do wonder why there hasn't been a clamouring by the teachers' profession that if trustees can be on the parent council, why in the world can't teachers be on the parent council? I find that strange.
Mrs Anstett: I guess you'd have to ask them that, Mr Laughren.
Mr Laughren: Yes, I guess I will. I'm somewhat taken aback by this. So there's no limit. What's the total makeup of the parent council? How many on it?
Mrs Anstett: There are 18 members.
Mr Laughren: So 18, and one trustee, only one; that's the chair.
Mrs Anstett: That's correct.
Mr Laughren: So there could be more? There's nothing to stop the floodgates from opening and having any number of trustees on the council. Is that correct?
Mrs Anstett: With all due respect, Mr Laughren, I'm having trouble understanding how this is impacting on Bills 30 or 31.
Mr Laughren: I am taking the comments of the parent council seriously and their representation to this committee very seriously, and I think it's nice to know where they're coming from. Thank you, Mr Chair.
Mrs Beyak: They're coming from parents.
Mr Wildman: I would hazard a guess that some teachers are also parents.
In your presentation, you indicated that you were happy with the legislation and so on. I'm just wondering: A number of representatives of boards as well as other groups who have appeared before us, as well as teachers, have indicated that they think there might be or should be a division between the function of the discipline committee, which deals with alleged misconduct investigations and so on to determine whether a teaching certificate might be lifted, and questions around fitness or capacity to teach. For instance, an individual who is a teacher might become incapacitated through some disorder, mental or physical, that might inhibit or make it inappropriate for her or him to continue as a teacher but that certainly would not be, or should not be, I would think, a matter for discipline.
If someone develops a mental disorder, for instance, it's not a question of discipline, so the question is whether there should be an additional, separate committee to deal with questions of incapacity, as opposed to just the single disciplinary committee. I'm wondering what the parent council's view might be of that.
Ms Anstett: If it was clearly defined for us, I don't anticipate that there would be a problem on the Ontario Parent Council in considering a separate committee to deal with that.
Mr Wildman: One of the concerns that has been --
The Acting Chair: Your time has expired, Mr Wildman. We've reached the limit. I'm sorry. I'd like to thank the Ontario Parent Council for appearing.
I'll ask our next presenters, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, to make their way forward.
While we have this shift, Mr Glenn, our research officer, has some information for the committee members that he can perhaps let you know about now.
Mr Ted Glenn: You should have two documents in front of you from the legislative research service. One is the initial summary of proceedings thus far. A second one is a brief in response to Mr Wildman's request for information on the role of other bodies in cases of allegations of sexual misconduct of members of the college. If there are any questions about either of those, contact me. If there are any questions regarding the brief on sexual misconduct, Mr Kaye is available for questions as well.
ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Acting Chair: We welcome the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation.
Mr Earl Manners: On behalf of OSSTF members -- and many of their local leaders are in the room here today -- we welcome the opportunity to present our views regarding Bill 30 and Bill 31 to the social development committee. Given the time constraints, I plan to keep my introductory comments brief so that the majority of time is spent on substantive issues. I know the committee members want to ask questions.
With me today is Jim McQueen, our vice-president of educational services; Malcolm Buchanan, general secretary; and Maurice Green, our legal counsel.
I believe committee members have been provided with our briefs regarding Bills 30 and 31, as well as some related documents. I want to emphasize that they are consistent with the positions and recommendations that we as an organization have forwarded to ministry officials during various meetings with them over the last few months. Let me say once again that we're prepared to meet with ministry staff again if it would prove helpful in dealing with this matter in an expeditious way.
You have a copy of our brief. I'm going to follow the introductory comments that are in it to some extent, but not entirely, to save time.
The spectre of an Ontario College of Teachers was last raised in 1983 by the Conservative government of William Davis. At that time, the pro tem registrar opposed the establishment of the proposed college on behalf of the teacher affiliates. Premier Davis announced that no model of self-governance should go forward without the enthusiastic endorsement of the teaching profession, and the Premier was as good as his word.
The present proposal for a College of Teachers finds its roots in For the Love of Learning, the final report of the Royal Commission on Learning. Despite the fact that teachers had never asked for a college and were not asked to comment on the concept at royal commission hearings, it was none the less included as one of the recommendations of the royal commission.
Since the announcement of the proposed College of Teachers in April 1995, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation has opposed such an institution as wasteful, unnecessary and the establishment of yet another bureaucracy to impede classroom teachers from focusing on their main objective: teaching the students of Ontario.
In fact, in November 1995, OSSTF conducted a workplace democracy vote, as promoted by the present government in its Bill 7 legislation, and fully 94.8% of our members, in a secret ballot, rejected the model of self-governance -- and I use that term loosely -- presented in The Privilege of Professionalism report.
I want to emphasize one thing, however. OSSTF's objection to the college should not be construed as opposition to accountability to the public. In fact, OSSTF welcomes public involvement in OTF's relations and discipline committee and has supported OTF's offer to have public representation on this committee for a number of years, going back to Education Minister Tom Wells, an offer which successive governments have failed to act upon. We would have no problem with an expanded and expedited relations and discipline process to deal with gross occurrences which place students in jeopardy. We have put that forward with some suggested amendments to the Teaching Profession Act, and you have a copy of it before you. That is the direction that both the Alberta government and the Saskatchewan government followed to deal with these issues. If it's good for Ralph Klein, I wonder why it wouldn't be good for Premier Harris.
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Along with the Ontario Teachers' Federation and the other affiliates, OSSTF has provided the Minister of Education and Training with a model of self-governance that teachers would support. OSSTF and its membership remain strongly opposed to the imposition of any College of Teachers. With respect to Bill 31, we want to identify some of the following major concerns we have with the legislation none the less.
First of all, representation is the key issue in terms of assuring teachers that this college is as much for them as it is for the public. I believe that if teachers are not in the majority, as they are in the two other colleges in existence in the world, then it will be viewed negatively by teachers forever. Subsection 4(2) states that classroom teachers will not be in the majority on the governing council, so the profession then, by any definition, is not self-governing.
Other colleges have a much higher proportion of the council who are elected from the membership. The British Columbia College of Teachers has 15 elected members, which represents 75% of the council. The Ontario College of Nurses has 25 elected members, which represents 76% of the current membership of the Ontario College of Nurses. The Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario has 20 elected members, which represents 63% of the members of its college.
How is professionalism enhanced, which is what this is supposed to be all about, when teachers are in a minority in a college designed supposedly to be self-governing? It isn't, and the legislation must ensure a significant majority of the council is elected by teacher representatives.
Second, OSSTF fundamentally believes the college should deal only with professional conduct and teacher certificates. Subsections 25(2) and 28(3) have other references to teaching duties and competence. That responsibility should be left where it can be dealt with most effectively -- at the school board level. The legislation, as a result, even ignores the recommendation of The Privilege of Professionalism that complaints which fall under the legal authority of school boards in the employment of teachers be excluded from the college's authority to investigate. We would urge that those references in 25(2) and 28(3) be removed.
Subsection 28(3) goes even further than many would expect and defines incompetence as including "a physical or mental condition or disorder" that makes the member unfit to carry out professional responsibilities. In fact, however, the Human Rights Code requires employers to accommodate disabilities, not discriminate against them, and so classroom competence for teachers should remain the legal responsibility of school boards to reiterate.
The third point: The college should not be responsible for what is referred to as ongoing education, and it's referred to in a number of sections throughout Bill 31.
Mandatory recertification in the form of control over professional development is included in this legislation. All members must file personal growth plans and complete requirements for ongoing education to the satisfaction of the college or risk having their certificate suspended or revoked. Can you imagine individual filings of 150,000 growth plans and the bureaucratic nightmare that will create? It is really credentialism gone mad. Already, in anticipation of Bill 31, school boards are divesting themselves of their professional development responsibilities, so they're undermining even the laudable goal of professional growth. In Bill 31, proposed professional development unfortunately is a discipline rather than effective personal growth.
Professional development needs are best determined and monitored -- there's all kinds of research to prove this -- at the local level by school board and teacher affiliates. In British Columbia, for example, where they tried to implement professional development -- as they have said, I believe, to this group, it doesn't work.
You've already heard concerns raised by the privacy commissioner that the current legislation violates privacy rights. The extraordinary powers to search, I think, violate those rights even further. I won't go into a long explanation of that.
Let me conclude by saying therefore that as currently drafted, this legislation is a mechanism to control the teaching profession, not enable it to govern itself. It is legislation modelled on other acts which are primarily designed for self-employed professionals rather than on legislation setting up other colleges of teachers. It totally ignores the unique need of teachers as employees with probationary and permanent contract status. Teachers are willing to provide accountability but cannot support Bill 31.
We urge you to consider our clause-by-clause analysis, our alternative legislation to the Teaching Profession Act and Bill Davis's advice. On behalf of the 50,000 members whom we represent, we thank the members of the standing committee on social development for their time and attention to our concerns.
If I could, just on Bill 30, I'll ask our general secretary to make a comment. I understand you're looking at both pieces of legislation.
The Acting Chair: It's your time.
Mr Malcolm Buchanan: Just very briefly on Bill 30, the Education Quality and Accountability Office legislation, we believe the Minister of Education and Training has the responsibility to carry out the functions described in the bill. The Ministry of Education and Training should remain responsible for evaluating the program offered in elementary and secondary schools, assessing student performance and so on. Therefore, we believe that Bill 30 is not needed.
One final concern is in regard to the power of the Education Quality and Accountability Office requesting personal information within the meaning of section 38 of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and section 28 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We don't have time to go through it clause by clause, but we urge you please to consider our concerns as outlined in our brief. I think you will find they are consistent with the OTF position and other teacher organizations.
Mr Patten: You have obviously done an enormous amount of work, and it's good to see the non-legalese. Your legal counsel must have another kind of training. I appreciate it very much.
I will ask you one question. By the way, I think this is going to be very useful for the committee and certainly for us. Under the privacy concerns that you've raised, we had Tom Wright come before the committee, and we asked some questions and he replied. We asked him to reply to our concerns and he did, because our concerns were really the protection of privacy. We asked whether the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act would cover the gathering of information and protection for individuals who were the individuals on whom people gathered information, and he writes back in a letter -- I just got this today so I have to get some legal advice here, but I'd be interested in your quick reaction. It says:
"The ministry explained that the act" -- meaning the one I just referred to -- "and its regulations generally exclude from their scope self-regulating professional bodies such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Law Society of Upper Canada. Excluding the college from coverage by this act would be consistent with this approach."
My first reaction is that's worrisome. What is yours?
Mr Manners: It's worrisome to us as well, because there are provisions within the legislation which allow files on every individual teacher to be open to the public, and the kinds of information that could be collected would allow individuals perhaps to make or surmise various characteristics about individual teachers' personal habits and backgrounds, and that presents a very serious problem.
At the same time, they may be able to surmise various illnesses as well that individual teachers would have, and we believe that kind of information should not be in the public domain. What is at issue here is whether or not the teacher is acting professionally, not some of the other information. Unfortunately, because they are excluded from freedom of information, the public would be able to get access to that information, and while we would hope it wouldn't happen, it could lead to some very serious public comments that would hurt the reputations of individual teachers for a lifetime.
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Mr Miclash: Gentlemen, thank you for the presentation. As you know, I represent a northern riding, the furthest away from Queen's Park, and one of the things I'm hearing from teachers in general, and I guess from members of your federation, is that the hearings are being held in Toronto and not travelling the province. Are you getting that feedback as well?
Mr Manners: Yes, we are. I believe many of our members were hoping to make presentations to this committee and sent in requests by fax to the clerk of the committee to have this group travel around the province so they could be heard. To try and address some of those concerns, we brought in some of our local leaders today to talk to MPPs and to be here for the hearing. Unfortunately, that's not an entirely satisfactory solution either, because all they can do is watch. Many of our local communities have specific concerns they would like to address as well with respect to representation and the role of the college in their community. There may be differences between northern Ontario and southern Ontario, for example.
Mr Miclash: Exactly, and I must say that John, from Sioux Lookout, did a good job when he came to us this afternoon.
One other thing I'm hearing as well is about the fee. Teachers are concerned about an additional fee being pushed their way. It's been referred to as another tax, and I've heard that. I'm just asking for some feedback you're hearing in terms of the $90 fee.
Mr Manners: This is very much being considered by our members as a user fee. Right now the Ministry of Education is responsible for keeping the records of teachers, and now that is going to be downloaded on to teachers themselves to be responsible for the costs of it at a time when we're asked to show restraint ourselves in terms of our own demands at the collective bargaining table. It, too, will impose user fees perhaps on various professional development plans we may have. As you know, as I've said, school boards are already abdicating their responsibility for that in anticipation of the college. There's a great deal of concern about this being really just a transfer of costs from the Ministry of Education to employees.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Just one question to Mr Manners: There is a myth out there that the teachers are afraid of scrutiny. Could you please dispel the myth for the committee by outlining just the type of scrutiny teachers come under presently.
Mr Manners: We are employees of school boards, so we're under the scrutiny of students every day, and that's nothing to take lightly, let me tell you. We're under the scrutiny of vice-principals and principals on a day-to-day basis and from superintendents and directors, as well as parents. The introduction of the new Ontario Parent Council at the local level, which we wholeheartedly support, is a way too to ensure consumer accountability, if we want to use the words of the minister. Those are a number of ways we're accountable on a day-to-day basis.
As well, school boards are responsible for evaluating their teachers, either on a yearly or bi-yearly or tri-yearly basis and we participate with them. In fact, we've helped develop evaluation models with school boards to ensure that our members are accountable for their actions on a day-to-day basis.
So we're not afraid of it at all and we wouldn't be proposing an enhanced Teaching Profession Act with public participation for the last 20 years if we were afraid of public accountability.
Mr Wildman: I think it's interesting that we are here holding hearings on this piece of legislation when at this very same time in the House, as you can see on the television monitor, we are debating Bill 34, which has significant impact on education in this province.
You heard the exchange, I think, in the Legislature where it was suggested that the government might table amendments that it is contemplating to this legislation. You've had discussions with officials. Have you had any indication from the government what the amendments might be that it would bring forward after the input of everyone, and if so, are you in any way satisfied with some of the suggested amendments?
Mr Buchanan: The OSSTF through its legislation committee, which is made up of the general secretaries of all the affiliates, has spent considerable time with the drafters of the legislation. We have outlined specific concerns which are contained in our brief. It's our consistent position that has been presented to them. We have asked the drafters of the legislation as a result of over six hours of discussion with them what concerns they were prepared to put into proposed amendments to the legislation. They were unfortunately unable to give us any direction as to what amendments, if any, the government would consider tabling to address those concerns.
Mr Wildman: Perhaps the members of the government party will be able to indicate to the committee and to you what direction they're going. I think it would be helpful and useful for the rest of this week.
Just in regard to a number of issues you've raised, on the composition of the board, you've indicated that you would rather the legislation, if it is going forward, be drawn up similar to, let's say, the Ontario College of Nurses' in terms of the composition of public and elected members of the profession. Have you had any response from the government at all to that suggestion?
Mr Manners: No, we have not. The nursing profession in some ways is most like us. We are employees of an employer, they of the hospitals and our members of boards of education, and yet it is felt that they can be in control of their own college and that does not undermine public accountability in any way, shape or form. I don't know why the same would not apply to teachers.
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Mr Wildman: I don't have much time, so I'd like to ask a couple of other questions. You may have heard in the earlier presentation my question to the parent council. It's been suggested that questions around capacity or fitness in relation to mental or physical conditions or disorders should be separate from anything that might be construed as disciplinary. Would you accept that kind of change as helping to improve the legislation?
Mr Manners: We're suggesting that be excluded entirely, but if a separate fitness-to-practise committee was set up, we would go along with that, as long as the references to competence in 25(2) and 28(3) are removed and there would be a clear separation about fitness to practise versus competency.
Mr Wildman: We had representation from the Ontario Public School Boards' Association and also the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association and they raised questions or concerns about duplication between the boards' responsibilities as employers and the college disciplinary mandate with regard to alleged misconduct by teachers.
Their proposed solution was to have members of the separate and public trustees appointed to the governing board of the college. Do you share those concerns? If so, what is your reaction to their proposed solution?
Mr Manners: We certainly don't agree with their solution. That would put teachers in double, triple, quadruple jeopardy where issues of competence, for example, would be dealt with through the grievance arbitration procedure at the local board level with trustees participating in that. At the same time, our members could be referred to the College of Teachers where they would be tried all over again or concurrently.
That's something that should not happen. If school boards are going to exist in this province, they have certain responsibilities. They call that management rights as employers, and what should be retained as part of management rights is that whole issue of the employer-employee relationship. They're the ones that should be evaluating their employees and dealing with questions of competence, as they do now.
Mr Wildman: Finally, as you indicated, the British Columbia college representatives made a presentation to the committee via telephone link, and they indicated that in their situation, in questions of alleged misconduct and discipline, boards were required to notify the college, but then it went through the normal employee-employer relationship with arbitration, grievance, all those sorts of things, and when that was completed, then the college would consider whether or not the situation warranted the removal of a teaching certificate.
They had two exceptions to that. If there was a criminal conviction, then the college could act immediately. Also, I think if there were complaints from five other members of the college, in other words, five members of the teaching profession against a teacher, they said that was very rare, but the college could investigate immediately in that situation.
What is your view of the BC model as opposed to what is proposed in the legislation?
Mr Manners: That would be much better than what's being proposed here, and in fact it's current practice in this province under the Teaching Profession Act and the relations and discipline committee that exists already under that legislation. If something is being dealt with in another venue, under grievance arbitration, it does not go before the regulations and discipline committee until such time as it has gone through that court system.
As well, in our proposal here for amendment to this, we are suggesting that we streamline some of the procedures in the relations and discipline committee to deal with some of the issues that British Columbia is able to deal with and that Alberta and Saskatchewan have been able to work out with their teachers to expedite the process in those certain instances where there has been a conviction that would come under the guidelines of professional misconduct.
Mr Skarica: My question is to Mr Green. One of your objections to the institution of the College of Teachers is that you say it's wasteful and unnecessary. I'd like to refer you to the testimony we heard last week of Bernie Farber from the Canadian Jewish Congress. He outlined an example of a teacher who is one of your teachers.
I'm just reading from Hansard here that this teacher "employed by a school board right here in Ontario for almost 20 years was free to preach and publish what many considered to be racist views, albeit outside the classroom, and without censure.... He addressed rallies where well-known hatemongers were honoured and Nazi swastika flags, Ku Klux Klan and skinhead symbols were prominently displayed....
"Over the years, complaints of fellow teachers and of the Jewish community were ignored." The teachers' union did not take any action even though their "constitution commits teachers to `foster and promote the dignity of all persons regardless of race, religion and/or cultural origin.'
Eventually, he was reprimanded, but even after that, he continued his activities and addressed neo-Nazi rallies and that type of thing. "Finally...two years to the date of the first complaint, the teacher was removed from the high school classroom." He, "however, remains employed today with the school board and teaches adult education."
Mr Newman from this committee asked this question of Mr Farber, "What assistance, if any, did you get from the teachers' federations?"
Mr Farber testified: "`Assistance' is not the word I would use. As a matter of fact, they threw up all kinds of barriers, which surprised us." He testified as follows: "We wrote to the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation in the case of this teacher and we wrote to the Ontario Teachers' Federation in relation to this teacher. We pointed out to them, from their very own constitution, the obligation they have to ensure that teachers meet the standards necessary and specifically around anti-racism and the statements they have made. Not only were we not answered, but the teachers' federation of course supplied legal assistance and legal counsel to ensure that this procedure wound its way for two years."
I'm now going to ask you the question he asked the committee: Why would the teachers' federation not insist that their particular member adhere to their own guideline and their own constitution? Perhaps you could address that question.
Mr Maurice Green: I'd be happy to. Mr Farber is sadly uninformed as to what occurred in that situation. I had the dubious responsibility, given my religious background, of having to act on that situation, and the teacher was agreeable to me doing so. There's a handout we're providing you responding to those complaints.
Firstly, he doesn't understand the responsibility on federations to provide fair representation. I am personally aware that Mr Farber was advised very clearly by representatives of my client, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, that there was such a thing as the Ontario Teachers' Federation, that if he provided and gathered his evidence correctly, he could file a complaint with that body, and in fact the OTF indicated it was willing to receive the complaint and act upon it.
As we note in our handout, the fault doesn't lie with the legal structures that exist. The fault lay with the incompetence of the people who were involved in dealing with the situation.
As a further answer that's been easily supplied by the Supreme Court of Canada since its decision a couple of weeks ago on Malcolm Ross, the Malcolm Ross decision clearly stands for the proposition that if any teacher behaves in a manner such as Mr Ross, a school board has the clear ability to take legal action, to discharge, to discipline. In very strong terms, in my legal opinion, it would be very difficult, if the evidence is there, to successfully challenge that at arbitration. As a result of an arbitration board probably upholding the discipline or a discharge, that would then come to the attention of OTF, as it has in the past, and OTF would probably uphold the call for a suspension or revocation of certificate.
You don't need the College of Teachers to deal with those issues. Those issues could have been dealt with in the past, and have in other cases been dealt with. The fault, unfortunately, lay elsewhere in the processes, in the political pressures. It certainly wasn't coming from my client, which over the years has fought tooth and nail for the rights of individuals, for a more pluralistic and tolerant society. But the reality is, you have to have the evidence and you have to have complainants, and if they don't come forth, if they're not willing to come forth, then I'm afraid that's not my client's responsibility.
Mr Skarica: Is that teacher still teaching?
Mr Green: I'm advised that the school board involved did place him teaching adults. Whether there's any evidence of him still engaging in the type of conduct of which they complained, I'm not aware. I suppose if there was, the school board would respond, because the school board very clearly warned that individual that any further occurrence would result in disciplinary action. The controls are in place. They've been in place for a long time and the College of Teachers is not going to add one iota of assistance in this.
Mr Skarica: Mr Farber as well indicated that this teacher is still a member of the OSSTF. Is that the case?
Mr Green: You have no choice but to be a member of OSSTF, because the Teaching Profession Act requires that every teacher who is teaching under contract be a member of OTF, and the OTF membership bylaws require that they be a member of one of the affiliates. There's mandatory membership. Neither my client nor any of the other affiliates have the legal ability to throw a member out of membership.
Mr Skarica: Apparently there was considerable publicity regarding the conduct of this teacher. Did your union take any initiatives itself to look into the matter, notwithstanding your own constitution?
Mr Green: They looked into it. They assisted teachers who were opposed to this particular teacher against whom the complaint was laid. They helped them to the extent that they were willing to have assistance. Everything was done appropriately, as far as I'm concerned. I had a very real, personal feeling in that since I'm active in the Jewish community as well. I happen to have a different view from Mr Farber of what civil rights in this society are about, but that's for another day.
The Acting Chair: Our time has expired. Thank you very much for your presentation.
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ONTARIO CATHOLIC SUPERVISORY OFFICERS' ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: We'd like to welcome next the Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association.
Mr Joseph Rapai: My name is Joseph Rapai. I'm from York region. I'm the president of the Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association. I'm pleased to introduce our past president, Eleanor Shannon, from Metro separate, and Mearl Obee from Simcoe, who is vice-president and chair of one of our standing committees, the English Catholic directors of education. The three of us will be making the presentation this afternoon. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Paul Blake, our executive director, who is with us as well this afternoon.
We thank you for this opportunity to speak to you to support Bill 31. Along with our generally positive support, we will be recommending certain amendments and changes in procedures.
The Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association represents approximately 200 directors of education and supervisory officers for the 43 Roman Catholic separate school boards in the province. In addition, we have approximately 20 associated members from l'Association des agentes et des agents de supervision franco-ontariens, ASFO, who hold joint memberships with us.
Supervisory officers are teachers. We began our careers as teachers and, with the exception of supervisory officers of business affairs, we must hold an Ontario teaching certificate. Our role in the profession is that of supervision and public accountability.
The legislation states the duty of the proposed college in carrying out its objectives to be a "duty to serve and protect the public interest." Our mission, specifically, is a mission of "Called to lead, called to serve" for the association. That has been, and will continue to be, a duty that supervisory officers have had in legislation in terms of serving and protecting the public interest. We are aware of the enormity of the task and the many facets that can only receive periodic attention from our limited and decreasing numbers. May I emphasize that our association has fallen 200 in number.
We welcome the whole profession itself assuming a legislated duty in areas of certification, professional development and standards of practice through representatives serving on a board for those purposes. Teachers are equipped by education, role and position to exercise exemplary self-leadership.
We have learned that our genuine attempts at recommending what the public wants are not always those expressed, necessarily, by our trustees, our parents and the community at large. To us, it seems eminently appropriate that the public we serve shares the same forum with us as the profession organizes and governs itself to carry out our sacred trust.
A foundation of Catholic education philosophy is the primacy of parents in the education of their children. The proposed college almost recognizes that principle through its balancing of elected and appointed members.
We have had to weigh what the proposed college means to us. It does mean we will have one seat on a 31-member board. It does mean we will be subject to the lifelong learning requirements established by the college. It does mean we will be subject to professional standards largely set by others, including in large measure those whom we supervise. We have had to weigh how the complaints, investigation and discipline powers will affect us in such a College of Teachers.
We have concluded that the college, a concept that has been advanced and studied for over a quarter of a century, offers considerable improvement over present standards and practice.
We understand Bill 31 to be enabling legislation. The intent is to leave much of the detail to the first and subsequently constituted colleges. This seems appropriate. It posits the responsibility for those details with the profession and the college that governs it.
As an association of Catholic educators, we expect the college to recognize that the Roman Catholic separate school system educates approximately one third of the province's student population by the express will of the parents who make that choice. We too expect the college to recognize that a Catholic education both adds specific subject content in the form of religious and family life education and also an added dimension to every aspect of the curriculum mandated by the province.
The question is always asked, "Where and how do you spend a buck for the biggest bang?" The teacher in the classroom is pre-eminently the curriculum, the values and the predicted outcomes of the education enterprise. We have tried and tried again to improve the standards and the relevancy of the pre-service program. Mountains of written curriculum are developed to address the curriculum content. What assurance have we had that busy teachers are familiar with and use it? We know the best way to ensure the latter is to spend in-service time with teachers on the curriculum they will use.
We welcome too that those teachers, at least 50,000 in the province, not members of OTF, will have the privilege and the requirement of this level of professional qualifications.
I would like at this point to ask Eleanor Shannon to highlight the professional development session.
Ms Eleanor Shannon: We're well aware that most teachers in the province go well beyond what will likely be the requirement of lifelong learning. However, we do see the college as an opportunity for all teachers, in all areas of the province, to have partners in obtaining and in providing professional development on relevant issues in a timely manner. We all recognize that the best and most effective kind of professional development occurs when teachers are engaged in identifying their own needs and indeed in being involved in the development of a program to meet those needs.
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We recommend that the College of Teachers build on that abundant wealth of professional development activities that already exist through the teachers' federations, the faculties of education, local boards and various curriculum consortia which have been developing programs all along. OCSOA sees the College of Teachers as an avenue to continue the collaboration that exists presently, but it will also be an opportunity to provide a more equitable distribution of resources in all parts of the province. This is the first time that a provincial body will have a clear mandate to provide professional development. It also sees an opportunity to recognize what is happening now and to affirm the leadership that's being taken at the local level.
The Catholic school system is certainly willing to work collaboratively with other boards, where it is possible, as they have always done, but there is also a need to provide programs for teachers that are unique to the needs of Catholic schools in the area of family life and religion. We already have a model: the Catholic Community Delivery Organization. It is an example of a delivery agency that's already proven to be successful with the supervisory officers' qualification program.
Presently, the certificate program in Catholic leadership for Catholic administrators, which is offered by the Institute for Catholic Education in cooperation with the Catholic health organization and St Michael's College and in cooperation with Regis College, has been designed to meet the learning needs of administrators of Catholic education and health institutions. It attempts to balance rigour with attention to the everyday, practical issues that are being confronted by leaders in these two areas. Candidates in the program -- 25 of our members are presently involved -- are required to take 12 modules, some that are required and some that are elective.
Mearl Obee is going to talk about the investigation and discipline committees.
Mr Mearl Obee: It's always regrettable that any professional organization must take a look at a complaints, investigative and disciplinary type of structure within its organization, but I think it's key to the success of a professional group to have at least addressed that. If we look at what's happened across the province in past years, the Ontario Teachers' Federation has provided a vital service to the Ministry of Education in that regard, I believe. If you look even superficially at the number of cases that have been referred to the Ontario Teachers' Federation, I think you will find that there were very few, certainly relative to the size of the teaching profession. That speaks to the few generating, I presume, this part of the legislation, but one part that needs to be addressed.
We would like to say in a very firm and unequivocal way that as supervisory officers it has been our experience that the vast majority of teachers are tremendously committed, they're inspired people, they work very hard and they have a passion for their profession which I think goes beyond what one would normally expect.
There are a few people for whom we need to review whether or not the actions are appropriate to the profession. The teaching profession is unique in that it reaches into every home across the province where there are children. We've all been to school and we've all had that kind of interaction and have an opinion on how the profession should conduct itself. I think it's out of the passion of teachers that this legislation will provide a vehicle for the formation of and the setting of standards that are yet unnamed but will come from it.
We would provide one very real cautionary note around this section of the legislation, that in any profession it's our belief that the majority of people who are making judgements around professional competence must have an intimate knowledge of the profession and, in our view, should be practising in that profession. Therefore, we believe that the majority of a discipline committee should be practising teachers who are working within the profession at that time.
We believe too that this legislation reaches out and provides some public security with regard to groups that have not in the past been covered, certainly not members of OTF in a broad sense. Private schools, of which there are many, and the teachers who are in those we believe are well covered in this legislation. They have teaching certificates, and therefore more public accountability will be brought to bear.
We believe as well that it's critical that the current regulations that are in place which provide the requirement and the authority for supervisory officers and principals to be involved in the evaluation of teachers at the local board level must stay, that they cannot be removed. I don't think this legislation is designed to do that evaluation right at the board level, and it should clearly be viewed from the point of view.
Generally, we believe there is a need for a very small number to keep our profession as highly competent and as proactive as it has been in the past. The introduction of new people or a broadening of the coverage of accountability is welcomed, and involved in that for the first time is the group we represent: supervisory officers.
With that, I'll turn it over to our Chair and let him summarize.
Mr Rapai: We see the bill as an opportunity to convey to the public of Ontario that educators are doing an excellent job. We stand by our actions, and supervisory officers will stand up with the rest of the teachers to demonstrate that an excellent job is being done and that we're committed to lifelong learning. That concludes our presentation.
Mr Wildman: We are also dealing with the other bill, the accountability office. Does your organization have a position with regard to that legislation?
Mr Rapai: It is supportive of the direction to measure the accountability of all the educators and ourselves in terms of ensuring that the outcomes in the educational context are the best we can expect for the taxpaying public.
Mr Wildman: We had representation from the Ontario Separate School Trustees' Association as well as the Ontario Public School Boards' Association in which they expressed some concern about the other bill, the college, in terms of its investigative authority with regard to alleged misconduct perhaps duplicating the responsibility of boards as employers. They suggested that one way to avoid that was to have representation on the board of governors from trustees, which I found to be an interesting proposal.
On the other hand, we had a description by telephone connection of the British Columbia model from representatives of the college there, in which they indicated that if there was an alleged misconduct that was being investigated by a board, the board had the responsibility to notify the college and then to carry out its normal employer-employee process, which might involve arbitration and so on all the way through, prior to the college considering whether or not a certificate should be lifted. Are you concerned there might duplication and, if so, is the BC model an approach that might be followed? What is your view on this?
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Mr Obee: The BC model certainly has some merits, but I don't feel our organization is concerned with the potential for duplication. I believe the college should be working with boards, but it's conceivable that there will be some incidents that might want to be acted upon at the professional standards level while still being investigated and going through the collective agreement process. I see the two as separate, but your cautionary note, that there has to be some focus brought to the question of how those are coordinated, I think is well taken.
Mr Wildman: You might have a situation where a victim or a witness might have to testify in two processes, which might be very difficult for that individual, as well as the teacher being subject to two processes.
There's also been concern expressed by some teachers and some representation by the privacy commissioner about the possible problems in terms of protection of privacy. Are you satisfied with the provisions in the legislation that will properly protect the privacy of members of the teaching profession with regard to personal information that might be collected and might be available to the public through the registry?
Mr Obee: I must admit I haven't focused on that part of it. I know there's always a concern when there's an investigative procedure as to how far and what kind of access people have. Beyond that, I haven't looked at it, and I don't think the other members of our panel have, from the perspective you're talking about.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): Thank you very much for your presentation. We've heard from the various federations that in their view supervisory officials are not real classroom teachers, and obviously, from page 1 of your presentation, you're not in agreement with that. I just wonder if you could extend it a little further and define for us what the term "classroom teacher" actually means to you.
Mr Rapai: We see ourselves as contributing to education in Ontario as educators first, by holding an Ontario teacher's certificate. We come from those ranks. We'd hope that our service in the classroom and our assignment to positions of responsibility are a result of the merits of our work. As a result, I think in this context we contribute in a supervisory, accountability level. We would work well in enhancing the professionalism of teachers who are principals, teachers who are classroom teachers, teachers who are supervisory officers, and I think all of this is very essential. If I could add, in the context of directors of education being able to be in the leadership decision-making, a sense of having come from the classroom, which governs all of us, is a very positive step.
Mr Pettit: Are you of the opinion that parents should have some say in determining or confirming whether or not someone is a qualified teacher?
Ms Shannon: I believe parents will have seats on the council which will help to determine. If you're talking about the investigative or discipline committees, we are recommending that would be a majority of teachers, but certainly the other public would be represented on those committees, and as such parents would be involved in that.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): Just to make sure I heard that correctly, do you believe that the members of the Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers' Association today consider themselves to be classroom teachers?
Mr Rapai: I believe the fact that we hold Ontario teachers' certificates and that we're advocating in our capacity as supervisory officers assists the teacher in the classroom by the types of decisions and support we're called to give. The decisions we assist and the service we provide are enhanced by the fact that we are classroom teachers. Whether or not we are physically in the classroom is another thing.
Mr Newman: Given that answer, do you believe that classroom teachers are in the minority or in the majority of board members of the College of Teachers?
Mr Rapai: I think in this instance it would be important to have, as the first object of the College of Teachers as forefront, accountability to the public, an accountability that services are being delivered. In terms of how membership is determined, I think all the voices have to come together in a group to ensure that educational quality is there.
Mr Newman: So would you say the classroom teachers are 14 of 31 or 17 of 31?
Mr Obee: They're 17 of 31 if you're including the supervisory officers.
Mr Newman: I'm asking for your answer. Do your members consider themselves to be classroom teachers? Because I'm hearing different things here. Some are saying your members would not be classroom teachers; others are saying you are.
Mr Obee: I think we understand the question, and the question is a difference in the use of "classroom teachers." I'm not sure that, for instance, a principal is a classroom teacher, but no one would argue, I think, that they directly impact the classroom. What some are saying is supervisory officers don't. I have a teaching certificate. It's required in my job, since I'm a director of education, that I have a teaching certificate. From my point of view, I would say I am not a classroom teacher, but I am a teacher, so teachers make up the majority.
Mr Newman: Teachers make up the majority of the board?
Mr Obee: Yes.
The Acting Chair: We'll move to the official opposition.
Mr Miclash: Thank you for clearing that up for us in terms of the supervisory officer and classroom teacher, because that was one of the questions I had as well in terms of the makeup of the governing body.
What I'm looking for, and I asked the last group a question regarding this as well, in terms of the actual consultation that took place in the drafting of Bills 30 and 31, was your group at all consulted and, if so, in which way?
Mr Rapai: We have been fortunate enough to have opportunity to give input on a number of occasions, and we look forward to the opportunity in subsequent action for further input.
Mr Patten: I have two quick questions. One, under the section "Investigation and Discipline Committees," it says, "It is regretted that the...College of Teachers is burdened with the necessity of a complaints investigation and discipline procedure," but you don't go on to suggest whether it should be taken, reduced, modified or as it stands. I happen to agree with your thesis. It seems to me it's unduly cumbersome, and it could by virtue of such attract all kinds of attention and end up being burdensome to the college. Would you agree with that?
Mr Obee: I think it will be critical, the regulations and the procedures that come out to lessen the burden. The regrettable part that was spoken to was it's regrettable we have to put anything in at all, but we realize real life speaks to a different spirit than what we would hope to have. We would agree that it should be as simple and straightforward as possible but that it must be effective, because the mistakes we make in the teaching profession strike at the heart of our very young children in many cases -- simple but effective.
Mr Patten: There's a clarity of recommending that the majority of the members on the discipline committee be, without doubt, practising teachers, but you didn't say that in terms of the governance, in terms of the castle itself. Do you feel that wasn't necessary to say or would you be prepared to make the same statement?
Mr Obee: I think you'll recognize that supervisory officers --
Mr Patten: Very cautious people, I know.
Mr Obee: They walk the line between the reality of their profession and the reality of the political entities. I think in our discussions around that very question what we said was the legislation is a political response to the realities in our society and some of the pressures that are out there. Given that response, I think the legislation is crafted in a way to satisfy certain of the imperatives in our society and meet the professional needs. You're not getting the answer you want, I know, but --
Mr Patten: And you're not even an elected official. My goodness.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation. It's much appreciated.
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ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION
The Acting Chair: We ask the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation to come forward, please. Good afternoon and welcome.
Mr Reg Ferland: I'm Reg Ferland, the president of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation. To my left is the general secretary of the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Dave Lennox, and to his left is Marg Couture, the staff officer in charge of teacher education at the federation.
Given the short time allocated for presentations, OPSTF will focus today on Bill 31, one of the two bills under consideration by this committee. We would, however, like to indicate that we support the amendments to Bill 30, legislation to establish the Education Quality and Accountability Office brought forward by the Ontario Teachers' Federation.
I would also like to convey my concerns that these hearings have not provided sufficient time to hear from individual teachers who have expressed the desire to make a presentation. We understand there is a long waiting list of teachers who would like to appear. It is unfortunate that they will not have the opportunity to speak directly to this committee.
The government began by saying that a College of Teachers is something that teachers want and should embrace. I believe there is no one here today who would now suggest that teachers feel this is a positive move for their profession.
Teachers are told that the college will raise the status of their profession. We believe that teachers went through the process of professional recognition over 50 years ago when the government of George Drew enacted the Teaching Profession Act. This act establishes a set of professional standards and duties for teachers. It also outlines a process for disciplining members.
Teachers are also told we should have a college because one exists for doctors and lawyers. It is inappropriate to compare teachers to these two groups who are by and large self-employed.
Teachers do not need a college to be accountable. Teachers are accountable to parents through parent-teacher interviews and report cards. We are accountable to principals who administer the school and evaluate staff. We are accountable to our employer, who can terminate our contract. Finally, we are accountable to the Ontario Teachers' Federation and to the Minister of Education and Training through OTF's relations and discipline committee and the minister's power to remove a teacher's certificate.
This federation is offended by the paternalistic nature of the proposed college, and we do not believe that Bill 31 truly provides for self-governance. Practising teachers will not be trusted with a majority, say, on the governing council, nor will they be given the privilege to manage their own professional development. In both these areas the proposed Ontario model lies in stark contrast to the operation in British Columbia, the only other teachers' college in Canada.
In addition, OPSTF has grave concerns about the impact that Bill 31 will have on teachers' access to natural justice and the rule of law on the protection of their personal information. The operation of the discipline committee, the powers of the investigator appointed by the registrar and the failure to subject the college to the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act mean that teachers stand to lose a number of existing legal protections.
Given the concerns I've outlined, it is no wonder the vast majority of teachers feel that the establishment of a college is a punitive move on the part of the government. Instead of imposing the model of Bill 31, OTF and the five teacher affiliates have proposed an alternative model to this government whereby the OTF would assume the key self-governing functions. We would be prepared to discuss this proposal further with the committee.
Before we look at the specifics of Bill 31, I would like to state that OPSTF fully endorses the amendments brought forward by the Ontario Teachers' Federation. The purpose of this brief is to outline those aspects of the legislation which are the most disturbing to our members.
I now would like to defer to our general secretary, Dave Lennox, to speak to some of the specifics of our brief.
Mr Dave Lennox: Thank you very much, President Reg. I'm going to start on page 4 of our brief. I'm not going to read it to you but I want to speak generally to each section so that we have time for questions at the end of this.
I'd love to have a bit longer time to really get at some fundamentals of this, but I want to go back to a couple of comments that need to be made at the beginning. First of all, the fundamental flaw with the College of Teachers as proposed in Ontario is that the college is being brought about without the full involvement of the Ontario Teachers' Federation and the affiliates from the beginning. It was a government initiative. It did not have representation. It has come to this stage without the involvement of OTF and the affiliates, and yes, we took the position that we were opposed to it from whence it came, that there were all sorts of problems that developed with it.
The bill itself developed, I'm going to suggest, as a hodge-podge of a combination of other bills, and when you try to put them together, they do not mesh properly. They certainly do not mesh properly on top of all other legal processes and on top of the Education Act and regulations. I'll come to that when I get to duties of a teacher. But that conflict and that fundamental flaw at the very beginning has led us down a very rocky road with regard to the act. We have had, as you heard my colleague Malcolm Buchanan state, six hours meeting with government officials to discuss the problems in the act to no avail. If there are amendments forthcoming, we certainly have not heard about them.
I'll start with the objects here, and the first thing we'll note is that in the other acts dealing with professions there are five or six objects. You start to see the controlling nature from the very beginning when there are 11 objects for the College of Teachers. So we've gone and looked at all the other objects and done some picking and choosing.
We end up having a conflict here and the conflict is between object number 1, which regulates the profession of teachers and governs its members, and you'll notice the verbs "regulates" and "governs," and then you come to the next object down the page which talks about promoting the profession. So you end up with a regulatory governing structure and a promoting structure and there won't be enough time to talk about some of the things that the college is going to get to do on behalf of promoting the profession.
You've heard an awful lot about ongoing teacher education programs, and we just have to reiterate our concern with regard to that. We think that approving additional qualification programs and approving other agencies in the province of Ontario offering quality education growth programs is acceptable, but the accreditation and the recertification is certainly not acceptable.
With regard to the structure on the governing council, you've heard a great deal about the numbers, and I'm sure it's one that you will take very seriously into your deliberations. I want to state that the previous Minister of Education has stated that you cannot give the majority of the council to the teachers of the province, because the federations will take over. With all due respect to the previous Minister of Education for several other of his very noteworthy initiatives, this time he has it wrong, because the teachers in this province are professionals and would get on with running a College of Teachers as professionals, with majority representation on the governing council. That has been seen from the British Columbia model as well.
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With regard to ongoing professional development, I think this aspect of public accountability that is being stated as if teachers now did not involve themselves in professional development is the one that most hurts teachers around the province. We quote in our brief with regard to some of the activities that teachers involve themselves in. OPSTF for many years has been the leader in offering professional development courses. We offer right now seven credit courses throughout the province.
We have had 26,000 teachers take these credit courses. It's on their own time, at their own expense. They may add them towards their credentials, but the fact is that they line up to get into these courses. This isn't counting board professional activity days or seminars or other in-service activities or university courses or additional qualification courses.
It seems to me that this is a critical issue. If you're going to have a College of Teachers, you have to decide what the cornerstones of a College of Teachers are. If one of them is to be a body that can remove a teaching certificate from a teacher, let that be a cornerstone; that is, we want teachers who are professionals. When we come to the ongoing professional development aspect, if that is to be a cornerstone, I think we don't have a self-regulating body; what we've got is the commencement of a College of Teachers that puts teachers more into servitude than into being a self-governing body. I think this is the one that is most difficult for us.
I note also with interest, with regard to powers of the minister and with regard to a self-regulating body, that we have a minister who is still in control of the College of Teachers. You'll notice under section 12 that "the minister may require." No other profession in Ontario has that word in the legislation. What they have is "the minister may request," but under the College of Teachers we deal with a specific verb, that "the minister may require" teachers to do this, "may require" the College of Teachers to do that. I find that to be an unacceptable phrase.
You've had quite a time discussing natural justice. We could take time and line up a lot of lawyers on each side of the table to discuss due process and natural justice, but I think it's important to remind ourselves about the number of levels that we're going to have involved here. Part of the problem I have is that if we could have sat down with the government and the Ministry of Education and Training and talked about it and about double jeopardy and triple jeopardy and the process and who has the hearings and come to an agreement on the process, then we could have found a model that was more acceptable, but we provided input and they provided silence. I found that to be quite interesting.
We can have civil proceedings, we can have criminal proceedings, we can have human rights proceedings, we can have College of Teachers proceedings and we can have school board proceedings -- grievances, arbitration, boards of reference -- we can have all sorts of proceedings here. The question is, whose right is it to have at the teacher, at what time? This College of Teachers Act certainly is not clear as to when the College of Teachers starts in on its process.
We have continued down page 8, where we talk about entire sections being deleted, but we also support the OTF amendments; we have also done our homework to say if you keep this entire disciplinary process -- it won't work as it is -- please take a look at some amendments.
I want to talk for a moment about our concern with regard to fitness to practise. Again we start taking a look at what occurs under a discipline committee which is seen as a punitive committee. The word "discipline" does not come off as being a very positive word. When we talk about physical or mental incapacity, I believe we should stand back and take a look at the fact that we should be doing something else rather than disciplining these individuals; we should be providing the resources to get them better and get them into a safe haven while they do get better, not discipline them. We take a look at this.
The other aspect that has concerned me which has not been straightened out, to my way of thinking, is under the duties of a teacher. I find myself questioning the duties of the teacher staying under the Education Act right now, with the minister and under the College of Teachers, and then ours, the teachers', under the Teaching Profession Act. I think we're going to have a great conflict with that type of problem.
The powers of the registrar are interesting. Our members have had great fun with search and seizure, trying to find the one case that will require a search warrant from a justice of the peace to go into somebody's house, but not "after sunset and before sunrise." We have a great concern of finding that issue. If that's the case, why are the police not involved in this being a criminal charge? I find this aspect to be quite appalling. The other aspect of this is that we would certainly prefer to see a judge issue the search warrant rather than a justice of the peace.
I want to turn to protection of personal information. I heard it discussed a while ago and I'll try to give part of an answer now, but we may have to come back to it. I believe that teachers should be under the protection of section 38 of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. If I recall correctly, the royal commission was certainly covered and the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board is under that. I find it too wide and too far-ranging not to have teachers covered equally under that. I draw that to your attention.
I want to focus for just a moment on our occasional-teacher members. We represent about 15,000 occasional teachers; I was going to give 30,000 as our total membership. Our occasional teachers have raised several questions with us, but they keep coming back and asking, "Would you explain to me again about my paying a full fee as an occasional teacher who supply teaches one or two days a year, and could there not be some other system of a prorated fee for occasional teachers?" That question has never been addressed. It's one that needs to be asked.
The other question that has to be asked with regard to occasional teachers is that they are individuals, qualified teachers, who find it more difficult to keep up with their professional development because we do not have somebody urging school boards to invite occasional teachers within that jurisdiction in to get professional development offered by that school board, yet the very next day those are the teachers who get called into the classroom to teach. I think we should turn our attention to that group of very necessary professionals within our system.
In conclusion, we don't think this College of Teachers is going to have a positive impact on the education system of Ontario. If the interests of the students and teachers in education were truly at stake right now, we wouldn't be dealing with the College of Teachers; we'd be dealing with cutbacks in education and solving other major problems that are alarming out there.
We would encourage you not to proceed with this bill to third reading but to send it back to the Ontario Teachers' Federation and to government officials so we can get some of the problems ironed out. If you're going to proceed to pass the College of Teachers in this province, it's imperative that we, members of the profession, be involved in ironing out some of the problems before it gets passed. You must remember that once it is passed, it is there and it will negatively affect the teaching morale in the province for a long time.
I'm prepared to answer any questions.
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Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): Thank you very much for taking the time to bring your concerns forward. I think you've made two suggestions, which I'm interested in, about bringing in incapacity in a different way than putting it under discipline; and I would agree that promoting the profession is not the purpose of the college. It is the purpose of professional associations or OTF or federations that the college's job is to govern and regulate.
Mr Ferland had a newsletter out earlier last year that talked about myth and reality. I have a couple of quick points; we don't have time to go through them all. The Regulated Health Professions Act has a section where the minister "may require" the college to do anything, which is fairly firm, I would say. Search and seizure powers are also identical; justice of the peace; the sunrise and sunset limits, those are the same. Many of the health professionals that are regulated under that legislation are also employed and subject to other procedures in hospitals and peer review and assessments or whatever, so I guess the challenges are the same.
I'm interested in your views about the association that is representing the professional interests of teachers, quite appropriately and properly. Is there not a conflict of interest between that association doing that and that association also trying to represent the public interest, which is what a regulatory college, with the model that is being put forward, is supposed to do? Do you not see that as a conflict?
Mr Lennox: No, I don't. We've had a great deal of debate on that topic. We separate what I'm going to call the collective bargaining interest at the affiliate level from the interests of the OTF, of the umbrella organization. Teachers in the province have long been able to separate collective bargaining from what I'm going to call the relations-discipline aspect at OTF. I don't see that as being a conflict and I think that teachers should be in charge of their own college.
Mrs Ecker: Where does the public get to participate in the discipline and processes in that model, and where is it open to the public like regulatory colleges are?
Mr Ferland: If I might bring some light, I believe that the public has full participation and full access through the school boards. They elect trustees to represent them, to make the decisions. School boards evaluate teachers. They have policies; they have process on a cyclical basis. Whether it's every two, three or four years, a teacher must be evaluated, and if that teacher is not meeting the requirements, that teacher is offered help. If that teacher does not meet the requirements after that help, that teacher is counselled out of the teaching profession.
Trustees are the public. They are the elected officials who represent the community. This is a duplication of services, a duplication of evaluation, a duplication of discipline, if you will.
Mrs Ecker: Nurses don't see it as a duplication and they're subject to procedures within hospitals. They are also employed; they also have a regulatory college; they also have a professional/union organization. What I'm wrestling with is, why are teachers different from nurses, from midwives, from dietitians, from all the other groups that are under a similar kind of situation?
Mr Ferland: I don't think anyone has laid the claim that teachers are different in that particular sense. Our claim is that the trustees who are elected locally have that degree of accountability.
Mrs Ecker: But they don't discipline. The federation disciplines. Where's the public input or window into making that process transparent?
Mr Lennox: We have always taken the position that members of the public should sit on the OTF relations-discipline committee and we certainly support members of the public sitting on the discipline committee within this act.
Mr Miclash: You alluded to fees, and this is a question I had for the OSSTF as well. You indicated a concern that I'm hearing as I speak to teachers throughout the riding and throughout the north, that being with the suggested fee for the teachers full-time, and now you bring up another aspect to that in terms of the occasional teachers. What kind of suggestions would you have for the committee to alleviate that problem?
Mr Lennox: I would suggest that a prorated fee is the answer, and I don't think you'll ever find a formula that will work comfortably. I think you have to come to a place that if someone does casual, day-by-day occasional teaching, we could look at a 50% fee, for example. I recognize that a professional is a professional is a professional and I'll get that argument back, but I cannot help but ask people who go in a few days a year whether that should not be considered. I think a 50% fee would be the one I would favour, not anything narrower than that.
Mr Miclash: You also touched on the powers of the minister in terms of the operation of the college. I'm just wondering if you can maybe expand on where you see the minister fitting in in terms of the day-to-day operation of the college.
Mr Lennox: I don't see the minister fitting in on the day-to-day operations of the college. I think he has a responsibility to receive the report of the College of Teachers. I see it more, and I'm going to use the example of the Education Relations Commission, that they have a responsibility to be out there to deal with teachers and school boards, and then they have the responsibility to advise the Minister of Education and Training, and the Minister of Education and Training may make a request to the Education Relations Commission, but the minister does not require the Education Relations Commission. There has to be some type of neutrality out there is how I would see it.
Mr Patten: I wonder if the term "complaints committee" rather than "discipline committee," which seems to be kind of presumptuous in that sense that it has some carrying out of discipline; it kind of prejudges the situation. In some instances "complaints committee" is used as the name of the committee. Does that add anything of value?
Mr Ferland: Not in my interpretation. The complaints committee, if you're going to use that terminology, does exist at the local level through the directors of education and the superintendents who deal with parents directly on teacher complaints and find a way to deal with them effectively at that particular level. Once we broaden the scope to bring on the provincial structure, it becomes rather difficult for the individual to monitor such a complaint and to validate in any way, shape or form such a complaint. I believe it's a definite two-tiered aspect.
Mr Patten: Just one other little thing: We just found out from the commissioner of freedom of information and protection of privacy that that act will not apply to the college as such, so while the college may use, from a collecting point of view, what was there for what should be protected for the individuals, it opens up a whole series of questions, some of which you raise in your particular submission as well. I don't know whether you have anticipated or waited for the commissioner's response and what you hoped it might be to address your issue.
Mr Lennox: We had hoped the commissioner would provide a little more light on one of the perplexing questions that has been challenging us. We don't agree with the response you've received, by the way, and we'll have to give it our consideration.
Mr Patten: I'd be interested in hearing what your response is to that.
Mr Wildman: I agree completely that we should be concentrating on the cutbacks, and it's unfortunate that Bill 34 is being debated at the same time, but that's just because of the scheduling around here.
I'd be interested in pursuing the questions raised by Mrs Ecker about the similarities and/or differences under the Regulated Health Professions Act and what's being proposed here. If we use nurses as an example, most nurses are employed. They're employed by hospitals or by the VON; in some cases they work for physicians and so on, or other agencies. So they have employers. Is it your understanding, under the Regulated Health Professions Act, that the college can initiate an investigation that might be prior to or congruent to an investigation or process that an employer is carrying out with regard to a complaint with regard to alleged misconduct by a nurse?
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Mr Lennox: I have read that aspect and I'm trying to pull it back right now, so I'm going to just hedge my answer a bit by saying I do not believe they cannot have congruent activities, that one must precede the other. I'm trying to, because I've read them all -- I can't tell you whether or not it was the nurses that do that, or physicians and surgeons that go right to their college. I think the nurses deal with their employer, and once it's done there, they go the college, but I stand to be corrected.
Mr Wildman: That is the experience in the British Columbia College of Teachers.
Mr Lennox: That's correct.
Mr Wildman: Except in regard to criminal investigations, or criminal convictions.
Mr Lennox: Once there's been a conviction, then it goes directly to the college.
Mr Wildman: Can I ask one other question, then, with regard to your comments about search and seizure. Other colleges do have this right in terms of places of employment. I'm not certain about their rights with regard to a person's residence. Are you concerned that this might be dealt with in a way that would be harmful to individual teachers in that it wouldn't necessarily happen but they would fear that there would be the possibility of this kind of very serious action taken against them if there was a complaint by a student or parents or other teachers?
Mr Lennox: I think it goes further than that. Having dealt with counselling and relations over a number of years, it goes to the place where teachers do not need the anxiety of the surprise. When they saw that, I had members call me up personally and tell me they did not have any protection from this type of situation. Where we've had members go up under allegations of physical or sexual assault and have been surprised at their home by the police, and all of a sudden when they saw that the College of Teachers could go to a justice of the peace and get a search warrant, "For what?" they wanted to know. So yes, we've got a very high degree of anxiety, and just because it's stipulated in some other college does not mean it's right.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation.
ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION
The Acting Chair: Could the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association come forward, please, the last presentation of the day.
Ms Marilies Rettig: Thank you very much. I will start with an introduction. My name is Marilies Rettig. I am president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association. On my far right is Marshall Jarvis; he is first vice-president. To my immediate right is Claire Ross, our general secretary. To my immediate left is Pat O'Neill, the coordinator of the counselling and membership services department for our association.
As spokesperson for the 34,000 teachers who teach within separate schools across this province, I would like to thank you. I certainly am appreciative of the opportunity to present to you this afternoon some of our concerns, and some of our hopes and aspirations for a body that could be a professional, self-governing, self-regulating body for the profession of teachers across this province. I do, with some regret, though, issue on behalf of the teachers -- many of whom would like to be here also to present, to voice not only their concerns but also their hopes for the potential College of Teachers.
As a backdrop to our presentation this afternoon, it's important to briefly reflect upon that which has been achieved by our profession over the past years. Indeed, since the passage of the Teaching Profession Act, we have strived to achieve what legislation sees as the objects of this College of Teachers. We have, without accreditation powers, made education, teaching at both the elementary and the secondary school levels, an all-graduate profession, something that in Scotland they attest to being the greatest strength inherent in their General Teaching Council.
We have, through OTF and affiliates, worked with the ministry in determining additional qualification courses. As a professional association and as a provincial association, over 27 years ago we attested and assumed that one great area of need for our members was in religious education, and in that area we developed, together with the trustees, additional qualification courses. More than 30,000 teachers have taken those courses in the past 20 years.
Similarly, our association, together with OTF, has developed other courses, be it in the area of family life or other additional basic qualification courses, to enhance the development of our teachers throughout this province. Moreover, teachers, through OTF, have been involved in establishing and enforcing professional and ethical standards. This process is identified and outlined for you and I'm sure was alluded to by many of the other teacher affiliates when they spoke of the relations and discipline committee as it exists and as it functions within the Ontario Teachers' Federation.
Finally, as a preamble, and it's indeed appropriate upon hearing some of the questions that were raised in the previous presentation, we recognize the relationship between school boards as employers and teachers as employees. It is important to make that distinction. The school board has control of employment, where the profession, through the College of Teachers, would have control over membership within that profession.
It is very important through our discussions this afternoon, and through your discussions as you complete the process of hearings, that you contemplate each of these and that you examine ways in which the college can enhance and complement practices and direction which are already there as a viable and legitimate profession.
OECTA has done much as an association to make itself familiar with the College of Teachers and with self-regulatory bodies by not only examining other professional groups and their professional standards and practices and the dictates they have to govern themselves as professions, but by closely examining those professional colleges of teachers that exist throughout the world, most pointedly in Scotland and in British Columbia. Three of us sitting at the table have travelled to Scotland with the very purpose of identifying what is the strength inherent in the Scottish model such that we could come back to this country and contemplate those very great benefits as we develop the College of Teachers here within our province.
We certainly recognize that a College of Teachers in a self-regulatory profession would improve the area of pre-service entry standards into the profession, in-service education and professional and ethical standards. Given this vision and this positive disposition on behalf of this association, OECTA was shocked and quite dismayed by the provisions inherent in Bill 31, provisions which reflect quite a different vision of teaching and quite a different vision of education and the future of education in this province. It is our firm belief that only major revisions will save a rare opportunity that we have before us, and I say it is an opportunity.
We must allow this great profession in this province, and we can allow this profession in this province, to become a world standard. We appeal to this committee to make the necessary amendments to this bill so the teaching profession will embrace that challenge and the opportunity of the Ontario College of Teachers.
Within our brief and within our submission we outline two major areas of concern, and they are categorized into two areas, one being process and the other being scope. Together with my colleagues, we will briefly highlight some of our concerns for you. I would like to start with the area of procedural rights.
As noted in our brief, a number of concerns can be raised in the area of procedural rights of people who are governed by this bill. This principle cannot be violated. An act of the Legislative Assembly should not be seen to deny or to diminish the legal rights of citizens of Ontario nor be found by the courts to deny or diminish such rights. I refer you to sections 3.02, 3.03 and 3.04 for a further explanation of these rights now being held to question should this bill be passed without amendment.
Troubling procedural rights are also raised by the provisions governing the investigation committee. Specifically, I note the following: A member has no right to be advised of an investigation when the investigation begins. Notice is required only if the committee is going to make a decision to refer the matter to a discipline committee. In the case of any investigation, it is absolutely essential that the member, the professional, is given notice of such investigation.
In the absence of this requirement, an investigation might be conducted for months and the member would never be aware. This would prejudice the member's rights, because the passage of time adversely affects memory and the ability to gather evidence and other substantive material that would assist the member and would be part of the due process that should be available to him.
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Mr Marshall Jarvis: With regard to the issue of disclosure in section 4 of our brief, the basic premise of all justice is that an individual has the right to full and timely disclosure of all -- all -- information pertaining to the charges or complaints brought against the individual. To this end, the bill is very inadequate.
On this point, I note the following: The registration appeals committee, subsection 20(5), is required to provide copies only of documents the committee intends to consider. This contrasts significantly to the all-information requirement under the Registered Health Professions Act, as well as under the Ontario College of Teachers Implementation Committee's original report.
Further to that end, provisions governing the discipline committee contain only a single reference to disclosure:
"29(3) A party to the hearing shall be given an opportunity to examine before the hearing any documents that will be given in evidence at the hearing."
Clearly, this constitutes a denial of the individual's right to prepare an adequate defence to the case or the charges brought before. These provisions do not even meet the minimum requirements for a fair hearing. If we are to work collaboratively in forming a College of Teachers which truly reflects the intents and the purposes of our profession, the government should be interested in avoiding the embarrassment of having these disclosure provisions ruled inadequate by the courts, as they surely will be.
I note that as a result of lengthy litigation, a discipline committee under the Regulated Health Professions Act has fully adopted the disclosure rules applicable to criminal court proceedings as set out in the Supreme Court of Canada's landmark decision on disclosure, involving Stinchcombe. The same standard will undoubtedly apply to a College of Teachers.
With regard to time limits -- and Marilies has already illustrated the point -- there are no limitations on how long it will take a charge or a hearing to be held once the college has been notified. This is clearly adverse in terms of the carrying out of justice. It wouldn't be upheld in courts of law in Ontario, and I do not see why, within the legislation you are contemplating currently, teachers should be denied those same principles of justice.
Mr Pat O'Neill: With respect to the provisions governing entries on the register, it's important for us to remember that what's on the register of teachers can have a maximum impact on a teacher's career because of course it's available to the public and certainly would be consulted by prospective employers.
It seems to this association that the only committees that should have the right to direct that something be entered on the register are the registration appeals committee, because that's the one that determines whether a person should be registered in the first place, and second, the discipline committee. It should not say "any committee," which is what it says.
With respect to incapacity, you've heard some submissions already. We would like to stress that, unlike the legislation upon which this act is based, namely, the Registered Health Professions Act, this act conflates, brings together, incompetence, incapacity and professional misconduct into a single process. We have considerable concerns with respect to incapacity being dealt with by the same process that has available to it only the same range of remedial orders that it has for professional misconduct. This prospective college must conform to human rights legislation, of course, and human rights legislation would not see discipline as the way of dealing with incapacity.
A process dealing with incapacity should be rehabilitative rather than disciplinary, rather than punitive. It should deal not with the conduct so much but the medical evidence which gives rise, perhaps, to that conduct. It should make provisions for such things as an independent physical or mental examination. That's the kind of clout it should have, not the clout of discipline.
Frankly, we believe it's asking too much for a group of individuals used to operating in a quasi-criminal-trial fashion, where they're dealing with issues of guilt and penalty or punishment, to suddenly switch and start dealing with some kind of conciliatory search for the right solution for an incapacity. It really is quite a serious concern and one that you have thought of before.
Mr Claire Ross: I'm going to deal with two issues. The first is the registrar's powers of investigation. I remember that when first reading this bill I was rather more than just confused, because we had in an earlier part of this bill a section which dealt with the investigation committee, and it was as if somebody either had an afterthought or didn't trust what they had done or was taking the position of, "Let's make sure we get whomever it is we're after," to put in place another process. As if law isn't confusing enough to the ordinary person, we have to come at the individuals not once but twice. I wondered why we stopped there and didn't go on farther.
We give to the registrar certain powers that are absolutely offensive to anyone who has taken even a preliminary course related to the philosophy or theory of law: a power which allows the registrar to begin an investigation, to make a member subject to reprimand or admonishment from the executive council, and we have this other route which sets in motion this alternative way of investigating without the individual being informed. We've noted, in terms of natural justice and due process, the necessity of communicating to people the fact that they may be under investigation for all kinds of purposes. It is absolutely outrageous that what we would have here is an investigatory route applied in this fashion. Without question, it's going to be a source of ongoing litigation, but as I look at this committee here, I suggest to you that that is not what is fundamentally wrong with this particular section.
What is wrong is that it offends in terms of natural justice and at the same time makes a profound statement on the part of this government with respect to the professionalism of the teachers of this province. This particular section is not needed and is a particular aspect of this bill which is not only troubling but does enormous disservice to the potential of this college being established in the way in which it will complement the workings of the educational system in this province.
I'll speak very briefly about the powers of the minister. Without question, when one reviews some of the powers given to the minister, one would have to conclude they are excessive, and I think we have to be very prudent in this province that law not be perceived as being excessive. It should be fair and it should be just. For example, there is no precedent for this act extending the minister's powers to bylaws, which are normally seen as the internal operational rules of any organization. This unprecedented intrusion into the future workings of a college that is supposed to be self-governing is alarming. As you sit around this table and as you look at the teachers in this province and speak about self-regulation and professionalism, it seems to me that the values and the virtues of those qualities you speak to are going to have to be demonstrated and exemplified in this legislation. Otherwise, what you are going to have is a growing controversy and a sense of rejection which is not going to do any of us any good.
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Ms Rettig: Claire, with his comments, brought us into the second category of our concerns, that is, with the current scope available at this time.
I want to reflect very briefly on the area of mandatory career-long learning or lifelong learning. I preface my remarks by stating that as employees, teachers have an obligation to their employer, as I outlined in my opening remarks, as well as to their students to remain current with curriculum changes and pedagogical development. School boards enforce this obligation, and there's considerable staff at the school board level to ensure this is enforced.
I would like to reflect on two areas in highlighting our concerns. First of all is recognizing the incredible bureaucracy that would be required by a College of Teachers if they wanted to legitimize this role of tracking individual teachers in their professional development, career-long learning paths. Aside from that extensive bureaucracy, for which we have incredible staff at the board level already within each jurisdiction and within each school board, I would also like to briefly reflect upon the essence of professional development and the current trends in professional development.
You're not looking at professional development in terms of teachers within a certain jurisdiction or within a certain regional area of this province taking certain courses and thereby fulfilling the dictates and demands of professional lifelong learning. Our research and work that has been done in the area of professional development indicates that the most effective and the most impacting professional development on teachers is that designed by the individual teacher to meet specific needs of those individual teachers; namely, those teachers and those schools and principals and superintendents who speak of very effective professional development programs speak of individual teachers mapping out their own professional development, doing it in the context of a school professional development plan within the context of a school board professional development plan. All these aspects of professional development, where the trend is moving to, would certainly be incapacitated by mandatory career-long learning and the idea that one could channel and filter professional development for 200,000 teachers across this province.
Mr Jarvis: With regard to the issue of the obligation of a school board to report, clearly we are in agreement with the fact, under subsection 44(2), that the board immediately is required to report to the college with regard to sexual misconduct and criminal offences. However, we have severe concerns about subsection 44(3), "where in the opinion of the board the conduct or actions of a member who is or has been employed by the board should be reviewed by a committee of the college."
Is it the intent, with the establishment of the college, that the employer relationship in terms of a school board to the teachers, its employees, be completely circumvented? That certainly is the breadth which is applicable and available under this provision. An inherent employee-employer relationship is established when one obtains employment with a school board. It exists in a multitude of areas, whether private or public sector.
Our concern is clearly this: The employer should carry out its duties with regard to evaluation and review and, upon determination of inadequacy, then and only then should the situation be forwarded to a college for further review if that is deemed necessary by the employer. And that may not be so under every situation, because is there not a requirement on the part of an employer to also assist its employees to improve their performance? That's encompassed and envisioned within the area of professional development. There's a belief that that is a necessity, and the act clearly stipulates that it is a role of the employer to assist the individual in professional development. That is a significant concern on our part.
With regard to the issue of personal information, you have heard a great deal from a number of sources with regard to concerns about personal information. We too are concerned about the search and seizure provisions encompassed within this. I had one teacher ask, "What is it I have that you could possibly want to forcibly enter my house to obtain?"
If there are criminal requirements or criminal proceedings, clearly the police would be issuing warrants. I do not believe the college would go to a justice of the peace for a criminal investigation because I believe that stands clearly within the criminal justice system -- unless, of course, this provision is to allow the college to assume the duties and responsibilities of our police forces and of our criminal justice system.
So we place that before you and hopefully we will be able to work collaboratively to reach a college which will serve all of our needs.
Ms Rettig: There are two other areas I would like to briefly highlight for you as areas of concern, and one certainly you would have heard from not only OTF but all the other affiliates and that's the composition of a council. Clearly, in any professional self-regulatory body it is reasonable to assume and absolutely essential that the majority of the members be practising members of that profession. I state "practising members of that profession" not only to give them a majority on various committees, and that's what is alluded to within the context of our report, but I'd also like to briefly reflect on some very important aspects of the College of Teachers, particularly with respect to pre-service programs and admission into the profession.
Looking at one of the most successful aspects of the Scottish General Teaching Council is the fact that teachers, practitioners within the country of Scotland have a great deal of control over the pre-service program to ensure consistency and to ensure that teachers are appropriately trained.
To effectively do that, it is absolutely essential and indeed mandated that there be a majority of teachers, a majority of people who are practitioners and know the field well and can assist those at the university level and others to ensure that the programs are designed to meet the needs of the teachers.
I would like to finish with one other concern that we bring forward and that is with the use of letters of permission. Upon the introduction of the Ontario College of Teachers Act, the Ministry of Education and Training issued a compendium to the bill. Section 15 of that document states in part: "Several statutes define `teacher' as a person who is qualified under the Education Act. Eventually, however, these statutes must reflect the fact that the college, and not the ministry, will be issuing teacher qualifications...."
This is evidently the intent of the bill. This intent was further confirmed in remarks made by the Minister of Education and Training to the OPSBA trustee development conference on January 19, 1996. In pursuing the theme of quality, accountability and affordability, he stated, "We want a system that is transparent, one that will let the public clearly see what we're doing...." He went on to state that, "The college will go a long way in contributing to the excellence in teaching which is one of the most basic requirements for overall excellence in education."
So far, so good. With the arrival of the college, the minister surrenders the power to grant certification, except to people with no qualifications at all.
Quality and accountability are thrown to the wind, but the transparency test is being clearly met; licensing unqualified persons would be affordable.
The minister assured his trustee audience in the following fashion, "It will be an independent, self-funded professional college with a proposed structure and mandate which is consistent with other professional self-regulating bodies, such as those for nurses, doctors, lawyers and chartered accountants."
For some reason, the glaring inconsistency was overlooked: his retention of the authority to debase the standards of the college through issuances of letters of permission.
This is far more than a philosophical dispute within the educational community. The reality is that during the period of the social contract, from September 1993 to February 8, 1996, when school boards were required to reduce their teaching staff by 4.75% with a commensurate increase in the pupil-teacher ratio of 5%, the ministry granted 828 letters of permission.
The teaching profession in the province of Ontario has achieved much of its professional objective without statutory authority. We have before us today a rare opportunity for an eager profession to make gigantic strides with statutory authority. This province can move in an innovative and constructive manner to put in place an expression of teacher professionalism which will enhance and improve an already outstanding body of teachers committed to the highest standards of professionalism.
There are two directions which could be pursued. One is one rooted in trust and in confidence, in confidence in the profession of teaching and in the professional work that is being done in thousands of classrooms across this province. The other one is a direction that will be based on distrust and the rejection of professional ownership, an implied cynicism of the many gains we have made as a profession.
Although this path could be borne, it could be borne with controversy and indeed continued litigation. It is our sincere hope that the road which is taken is one which will facilitate and allow the success realized in Scotland whereby the GTC of Scotland enhances the profession through the profession. We have a rare opportunity before us and we hope we can continue this dialogue after these hearings have taken place to ensure that the College of Teachers is indeed one which will allow us to realize our optimal professionalism within the teaching profession.
Mr Patten: There's a lot of information here, some of which you have underlined and has been presented concurrently with your views.
Something that comes up continually seems to be the role of managing long-term plans for professional development, so if we're talking about 200,000 certified teachers and we're talking about keeping up to date 130,000 files, that boggles the mind. In your analysis of this, what would it take in terms of personnel alone and resources to manage such a mass?
Ms Rettig: I guess one could draw an analogy by reflecting on what currently exists. Within the context of what currently exists -- that many professional development plans are developed through the schools by principals with the assistance of program coordinators at the high school level, department heads right through superintendents and supervisory officers at the board level -- if you look at that kind of infrastructure for administration in assisting the teachers in the development of the plans and the realization of those plans, I would suggest that's the kind of infrastructure that would be required to track the 130,000, 134,000 teachers who are teaching right now.
There's another problem, certainly: that percentage of teaching population that isn't practising, those who aren't currently practitioners. One could not ascertain or surmise what kind of structure would be required to have that kind of follow-up with the 70,000-odd that are currently not within classrooms.
Mr Wildman: You've raised a number of issues such as notice to professionals, issues with regard to incapacity not being properly dealt with through a disciplinary process, the employer-employee relationship, search and seizure, and so on. I would hope that at some point the government will indicate where it's going on amendments.
I would ask two very short questions. One, have you been informed by the government officials that you've been dealing with where they might be going with regard to amendments? Two, if you use the nurses' example, under the Regulated Health Professions Act, the composition of their governing council, as I understand it, is 18 persons appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council -- in other words, 18 from the public -- 14 registered nurses and seven registered practical nurses. So the professionals in that college have a majority. Since they are also employees, in most cases, would you think that approach would be more appropriate than the one proposed in the legislation?
Mr Ross: As the general secretary, as the OTF legislation committee has met with the government extensively in a dialogue with respect to possible amendments, I can only regrettably say that the response with respect to a whole series of proposed amendments that we have given has been silence.
Ms Rettig: As for the second part of the answer, that structure would be more positive in our frame of mind. I guess I reflect on the Star editorial today that reflected on the necessity of a 60% ratio, which also shows the importance of having a clear majority of those who are within the profession represented on the council.
Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand): How will career-long learning be monitored and assessed? As with all professions -- and I know this from personal experience; when a teacher upgrades herself, she lets it get on her file yesterday. If the teachers cannot take care of letting their file be upgraded with the personal knowledge that they have gained, then I don't believe they should be teachers.
Ms Rettig: Can I just respond to that? Teachers often don't put it on their own file; those who are supervising teachers have it put on their file. It's usually in the context of an evaluation process that would be performed either by the principal or by a supervisory officer.
Mr Preston: You're telling me a teacher who passes another certificate doesn't notify immediately?
Ms Rettig: It's within the context of an evaluation process if it's put in a file and that would be then the responsibility, and appropriately so, of the principal and supervisory officer.
The Acting Chair: Our time has expired. Thank you very much for your presentation. This committee stands adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23, at 3:30 pm.
The committee adjourned at 1815.