Transcription du comité 1997-mars-20 | Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

Consideration of Bill 104, An Act to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system by permitting a reduction in the number of school boards, establishing an Education Improvement Commission to oversee the transition to the new system, providing for certain matters related to elections in 1997 and making other improvements to the Education Act and the Municipal Elections Act, 1996 / Projet de loi 104, Loi visant à accroître l'obligation de rendre compte, l'efficacité et la qualité du système scolaire ontarien en permettant la réduction du nombre des conseils scolaires, en créant la Commission d'amélioration de l'éducation, chargée d'encadrer la transition vers le nouveau système, en prévoyant certaines questions liées aux élections de 1997 et en apportant d'autres améliorations à la Loi sur l'éducation et à la Loi de 1996 sur les élections municipales.

JACK GARNER

The Vice-Chair (Mr Dwight Duncan): Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The first delegation today is Mr Jack Garner. You have 10 minutes, sir. That's total time for both your presentation and questions and answers. If you use the whole time up, then we won't be able to ask any questions. Please go ahead.

Mr Jack Garner: Thank you very much. Before I begin my time, though, I apologize. I believed the Chair was going to be chairing today and therefore I said "Madam Chair" in my brief. I plan on using all my time, and thereby I'll avoid having to answer any questions. Having said that, good afternoon and welcome to Simcoe county.

Thank you for allowing me to express my views on Bill 104. I am also very pleased that you are listening to the many various views concerning this bill, because certainly sincere difference of opinion is good.

I am a lifelong citizen of Barrie. I'm a trustee for the Simcoe County Board of Education, and by choice I am a volunteer trustee. I chair the business and finance committee of the board. However, these are my personal views.

As a retired businessman, I look at the governance and funding of public education from a different point of view than some trustees, for as you know, a large number of trustees are present or former board employees.

Our board is a medium-to-large board with a student population of about 50,000, and we have an annual operating budget of about $300 million.

I agree with the principle of Bill 104. This bill has the potential to return public education governance back to where it came from the school community. That's exactly where it belongs.

A reduction in school boards and trustee numbers will not have any negative effect on student education. Our board has 22 trustees: one native, three French and 18 English. The population of Simcoe county is 330,000. Three MPs and three members of the provincial legislature provide the political governance for these 330,000, and therefore a reduction to even five trustees would, in my opinion, more than adequately fulfil the governance needs for our 50,000 students, especially with expanded community governance.

As a volunteer trustee, I suggest an honorarium cap of $15,000. My circumstance allows me to spend about 40 hours a week being a trustee. A trustee must be willing to spend a minimum, in my opinion, of three hours a day on board business, and therefore an honorarium of $15,000 per year is not an unreasonable figure for that dedication.

If the words "or former employee" were added to section (4)(a) of Bill 104, you would then encourage former board employees to seek elected public office in areas other than public education. Presently, all former employees on boards are placed in an embarrassing position at every board meeting. They have an interest conflict every time salary, benefits or employee contract issues are discussed at the table, for their decisions directly affect the Ontario teachers' pension plan, or the OMERS pension plan, of which they are partners.

Our board, with the exception of the metro French board, has the largest number of students in its French-language section of any school board in southern Ontario, approximately 1,000 students. The current system of a French-language section within the structure of school boards is totally unworkable because there are a very small number of students over a very large geographical area. In 1997, less than 1% of Simcoe county taxpayers assessed themselves on the rolls as public French tax supporters.

The present funding because of this economy of scale has created program inequity for English-language students as well as creating an unreasonable increase in tax burden for the English taxpayers. Because of small school enrolment, it will be impossible to fund the new southern Ontario public francophone boards with the same per pupil grants as the English-language students; there are simply too few students. This will create a major inequity problem for the English-language students.

The educational covenant for French-speaking parents in Ontario under section 23 of the charter must be directly between the Ontario government and French-speaking community. Therefore, would the government consider making its covenant with these communities in exactly the same way that it presently does, very successfully, with the Penetanguishene Protestant Separate School Board? It would be much more manageable and much less costly to administer than the present proposal.

The Education Improvement Commission: Undemocratic? How else could transition be done? Under current legislation boards are not directly accountable to anyone in respect to raising revenue. This is undemocratic.

Everyone concerned about accountability realizes the necessity for an independent body to oversee the transition of existing boards. In a perfect world this would not be necessary. Under these circumstances a body must have maximum legislated flexibility to address all individual needs of every board plus every issue of transition. It must also be able to, if necessary, address any possible lack of responsibility or accountability by any board or trustee during that particular transition period.

The transfer of governance to school councils is the key principle to the future of Ontario public education. The important thing is, who makes up the community school council? Students, parents, principals, vice-principals, teachers, secretaries, custodians and all other interested persons within the school community.

Our public education system will be the best if government and boards were willing to transfer maximum governance to the school community. If we had the courage to strengthen the role of school councils, whereby the school community had maximum opportunity to influence their school through political and economic governance, we would then best serve the needs of our students.

Every Ontario school community is different. Allow them and encourage them to be. Public community schools have the potential and could very well be Ontario's version of public charter schools. They can be publicly funded and they can be community-governed.

As chair of the budget committee, I see that a new formula for public education funding is long overdue. Ontario's changing economy and many other factors make the present local-provincial funding partnership no longer workable. For example, our board today has a 1997 budget shortfall of $23.5 million between expected revenues and expenditures. For the past four years, the board has successfully completed major expenditure reductions in every budget area with the exception of contracted salaries and benefits. Under the present system, we have no place to go except to the local property taxpayer, and this would result in major tax increases.

The scope of public education in Ontario has changed significantly in the past two decades. Funding changes have not kept pace. Many new mandated programs, such as special education and continuing adult education, are a provincial education responsibility and should be funded accordingly. The current funding system is flawed. It is failing to fund programs for some of our students, and at the same time it is not fair or equitable when we ask all local property taxpayers to fund the many new, diversified needs of our students.

Simcoe county property taxpayers fund 65.83% of our total operating budget. Municipalities such as Tiny township contribute 76.7% of their total property taxation to education. The county average is 64.2%. In the town of Coldwater the contribution is 68% and the education portion of their property tax has increased 54% since just 1990. We have placed a very large, unfair tax burden on the local property taxpayers, and I can tell you, they are tired of this inequity.

The time has come for education to be funded by Ontario society, not by the antiquated method of residential property taxation. Have you talked to one person outside of the education system who does not agree with provincial funding and the equitable distribution of grants? I haven't.

In summary:

Distribute the economic resources of the province throughout the different school districts on a equal per pupil basis.

The proposed number of boards and trustees as generally recommended by the Sweeney commission will more than adequately fulfil the local political requirements necessary for public education.

If you want to maximize student achievement, then maximize the governance of school councils.

Everybody talks about the need for grassroots participation. Instead of talking the talk, let's walk the walk. Everyone -- the student, the parent, the school administration, the school community, the board, the taxpayer, you and I -- will all be happy and it will be successful.

Also, please be cautious of the whining, vested-interest hypocrites who profess to be protecting the common good of our students through the status quo. "Slow down," they say. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's obvious to everyone that we should watch what they're doing and not what they're saying. It has to be obvious to everyone by their political actions that money and political control are their primary mandates. The educational success or failure of students is secondary, at best, on their agenda. Most people are telling us, "It's broken." Only those with vested interests support the present system.

Ontario is a province of opportunity. The future of our public education is going to be exciting. I would want to be and plan to be a part of it, and I just wish that I were 20 years younger. I thank you, Mr Chair and committee, for your support and time.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Garner. We appreciate that.

On a matter of housekeeping, there are two deferred motions that we have left from yesterday. Mrs McLeod.

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Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): I also think it's important, as we begin our hearings here in Simcoe county, to note for the record that while we're in Simcoe, and clearly the Simcoe board is one of those affected in some ways by Bill 104, although not a board that's going to be amalgamated, this is the only opportunity for those from the areas of Bruce, Grey, Huron, Perth, probably Middlesex-Elgin -- they may go to Brantford -- Victoria, Haliburton, Muskoka, Durham, York region, probably Wellington-Dufferin and, as we know, east and west Parry Sound, to make representations to our committee. By my count, that's 22 public and separate boards that will be impacted in this area and that I wish had an opportunity to make representation to us today. I want to again express my regret that because of the limited scope and time for our hearings, we will only be able to hear today from eight of those some 22 boards as we attempt to expand the numbers of other affected individuals who want to make representation.

The Vice-Chair: The deferred business from yesterday. There were two motions: Mrs McLeod's and Mr Wildman's. Mr Wildman, I believe we'll deal with your motion later in the day. Mrs McLeod, you had indicated --

Mrs McLeod: Mine can be deferred until we have any further indication that we might have some postponement of having clause-by-clause, which is the substance of my motion, to have some time between the end of the hearings and the actual beginning of the clause-by-clause amendment process.

Mr Bud Wildman (Algoma): In that regard, I've been in touch with my staff in Toronto and Barney Savage is contacting the government House leader and the Liberal House leader to talk about what accommodation might be made. It is possible, if the committee wished to do this, that we could have an additional meeting, if we could find time to do that, which would not be counted as part of the actual business on Bill 104, because what we were talking about discussing would be recommendations around the implementation and boundaries, rather than what is in the bill. It's possible we might be able to do it that way.

The Vice-Chair: Perhaps we could ask the subcommittee to meet informally at break, because we have a large number of delegations to deal with today. I think we'll do that.

Mr Wildman: Mr Chair, if I could raise one other matter, I've spoken to Mr Skarica, and Mrs McLeod has talked to me about this as well. I understand that support staff employees represented by CUPE are not on the list. I was wondering if we could add them to the list, either if there's a cancellation or at the end, so it would mean an extra 10 or 15 minutes for the committee, if that's acceptable.

The Vice-Chair: I would accept that. I don't know if I have the jurisdiction to accept that or if that would require a motion. It would need unanimous consent, I am told by the clerk.

Mr Wildman: So the question is whether or not we want to allow the time for the support staff representatives.

Mr John O'Toole (Durham East): Sure, unanimous consent.

The Vice-Chair: There's unanimous consent. The CUPE delegation will be added at the end of the day.

Mr Wildman: Thank you.

CUNDLES HEIGHTS SCHOOL PARENT COUNCIL

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the parent council from Cundles Heights School, Al Thompson. Mr Thompson, you have 15 minutes. Use the time as you see fit.

Mr Al Thompson: Thank you for inviting me to make this presentation. My name is Al Thompson and I'm chair of the Cundles Heights School Parent Council, and according to Mr Garner's criteria, I suppose I'm a whining hypocrite.

Last evening, our council held an information session on Bill 104. It was rather lively. I'm here today to voice the concerns of our school council and therefore the Cundles school community. We have four major concerns regarding Bill 104. They are tax realignment, the powers of the Education Improvement Commission, amalgamation, and credibility and communication of the ministry.

Tax realignment: Bill 104 proposes to change funding from local residential taxation to funding education from general funds. At the moment, my school board must raise local taxes to increase revenue. In this case, they're immediately accountable to me, and I take exception to Mr Garner's comment that they're not accountable; they are accountable. We vote them into office and therefore they are as much accountable as the ministry is. They're immediately accountable.

After Bill 104 there will be no guarantee at all that the same amount now being spent on education in Simcoe county will still be available and will still flow into Simcoe county for education. We have no control over that. The only guarantee we have is the minister's word, and I take exception to that because this is a minister who has vowed to create chaos in our system.

Where does the money come from? We suggest, as local taxpayers, that you leave taxation alone, to the locally elected officials, where accountability is easier to come by for me and for other parents.

I suppose our biggest fear and our biggest concern, certainly mine, are the powers of the Education Improvement Commission. Bill 104 proposes to set up an unelected Education Improvement Commission with sweeping powers over duly elected trustees. This is not only undemocratic, but in our minds it is obscenely insulting to the people of Ontario. The unelected commission may overrule any decision of a democratically elected school board. We as trustees, parents, have absolutely no avenue of appeal. In fact, school boards can be fined. This commission, as you know, has the power to levy fines against elected trustees. This is obscene.

Bill 104 proposes that this commission will have local representation. Where do they come from? Will they be elected? If not, who will appoint them? The commission? The government? Will they be party faithful who are being perhaps rewarded for some past deed? What will their personal agenda be? Will they have experience? Will they be businessmen? Will they have experience in education? Will they be paid? How much will they be paid?

We believe that the setting up of this commission will lead to the creation of another bureaucracy, the cost of which will far outstrip any savings generated by amalgamation or the reduction of trustees' salaries.

We understand that a system was required to control the greed of some Toronto trustees who made a grab for extra retirement funds, shall we say. My very important question at this point is, was Ann Vanstone one of those? However, I'm sure, and we're sure, that something much less draconian could have been found to control this grab for extra money. It's our suggestion as a group that this commission's power be greatly curtailed and that its role, if any, be limited to an advisory one.

We feel strongly that we as a school community have been well served by our school board, and with the cooperation of local school parent councils we can still be. Please, we urge you to reconsider this awesome, undemocratic power you propose to unleash upon our education system.

Amalgamation: Initially amalgamation made sense to me, and in some cases it still makes sense. I happen to work in the education field. I deal with school boards right across the country. I have seen tremendous changes in the way school boards spend their money in the last few years. For example, the Ottawa school board and the Carleton school board, both Roman Catholic school boards, buy their products through one central buying group. All of their material is shipped to one central location. They have amalgamated all of these resource requirements and therefore they have saved their boards a tremendous amount of money. This is happening right across Ontario. To me, there is no major reason now for amalgamation.

I do, however, have a problem with school boards that build Taj Mahals and spend extra money doing that sort of thing. For example, I deal with the Dufferin-Peel school board and the Peel school board, and both of them have huge, half-empty buildings sitting on Matheson Boulevard and Highway 10. I resent this, but I believe this can be controlled locally.

All of the things that are taking place in amalgamation, such as boards going together, have not been thoroughly thought out by the ministry. There are many unanswered questions. I ask the obvious question: If two school federations in two separate communities or two separate boards have different contracts, how is that going to be resolved? Has anybody thought about it yet, seriously thought about it? This could create all kinds of chaos, and it will impact on our students. That's why we're all here: students.

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We had a great number of problems with the credibility and the communication of the ministry regarding these hearings. Perhaps I should reverse that; poor communication causes a lack of credibility. I personally polled 18 school councils in the Barrie area over the last week; 80% of them did not know anything about Bill 104, and 90% of them had no idea this hearing was taking place. Gentlemen, that's your fault. I didn't know this hearing was taking place until a week ago. Someone else called me to tell me about it. Is this an oversight or was it deliberate? Do you really want to keep this low-key so that nobody comes?

The perception out there in the general public is that you have a credibility problem. The process of choosing presenters: I to this moment do not have any idea how I was chosen to be here, none whatsoever. Should it have been a lottery rather than a partisan choice? Again, you have a perception of credibility, poor credibility.

The whole education system at this point is chaotic. Nobody knows what's going on; I don't even believe the ministry knows. Minister Snobelen's and the Premier's statements change from day to day, perhaps hour to hour. I've heard that trustees' salaries will be $5,000. I heard the other day that perhaps this is $15,000 and nobody in the ministry ever said anything about $5,000. There was a report in the Globe and Mail the other day that it would be $5,000. I saw nothing from the government countering that.

Minister Snobelen vowed to create chaos. It's our belief that he has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. We as a school community believe that all of this chaos is causing untold harm to our teachers and to our children. Please, gentlemen, take time to rethink Bill 104. Make sure that all the ramifications have been thoroughly examined. What's the rush? What's the agenda? A better education system or a tax cut at the expense of our children?

In conclusion, we as a community realize that this government was elected with a mandate to reduce the deficit, and we all agree it should be reduced, that we cannot continue to live on borrowed money. We realize too that changes have to be made to the education system, but surely they can be made in a fair, compassionate and just manner. We fail to see any of these qualities in Bill 104. We urge you as a committee to recommend changes to this bill based on the issues that we and others have raised and will raise today and at other times. We strongly urge you to recommend to the ministry that they slow down and take a closer look at all the proposals being made. We ask you to keep in mind that this is not about parents, it's not about trustees, it's not about the minister, it's not about the commission; it's about my children. Bill 104 does not and the ministry has not produced any evidence that the proposed changes will enhance the education of our children.

Applause.

The Vice-Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we do not permit demonstrations in the audience. We'd ask you to refrain from applauding or responding to the delegations.

Ms Frances Lankin (Beaches-Woodbine): I was interested in your comment as a representative of a parent school council that you want local, accountable trustees. We just heard from a trustee who said: "Put it all down to parent councils. Make parent councils more responsible. Give them the power and authority." Yet virtually every parent council representative who has come forward has said: "These are unwanted decisions being foisted on us. The elected board will become simply a powerless buffer between us and the decision-makers in the bureaucracy." Could you tell me why you're opposed to the decision-making coming down to the parent council level?

Mr Thompson: Because basically we're just replacing one decision-making body with another. At the moment, the trustees are accountable to us as parents. First of all, parent councils will not be ready and will not be mature enough for two to three or perhaps four years to be able to handle this sort of responsibility, and therefore most of them do not want it.

However, the accountability factor is very important as well, because at this moment trustees can be voted out of office. At this moment, most parent councils in Ontario have been acclaimed rather than voted in. There is such apathy in the school parent community that this will not help in any way at all. So you have a group of people who will be there forever, a group of people perhaps with personal agendas that are not in the best interests of the children and the school community.

Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): Thank you very much, and thank you for your presentation as well. I want to follow up a little bit on Ms Lankin's line of questioning. Firstly, I'd be interested to know the level of comfort you would have in an advisory capacity in terms of the type of decision you would be willing to make. Secondly, the bill itself speaks to the feasibility of increased parental involvement in school governance. From your perspective, what feasibility test do you believe the EIC should be evaluating in terms of that evaluation process?

Mr Thompson: I think it's very simple. I think it's maturity. We in Simcoe county have parent council chairmen networking evenings almost every six weeks, and I am absolutely staggered at how many of the council chairs are still groping their way, who still do not understand why they're there and what they're doing. This is quite scary to me, because if all of this responsibility is all of a sudden put on all these people, it's going to destroy the school system, destroy the education system. They're not ready. The other problem that I have, again, is election and accountability. The trustees at the moment are accountable to me; the school councils are not.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much, Mr Thompson. Although we haven't met before, I feel as though we have now put ourselves both in the same boat, because I'm another of those whining hypocrites, as defined by Mr Garner, having spend a lot of my last 30 years as an advocate for public education, so I appreciate your being here today.

Mr Wildman: I don't think you're whining.

Mrs McLeod: Just wait. I appreciate your being here, and I think it's important for you to know that we've tried to have as many parent council representations as possible, and they have universally both expressed the value of the work they now do on parent councils and their concerns with Bill 104, so I think the research into feasibility in strengthened roles is being done by this committee.

You touched on a number of things, and I only have time to deal with one. You have indicated that one concern is that there's no guarantee of funding being maintained with the companion piece of the government taking over 100% of funding. It appears today that in fact some $2 billion of funding for education support may be shifted to the municipalities and potentially under the control of municipal councils, so that school custodians, secretaries and school busing would be under a different employer. You've touched on the chaos of harmonization of contracts. I wonder if you would comment on the additional chaos and disruption in the school community that this move might bring.

Mr Thompson: The only comment I could make is that this would increase the chaos. I have no difficulty at all in privatizing some of the services that schools have. I have no difficulty with that, providing it's done in a proper manner and providing those who presently work for the school are protected. I'm concerned that if these things are all of a sudden thrown into the mix at this particular point, without being well thought out, and this is why I asked the commission to ask the government to slow down and think about all these things, the chaos will be unprecedented.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, sir. I wish we had more time.

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DAN HEFFERNAN

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Dan Heffernan and Cathy Simpson.

Ms Lankin: As the next presenters are coming forward, Mr Chair, I just wanted to table something with the committee, and I'd ask that the clerk distribute copies of that to the other members of the committee. It's a question that I'd like to put. It reads as follows: "Please design a sandbox cover that has an area of 12m². The cover is to be flat and rectangular with a length and width that are whole numbers." In case anyone wonders what kind of question this is, this actually comes from the government's new standardized testing for grade 3 in math, and I would like to suggest that the members of the government caucus perhaps should be given five minutes to try to answer this question, and we can have an assessment of the education system.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Ms Lankin. I will not impose that, because I probably couldn't answer it myself. We have a delegation. Mr Heffernan and Cathy Simpson, please begin. You have 10 minutes. You can use that entirely to speak or you can leave some time for questions and answers.

Mr Dan Heffernan: Just to clarify, Cathy Simpson couldn't be here today. She works for the district health council here in Barrie and she's been tied up in another meeting, so my wife has come with me to hold my hand as I make this presentation to you.

I titled the presentation you have before you Educating Our Future -- Youth Today are the Adults Tomorrow. What's in this for you and me? I believe it's our future. That's what we have at stake. This is our future. How we educate our children will directly affect each one of us. People who do not agree with paying for education because they do not have children or their children are grown up need only to look at what is going on today around each of us to understand. Are we not the future children from yesterday who were receiving our education 20 and 30 years ago?

I came here today to talk to you about the changes proposed to the education system through Bill 104, but there are many more issues to be discussed that are beyond the scope of this bill. This bill is called the Fewer School Boards Act. It is only a piece of the puzzle. It's difficult to know if one agrees with all these changes or not until we see the whole picture.

I am not afraid of change. I welcome change where it is needed. To give you an example, until I started Grade 7, I attended a one-room country school house where all eight grades sat in one room, taught by one teacher. Although I sometimes remember it very fondly, we should never return to that level of education. It served us well at the time. However, times change and so does the education system to keep up.

At the opposite end of that spectrum, I was able to prepare for this hearing today and keep up with the current changes in the education system through the Internet. I have with me today news releases, maps of the new boundaries of the district school boards, backgrounder notes and the speaking notes of Minister John Snobelen before the Legislature announcing the education restructuring, all downloaded from the government's Web page on the Internet. As I said, times change; and if you do not change with those times, then you fall behind.

What we should be concerned about as parents, trustees, legislators and business people is how the education system is going to prepare our children for the future. I guess I look at this whole thing much differently. I want to know that my two sons will have the skills and the knowledge base necessary after their school years to succeed in the world and do whatever they choose to do. That may be any profession from doctoring to nursing, carpentry or computer programming. Whatever it is, this is the product I believe I am purchasing now through the education system, and if it is not, then I want to fix it so that is what I am buying.

Bill 104 simply asks me to buy a pig in a poke. It's another way of saying: "Here are a bunch of changes. This is a very small piece of the puzzle, but trust us; the rest of the puzzle will fall into place if you accept these reforms." This may be a true statement, but I don't have that much faith when it comes to decisions being made by humans, let alone politicians.

I get uneasy when I see conflicting statements being made by the Minister of Education and the literature coming out of his ministry. As I said, I downloaded some stuff from the Internet. In the speaking notes I have with me today, the minister is quoted as saying that more than 80 cents on every dollar spent on education is spent outside the classroom. He said he was quoting from the Report on School Board Spending 1995-96. Thanks to the Internet, I downloaded that report prepared by Ernst and Young, and I found that the report stated that moneys being spent outside the classroom varied from 46.1 cents to 32.9 cents. I find it difficult to understand how the minister could be that far out on his figures. If he was working from the figures that Ernst and Young produced, would he still have proposed the same reforms?

In any event, I take exception with a report like this which separates out necessary support services such as guidance, library, secretaries, principals and custodial duties as being outside the classroom, not being value added to the classroom. For example, the work the janitor does cleaning up the cafeteria between lunch periods and cleaning and taking out the garbage from the classrooms, halls and washrooms is an important part of the safe and healthy environment the student needs to study and learn. Likewise, the preparation time the teacher needs is as important to the teaching that goes on inside the classroom as the actual teaching is.

At first glance, I would say that I agree with the concept of amalgamating school boards. I want to move carefully forward. In agreeing to this, I am agreeing to doing away with the local representation I now have, to be replaced by an Education Improvement Commission whose decisions, as I understand, are final and cannot be reviewed or questioned, even by a court.

Throughout the information I downloaded from the government's Web page, there are other documents referred to which have a significant bearing on how the education reforms as a whole will transpire. One such document is titled Meeting Students' Needs. This is a document which questions the way we have funded education in the past and how we should fund it in the future, but it does not give specific, concrete ideas or a funding model which we can discuss.

I have to agree that the way we do funding is obsolete and unfair. The Catholic school board, of which I am a supporter, gets less money per student to spend than the public board simply because of the tax base which supports those two boards. It is not fair that a student being educated in the Catholic school board has less money available for their education than their friend who is attending the public school board.

The students coming out of the education system and entering the business or industrial world or continuing on to a college or university education will be expected to compete on par, regardless of the school board system they were taught in.

Throughout the documentation there are references to lowering the cost of education and improving the quality of education. These two issues are not synonymous. In fact, one could argue that they are opposites. I believe they are different issues, to be dealt with not independently of each other but in conjunction with each other, with the priority being placed on quality of education.

The introduction of advisory councils in each school is good. I am proud to have been elected to the parents' advisory council at St Peter's, our new Catholic high school here in Barrie. However, I have to admit that parents are not necessarily the best people to set the education curriculum. That is where I believe we should have a stronger partnership role with the business community, the industrial world and the end users of our education system. It is difficult to see down the road if you are not on the road.

I see this partnership taking on two functions: first, where the partners in education advise the educators what the needs will be in the future; and second, where they can help facilitate the process of education through cooperative programs or apprenticeship programs.

Apprenticeship programs are almost obsolete today as compared to 20 years ago when I was going through my apprenticeship. There need to be incentives to industry and business to enter into the education field through apprenticeships. This form of education is self-funding. The apprentice works at wages which are prorated to their advancement in the program, and the company or business gets work done at the same time as receiving a credit towards their education taxes.

This would have to be monitored by the education system to ensure there was not abuse. We would have to be convinced that each program offered by an industry or business was one which benefited the student and society as a whole and was not being used as a form of cheap labour.

I have a number of questions, though. How will the funding be allocated to the schools in the new district boards? Will it be based on the number of supporters in those school boards like it is now, or will the funding be pooled so that the money spent per student in each school within a district school board's jurisdiction will be equal and fair?

In the explanatory notes accompanying Bill 104, there is a definition of what a separate school board supporter in 1997 is. What about the future? How will the individuals indicate their support for either the separate or the public school without their taxes being directed in either direction? What about business taxes? Are these to be pooled, or do they direct their taxes either to the public or separate school within those jurisdictions? What will happen to the land and the buildings now owned by the ratepayers of the existing school boards? Will the province expropriate these into their ownership, or will the new district school boards assume ownership of these?

In conclusion, where does all this take us? The government should table all the reforms it is proposing, including the formula for funding. I want to be convinced that the level of education is not going to be eroded by taking money out of the education system. If the government can show us that it can produce as high- or higher-quality a product at less cost, then show it to us before asking us to accept these changes. If you were a business and you were trying to sell your product to a consumer who already had a supplier, that is the least you would be asked to do before they would agree to buy your product over the other.

I propose that the government leave these reforms on the table, table the rest of the agenda and then give us an opportunity to debate and discuss the whole package. As a parent, I want the best possible education for my children; and as someone who will get old some day, I want to be sure I am leaving the controls to a generation that is more competent than we were.

Thank you for this opportunity. I hope my suggestions were relevant and helpful.

Applause.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Heffernan. I'm going to ask once again, there are to be no demonstrations in the audience.

I have two notes to the committee. First of all, we had a cancellation at 6:45 today. My understanding is that CUPE has agreed to do their presentation at 6:45.

I noted as you came in that a number of you have signs. The rules of the Legislature do not permit the display of signs in the House or in committee. I would ask that you put them behind your chairs and leave them off. Thank you very much.

The time for questions is up, Mrs McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: I know, though it's unfortunate, because it was a very fine presentation. But I want to place one question to the parliamentary assistant. A number of the questions in Mr Heffernan's brief have been placed by committee members for response by the ministry, but there is one very important one that I can't quite believe we've failed to place at this point, and that's question 2, the definition of a separate school board supporter. It is quite clear that the act says what a separate school supporter in 1997 is, but Mr Heffernan's question is, what about the future? I would like to table that as a question for response from the parliamentary assistant.

Mr Wildman: Following from that is also Mr Heffernan's question with regard to commercial-industrial assessment, which of course is going to continue to be collected and paid towards education. Will businesses be able to direct their taxes to one system or the other, or will it be pooled? I think these are significant questions that need to be answered and I agree with Mr Heffernan's position that we really shouldn't be moving forward on this until we know what's going to happen with these funding questions.

The Vice-Chair: The questions are noted and placed and the parliamentary assistant -- Mr O'Toole, did you have a question?

Mr O'Toole: Yes, whether there is time to ask the deputation a question. We're here to listen to them and that's very important to me.

The Vice-Chair: Yes, I understand. There is no time left for questions. I apologize.

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DUFFERIN-PEEL ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board, Terry Miller and Patrick Meany, chair.

Mr Patrick Meany: May I correct the names? I am Patrick Meany, but I have with me our director of education and associate director. The director is Mike Bator and the associate director of corporate services is Peter Howarth.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, sir. You have 15 minutes. You can use the whole time for your presentation or you can leave time for questions.

Mr Meany: I'll do the best I can. My name is Patrick Meany and I am the chairman of the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board. The Dufferin-Peel Catholic school board has nearly 6,000 full-time and 700 part-time employees who serve some 78,000 students in 93 elementary and 18 secondary schools. We are one of the largest and fastest-growing educational systems in Canada, serving a wide range of students with a variety of educational needs and from many cultural and linguistic backgrounds. We believe that what we are putting before you today is important in understanding how Bill 104 impacts on all school boards, but in a special way how it impacts on the Catholic communities we represent. We have copies of our full brief, which we provide to the committee, as well as this presentation paper.

Bill 104 does not give the specifics of how the legislation will work and the regulations are yet to be published. We need to receive the regulations as soon as possible in order to meet the obvious time constraints.

We believe this bill represents a systemic change that, without suitable guarantees, would alter Catholic education in Ontario, and you'll note that I underline the words "without suitable guarantees." As everyone agrees, the needs of students are of paramount importance in any educational change. Bill 104 must be amended to reflect this fact.

Catholic education is an integral part of the education fabric of Ontario and has been since the mid-1850s. Catholics have always sought their fair share of the education tax dollar while maintaining the distinct nature of our schools. While the Scott Act of 1863 set the foundation for a publicly funded Catholic school system, subsequent acts provided Catholics with limited financial ability to direct their own system within the provincial publicly funded system.

The board, with cautious optimism, welcomes the intent of the bill, as expressed frequently by the Minister of Education and Training, to provide equity in funding for all children, with appropriate allowances for special circumstances, and urges the government to include controls in Bill 104 to ensure that this truly occurs and is maintained.

Part of the success of our board has been due to a cooperative partnership among the church, parents, students, ratepayers, teachers and trustees. This partnership has ensured that the standard of Catholic education in Dufferin-Peel has risen consistently and substantially over the past 27 years. This is evident in the day-to-day interplay of the religious, academic, social, athletic and cultural activities of our children.

As a board, we see change as an evolution of growth. To this end, we have been recognized provincially, even nationally -- and I understand even internationally -- as a leader in innovative educational change. Dufferin-Peel has pioneered systemic and specific developments in curricula and administration since our inception in 1969. Most important, we believe our commitment to graduating people of formed conscience, based on objective standards and the teachings of Jesus Christ, constitutes a significant contribution to society.

Bill 104 would change the fundamental nature of the board's relationship with its partners if it were to cancel its taxation power, thus removing the mechanism that keeps Catholic education free from arbitrary interference by the government. But constitutionally, it cannot do that.

The Catholic communities of Peel region and Dufferin county have relied on the board to develop and encourage a Catholic approach to education. Over the years, members of those communities made personal sacrifices so that Catholic education could prosper and develop in Dufferin-Peel. That commitment to Catholic training and grounding in the fundamentals of the Catholic faith created a tight bond among schools, the elected representatives and the parish communities.

We believe Bill 104 circumvents the traditional Canadian ideals of local control and local democratic representation. Both of these ideals are set-pieces of historic Catholic educational development in Ontario. Bill 104 proposes tax control by the provincial government, while replacing equitable local representation with a weakened board.

The bill appears to challenge the guarantees of denominational rights in the British North America Act, 1867, subsections 93(1) through (4). The board contends that the bill proposes to withdraw its right to tax, a right enjoyed under the Constitution of Canada and continually exercised to this point. The board emphatically states that its right to tax must be upheld in order that it may continue to control governance of and access to its schools.

The bill makes only an oblique reference to Roman Catholic separate school boards in the documentation which accompanied its presentation. This board firmly believes that designation as "Roman Catholic," which Catholic boards have enjoyed before and since Confederation, must be restored and its mandate reinforced in Bill 104.

Bill 104 changes the size and nature of boards of trustees. The board supports a reasonable reduction in the number of trustees and would support the concept of the province setting a reasonable rate of remuneration for school board trustees in keeping with the rate scale of other elected officials.

Bill 104 limits who is eligible for election to the new district boards by excluding all those who either work for a school board or whose spouses are employed by a school board, unless they take a leave of absence from their jobs. The board would support these eligibility restrictions, provided similar restrictions were applied to all elected municipal and provincial officials. We note that the electorate has traditionally dealt with those situations through the electoral process.

The board endorses and supports the establishment of 11 French-language school boards in Ontario. It has had a long and rewarding relationship with its French-language section, but believes this is a timely occasion for French-language electors to have their own school boards. The board applauds the fact that Bill 104 recognizes and affirms the constitutional rights of francophones.

The board's Dufferin schools and the Catholic community in Dufferin county have been integral parts of the Dufferin-Peel system since 1969. The board would deeply regret, and in fact is strongly opposed to, the possible loss of these schools and supporters. The proposed realignment of Dufferin county schools would divide the schools and the local parish along diocesan lines. Further, there is no evidence that the realignment would result in any demonstrable savings for either board. Therefore, the board would not agree with the separation of the Dufferin schools from its jurisdiction.

Bill 104 creates a number of financial prohibitions in contracts. The December 31, 1997, restriction affects contracts which must be settled, for example, in transportation and capital projects. Clarity on these issues must be provided as soon as possible.

The board opposes the wide powers assigned to the Education Improvement Commission and its committees. The EIC's mandate is so broadly encompassing that it dilutes the effectiveness of the duly elected representatives of the people and would allow the commission to usurp the board's legitimate elected authority.

1250

As proposed by Bill 104, the French-language section will be part of a new French-language separate district board, and two schools in Dufferin county would be assigned to the Wellington County Roman Catholic Separate School Board.

The board therefore faces two sets of issues related to the division of assets and liabilities (1) between its English and French-language sections, and (2) between its Peel region and Dufferin county components.

The necessary concurrent negotiations would be difficult to manage. Bill 104 does not appear to address this issue. The board requests that the government provide regulations to set out the process to be used and the basis of local negotiations. This is especially critical with respect to the creation of the French-language boards, as local negotiations, including those related to capital debt, may lead to further negotiations at the regional level when the various French-language sections come together to form one school board.

The bill does not address the status of personnel, the status of contract negotiations, the transfer of staff members and the outsourcing of non-instructional services, nor how availability of equitable funding for the new French-language boards will be ensured.

This board has been granted 11 allocations for schools, of which two would no longer be within the board's jurisdiction. These are for a new elementary school in Orangeville and an addition to Ste-Jeanne d'Arc Elementary School.

In the event that severance should occur, the board requires clarification whether it or the new boards should calendarize and proceed with construction of these facilities.

It is unclear whether students in existing schools would be required to transfer schools as a result of reorganization. There are secondary school students from the Dufferin area who attend Robert F. Hall Secondary School in Caledon in Peel Region, and students from Caledon attending St Peter Elementary School in Orangeville, which is in Dufferin county. Clarification is required.

In conclusion, many areas in the bill impact on the operation of this board. The board agrees with some of the changes, while others require clarification before any conclusions can be drawn. Further, the board is concerned about the practical considerations arising from the need to manage the provisions of Bill 104 without knowing how the regulations will affect the day-to-day activities of the new Peel district Roman Catholic separate school board. Our full text is part of our presentation and lists our complete concerns.

The issues of taxation and local representation raise obvious questions about the constitutional rights of Catholics. Should the bill, when passed, infringe upon these rights, the Dufferin-Peel Roman Catholic Separate School Board is prepared to take the appropriate legal action necessary to defend and maintain our Catholic education system. Thank you for hearing us.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you, Mr Meany, for your presentation and your diligence here. I have just a couple of questions. Under "equity," you cautiously mention, "The board welcomes the intent of the bill, as expressed frequently by the minister...to provide equity in funding." I thought the struggle in the last couple of decades in the separate school system has been about equity.

Mr Meany: Yes, it has been.

Mr O'Toole: Do you think this addresses that issue or not?

Mr Meany: I think it would address it completely if it built into the legislation the insurance and assurance that the intent comes into reality.

Mr O'Toole: Do you think the four constitutional groups are adequately defined in Bill 104?

Mr Meany: The four constitutional -- oh, you mean the French and English?

Mr O'Toole: Bill 104 defines very clearly and quite specifically the four constitutional groups that will be entitled to funding. Are you satisfied that those definitions -- you suggested in a couple of places in the report that they weren't clearly defined, that the separate school system wasn't clearly -- I beg to differ.

Mr Meany: I wasn't suggesting that. Using the words "Roman Catholic," by putting the words in: We feel it isn't sufficiently in there, and that's a dilution of the recognition that we are a separate, legitimate body.

Mr O'Toole: Maybe you should read Bill 104.

The Vice-Chair: The time for the Conservative caucus to ask questions is up. Perhaps the two of you can discuss that issue at the side.

Mr Meany: Excuse me --

The Vice-Chair: Mr Meany, I apologize. Our time is very limited. Perhaps Mrs McLeod or one of the other --

Mr Meany: I merely want to suggest that there was a remark made that we hadn't read Bill 104.

Mr O'Toole: No, I'm saying it's clear in Bill 104.

The Vice-Chair: Could I please ask everyone to come to order.

Mrs McLeod: Believe me, Mr Meany, if there's anybody who has read Bill 104, it's going to be you. I know that full well. I'm sorry Mr O'Toole didn't allow you to complete the answer to his first question. I think he may have been concerned that you were about to express a concern that many of us have, that equity funding may be at much lower levels than is really adequate to meet the needs of students since we have no guarantees of funding built into this bill.

I'm going to leave that for a moment, because there is another area in which I'm anxious to have you be a little bit more explicit. The reshaping of the boundaries for this board is inexplicable to me, and I want you to expand upon that a little bit. You touched on the split-off of Dufferin; the lack of contiguity between the separate board in the Simcoe area with the public board. It has just become bizarre. There's a part of Muskoka that gets attached to Victoria-Haliburton in the public board, where it's attached to Simcoe with the separate board. Do you have any sense of why this has developed this way?

Mr Meany: No. I remember that when the Queen's University professor who recommended these alignments did so and they were accepted by the then government, the idea of putting Dufferin with us was because we were an urbanized and developing urban area which would be well able to look after a less urbanized one. It's working out that way. We've had several delegations from up there, from the people who all of a sudden are very fond of us, and they don't want to leave us.

Mr Wildman: I have a question for Mr Meany -- I appreciate your presentation -- and then I have a question for the parliamentary assistant. Could you expand on the problem that I think follows from Mrs McLeod's questioning but also is more specific to the problem you have in determining board assets and who builds the new construction. What's your problem? The minister has said boards shouldn't be concerned, that they should just proceed with the capital construction projects for which they've gotten approval, so what's your difficulty related to these new boundaries?

Mr Meany: I'll suggest that Mr Howarth address that.

Mr Peter Howarth: Essentially, the ministry has not approved our calendarization of those projects, so we cannot proceed. We have to build them all by March 1999. We have to go out for tender now, so we have tremendous problems around those time lines. Furthermore with that particular issue, if we start to build that now, will the local share be assigned to our ratepayers? Will it be assigned to Wellington? We need some decisions very, very soon about that jurisdictional issue.

The Vice-Chair: I thank the delegation very much for your attendance today and we welcome your input.

Mr Wildman: Following from Mr Meany's presentation, could we get some clarification from the ministry with regard to the change in boundaries vis-à-vis Dufferin and Peel, and also some clarification with regard to which ratepayers will be responsible for the construction projects the board has on stream?

Mr Toni Skarica (Wentworth North): As far as the boundaries are concerned, you have the map which shows the boundaries that the ministry intends to implement with the passing of Bill 104. I'm not sure whether you're --

Mr Wildman: Well, the other question I have is that if this existing board proceeds with the construction, they have to go to tender right now. The question is, if the boundaries are going to be different, which ratepayers are going to be paying for this?

The Vice-Chair: That question will be recorded and we'll ask the government to respond to it.

Mrs McLeod: A further expansion on the question Mr Wildman has placed: I would like not just some clarity from the ministry on the boundaries but an explanation of why these boundaries were developed in the way in which they were developed.

Mr Skarica: I think Mr Wildman has asked a similar question.

Mr Wildman: Can I raise a point of order, Mr Chair?

The Vice-Chair: Yes, certainly.

Mr Wildman: I don't want to be troublesome here, but on our list we have scheduled at 1:20 the Metro Toronto French-language school board, and I note that unlike Ottawa, Thunder Bay and Sudbury, the committee does not have with us translation services, and all of us on the committee are not as bilingual as you are, Chair. I'm wondering if it's going to be possible for the French board to make presentation to this committee in the other official language.

The Vice-Chair: We'll deal with that when they come up, but my inclination, and we've done some checking, is that they can present in either French or English. We will arrange translation. I truly regret that there's not translation service here. As committee Chair, I will ask that any presentation be translated, and the delegation, as I understand it, has agreed to that.

1300

BANTING MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL COUNCIL

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Dana Wright, from Banting Memorial High School. Welcome. You have 15 minutes, which you can use as you see fit, either all for your presentation or you can leave time for questions.

Mrs Wendy MacFarlane: Thank you very much. First of all, I should clarify that Mrs Wright is unable to be here. My name is Mrs Wendy MacFarlane. I am a member of the parent council for Banting Memorial High School for the Cookstown area. I'm pleased to have with me today Toni Worsley, who is also a parent representative, from the Adjala-Tosorontio area, for Banting. And we're very pleased to have two of our students with us today: Shelly Tulloch, our student council representative; and Lee-Ann Pendleton, who is a grade 12 student who was specifically elected from the school group as the student representative for our school council. We're very pleased to have these two young ladies with us.

Thank you very much. Just as an overview, Banting Memorial has a student population of 1,840 students. It serves an area that is both rural and urban populations. It is a catchment area for 19 schools, feeder schools, that is. There's an extensive bilingual culture, as a large segment of the students come from families based at CFB Borden. That's just to give you an overview. Now I am pleased to begin our presentation. It's brief but sincere.

Bill 104 and the establishment of Education Improvement Commission: No one disputes the need to always look for ways "to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system." However, we the members of the Banting Memorial school council take exception to the amendments Bill 104 will make to the Education Act. We specifically cite:

(a) the reduction of the number of locally elected trustees;

(b) the reduction of district accessibility by, and accountability to, the regional taxpaying public; and

Bill 104, by reducing the number of locally elected school board trustees by half, effectively reduces the input and accessibility of the local citizenry, ie parents, to their representatives of choice. The politically mandated reduction of the number of Simcoe County Board of Education trustees means less participation for the local citizens.

Ms Shelly Tulloch: Our concerns relating to this are:

(a) Our locally elected trustees will not be able to exercise much independence. They will be there solely to carry out the Queen's Park mandate.

(b) Our locally elected trustees will be left with few responsibilities and an ill-defined role.

Simcoe county's issues throughout this vast geographic area require local perspectives by regionally elected trustees. By reducing the number of trustees you will increase the area of representation for the continuing trustees, thereby increasing their workload and, by dint of time and energy, reducing their accessibility and effectiveness to adequately represent local issues and concerns such as transportation safety.

Ms Lee-Ann Pendleton: We are concerned that the remuneration cap of $5,000 could significantly reduce the importance and effectiveness of the role of the trustee. We are concerned that the government's proposed $5,000 cap indicates that they are intending to reduce the role of the elected trustee to political insignificance.

The political appointment of the Education Improvement Commission of five to seven members is unacceptable. Is there not a more democratic way of establishing this commission? Local elections for county trustees are held in November 1997, yet the commission is mandated past the time of legal elections, therefore superseding the power of democratically elected officials. Surely this is not an example of responsible government.

Ms Toni Worsley: Who will the members of this powerful commission be? What are their backgrounds? What do they personally know of Simcoe county and the unique challenges in education that we encounter in this area? Seven people certainly cannot be expected to make responsible, informed decisions for our diverse boards across the province. Appointment of this commission eliminates parental input, accessibility and control of the educational process. We understand that the school councils will be given increased responsibilities, but this government has yet to outline what the role of those groups will be.

We are concerned that this commission is immune to judicial review. Why has this powerful body been set above the law? What checks are there on the commission's power? We, the school council, are concerned that this commission is exempt from petitions through the freedom of information act. Why have citizens been denied this avenue of access to the process of massive change to our educational system? Is this democratic? Is this common sense?

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We have approximately -- this is more time than we've had in a while -- three and a third minutes for each caucus. We'll begin with the official opposition.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much. You don't know what a luxury it is to have some time to ask questions of our presenters. I want to note the important emphasis you place on the powers of the EIC. I think the answer to the questions you've raised is that in this legislation there are no checks on the power of the EIC, that they are above the law. A number of presenters have said this is a total violation of anything democratic, that any body should be above the law.

We're also extremely concerned, as you've noted, that the time lines for the election of November 1997 make it impossible for there to be an orderly transition to these new amalgamated boards. There are significant issues to be dealt with for many boards where there are different contracts coming together, which I realize is not as true in Simcoe county. The EIC has powers that extend for four years, so I think its powers will be essentially absolute in dealing with the chaos that will come.

The issue I'd like to raise with you that comes from your brief is that at the very beginning you talk about your concern about the lack of access to locally elected trustees, and you also indicate that the lack of funding accountability and the lack of taxation power, both those things together, will reduce the effectiveness of the school trustee. I share that concern. I think the role of the school trustee is going to become almost irrelevant other than as a whipping post for government, and eventually people will question why we have school trustees at all. There's a very clear sense that school councils are there, ready to take the place of school boards, and maybe it's all right if school boards just dissolve. I'd like your comments on whether you see that as a legitimate role for school councils.

Mrs MacFarlane: I agree with what you are saying, Mrs McLeod. It's a concern to the members of the school council that we have not yet had a definitive definition of our role. I should tell this committee that a number of our school council members are willing to stay on until we see the definition of the school council role, the actual mandate. We are not attuned to politics; we are working-class people. You can see how nervous we are in front of you.

We do the best we can but, quite frankly, there is so much coming at us from the education department that it's very difficult to pick your issues to stand up for. There are many issues that have come up that we would like to have addressed, but being few in numbers just yet -- but we certainly zeroed in on Bill 104 for the very reasons you cite and for the other reasons we state.

Yes, we see the role of the elected trustee being diminished, and it is a serious concern to us from this large geographic area. We use our trustees. We approach our trustees. We have a very good accord with our trustees.

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Ms Worsley: With our trustees, we have three elected members for such a very large geographical area. We stretch from Highway 9 to almost New Lowell, the Airport Road area to Highway 27, and for three people to cover that is quite extensive when they have to have representation at the schools as well. The tax base is mostly rural, not very much business base, and if we're having anything to do with taxes, it's going to have to be more equitable from business in other areas.

Ms Lankin: Thank you very much. This is an area I am interested in as well. It has struck me that virtually every representative of parent councils that have come forward and virtually all student representation that has come before the committee -- and there haven't been as many students we've heard from -- have been opposed to these changes, sometimes based on the boundaries and the size of the boards but more often on this issue of taking away powers from those trustees and somehow moving them down to the parent council level or centralizing decision-making in the bureaucracy of the ministry. I think people fear that.

I'm wondering if perhaps from a student perspective we could get some comments about how you see the role of trustees in this area -- Do you have a student representative on the board of trustees? Is that something you would like to have? -- and how you see the role of parent councils, and if they were to take on more responsibilities at the school level, what would that mean in terms of variances from school to school?

Ms Tulloch: Speaking from a student council point of view, we have our vice-president and our president who go up to Barrie, the Simcoe County Board of Education, to speak and sit in on the meetings which are going on. I feel they're able to have an input into what's going on in our school, and they're able to tell us what is going on with them, so there's that relation there.

If there were to be fewer trustees, there wouldn't be that relation there because they would have such a broad area to deal with; they wouldn't know what's going on in our school. There is a trustee for each school, and if that was to be reduced, how would they know what's going in our school: what we need, what we do? I just feel there's less of a connection there and that you need that to effectively run a school and have that relationship there with the students.

Ms Pendleton: I think our parent council is really important, but I don't think it could do the job that the trustees do, not that it isn't capable, but the trustees are from certain areas. I just don't think it can be traded.

Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Simcoe Centre): It's nice to see that we have some students here. I really appreciate your coming out here today and taking the time to make your presentation. I'd just like to ask one of the students a question, whether you're in favour of equal base funding, in other words, that every student in the province receives the same amount for their education, regardless of the geography or the type of school board?

Ms Tulloch: I believe that every student should be entitled to an equal opportunity when it comes to education, because education is what lets someone -- their goal in life. I won't get into the specifics, but I was always told a post-secondary education, or even from the secondary level to lead you into that educational realm, will leave you further ahead. When you -- I don't want to say discriminate, but when you don't have the equal distribution of that equal tax base for education, who's to say what child gets it and who doesn't? You have to be fair, I believe. That's my personal opinion.

Ms Pendleton: Maybe people in the north who don't have the facilities we have in the south should be given some special consideration, not totally, but just a bit, because they don't have access to the facilities we have access to.

Mr Tascona: With respect to the role students play in the education system, would you like to see a greater role for students with school boards and the school councils?

Ms Tulloch: I believe students should have a say in what is going on since the educational system is for the students. We're the ones who are in the system. We're the ones who are either going to benefit or not benefit from the system. We can't say, "Do this," or "Don't do this." We can have a say in saying how it's going to affect us, how we're going to benefit from the system, but I believe we should have a part in what is going on. The most we can do is say what we feel, what our opinions are and how it could be bettered, if possible.

Mr Tascona: Is there a specific area where you'd like to make a contribution in the system?

Ms Tulloch: I can't tell you that, because I don't know all aspects of the system, but when we are offered the opportunity to go speak in that particular area we would gladly go and be a part of that.

Mr Tascona: Do you know that at one time school trustees were strictly volunteers?

Ms Tulloch: I don't recall that, no.

Mr Tascona: At one time they were, so I'm just curious with respect to -- maybe Wendy can answer. How in your own mind do you characterize the type of trustee who may emerge if, for example, there is $5,000 in remuneration?

Mrs MacFarlane: I have spoken with several of the Simcoe county board of trustees, who represent Banting and the area to the south -- I don't know the people to the north particularly well -- and I would like to say that, to a person, they have indicated that it is not the amount of remuneration that is going to determine whether they run in the election next time. They are that committed. We are very lucky to have some of the trustees we have, and we appreciate that.

However, having said that, I think there is a perception out there in the public that if you give a cap of $5,000 to these people -- it may not be your intention, but you tend to depreciate the value of the job they will be doing by putting that limit on them.

I quite honestly agree with you that there are a number of trustees out there who are overpaid. I believe the trustees in this area, if I'm not mistaken, earn $14,000 or thereabouts, which for those who do their job properly -- and that is not all of them, sir -- that is not nearly enough money for the hours they put in.

Interjection.

Mrs MacFarlane: No sir, I wouldn't tell you.

The Vice-Chair: I'd like to thank all of you for attending. It's particularly good to see young people coming out to share their views, and as always, we welcome your input. Thank you very much.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chair, Mr Tascona's question raises another area of information I think the committee should have and I don't believe has asked for yet, and that is the range of salaries and the salaries paid by different boards to their trustees. It follows from a comment yesterday that there tends to be sweeping change brought in to respond to single exceptions. I think this is another situation where that's the case and we should see the actual fact of trustees' salaries across the province.

Mr Skarica: Do you want that from the ministry or from legislative research?

Mrs McLeod: Whichever is easier. I assume the ministry has it readily --

The Vice-Chair: We'll ask the ministry for that.

1320

WEST PARRY SOUND BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the West Parry Sound Board of Education, Sue Woodhouse, chair. Welcome.

Mrs Sue Woodhouse: Mr Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to make a presentation to you today on behalf of the West Parry Sound Board of Education. My name is Sue Woodhouse; I am chair of the board. I am accompanied by Ann Daleman, the vice-chair. Between us, we have been trustees for over 27 years. Ann and I know our community very well.

Most of my oral submission will be the same as the written one you probably have in front of you. However, to try to leave time for questions, I may just shorten it up a bit, and I would like to concentrate specifically on the uniqueness of small rural boards like ours.

The West Parry Sound Board of Education is opposed to Bill 104 and the forced amalgamation of our board with distant boards, which will lead to unnecessary expense and the loss of local representation. It is our belief that opportunity for students and accountability will not be enhanced by a "bigger is better" model, dependent on some distant faceless decision-makers.

The West Parry Sound Board of Education is a small, cost-efficient and effective school board in northern Ontario. Our students are successful, and we have initiated a number of innovative programs that are being replicated elsewhere. We spend less per pupil than most boards, largely because of the commitment to teamwork widespread throughout our community and our school system. The last five years have seen our provincial grants reduced by over 56%. We have grown very used to "made in Parry Sound" solutions.

Bill 104 will dismantle the West Parry Sound Board of Education with little regard for the impact upon our community or our children. No one knows the needs of children and families like those within the community they serve. We are concerned that amalgamation with a board 155 kilometres away will isolate the decision-making from our community and negate our current ability to forge the local partnerships that are so crucial to the children in west Parry Sound.

We subscribe to the adage, "It takes a whole community to raise a child." We recognized several years ago that in light of those rapidly decreasing provincial grants, community partnerships were going to be driving the growth of educational opportunities and better results for our children. We made the development of those partnerships a priority in our planning. Trustees are crucial to the continued development and strengthening of those links. We cannot expect anything like the same level of commitment to the people we represent by the one, possibly two, trustees who will be left on the new district board and who will be expected to represent our huge west Parry Sound area.

We have built a natural, efficient unit around the common centre of Parry Sound. Amalgamation that is forced, geographically unrealistic and culturally insensitive takes away from the expansion of community-driven efforts.

West Parry Sound is unique in many ways. For instance, we have five first nations in our area with whom we have very positive relations. This does not just happen. It takes work, commitment and mutual understanding. In 1968, we were the first board in Ontario to formally recognize the importance of first nations representation by adding a native trustee to our board. A special curriculum project recently developed by us, with the help of local elders, is regarded as the best of its kind in the province. We are very concerned that native representation on the new district board would be greatly diluted by the restructuring. What is a model system could lose its effectiveness.

While education is our mandate, rural school boards must be recognized for the pivotal role they play within the community. The West Parry Sound Board of Education is a core community institution, the second-largest corporate body in the district and the second-largest employer. Dismantling a structure of this stature truly has community implications unparalleled within urban centres.

The new district board will cover an area of 15,082 square kilometres, nearly three times the size of Prince Edward Island. Our board is likely to have the least representation in the new district board and be the most geographically isolated. If our closest neighbouring high schools, which are in the Muskoka board, move towards their new district boundary to the east, the students in our one high school will lose the benefits of the traditional links we have shared in the past, thus becoming more isolated than ever before.

The parents in our community have traditionally felt very free to speak to trustees and the board on matters that concern them. They have been able to take concerns to a working committee of the board and fully participate as an issue is being discussed. We know that many parents will have neither the confidence nor the ability to travel huge distances to state their case to the new district board trustees. A four-hour return trip to a district board office in North Bay, especially in northern winter driving conditions, will certainly prove a barrier to traditional parental involvement. The accessibility and openness presently in place will diminish with the new board structure.

We are in favour of strengthening school councils. It may be argued that parents should channel their issues to school councils rather than the district school board. It is important to point out, however, that the functions of school councils, which advocate only for their individual schools, remain very different from those of trustees, who strive for system-wide equity and quality. School council volunteers act in an advisory capacity only and thus are not positioned to fill the decision-making role of a local board of education.

A further blow to the people of Ontario comes from the sweeping and undemocratic powers of the Education Improvement Commission. The power vested in these unelected, provincially appointed commissioners is truly an assault on democracy. It is this kind of political action that leaves the public stunned that our democratic rights are so vulnerable.

The province is ignoring the costs of amalgamation. In June 1995, our board did an amalgamation impact study that found savings of only 1%, while we estimated the cost to be substantially more, both as a one-time cost and as an ongoing liability. Our report corresponds with the Ernst and Young study recently released by the ministry. However, unlike ours, the government report failed to calculate the additional costs of amalgamation.

All school boards in Ontario I believe spend at a per pupil cost greater than that allocated by the ministry. Our neighbouring boards of Nipissing, east Parry Sound and Muskoka operate with above-ceiling costs of $803, $910 and $1,025 respectively. West Parry Sound's per pupil costs are only $490 above the ceiling. Also, unlike two of our three neighbouring boards, we have no long-term debt.

It will be the funding model, not amalgamation, that will achieve the desired result of equity in funding across the province. Amalgamation has nothing to do with that issue. In our case, any increased funding that we may receive through a new funding model could be lost to the huge costs of amalgamation and the debts of other boards.

We believe the provincial government must pay the major share of education funding, to ensure equity for all students across Ontario. We also believe that boards should be given the ability to levy a limited amount from the property tax to respond with flexibility to locally determined needs.

We have been frugal and we have been fiscally responsible. Our low per pupil costs demonstrate that. Amalgamation will not benefit our children if there are no identifiable net savings and money is lost from the classroom to pay the costs of amalgamation.

The West Parry Sound Board of Education agrees that changes are essential to keep our education system relevant and effective. We are not here to suggest that the status quo be protected at all costs. In fact, several times our board has requested the province to initiate legislation to enable us to make change at the local level. There was no response.

We agree that student achievement and curriculum development should be both a local and a provincial priority. We support the ministry's directions to improve accountability and raise standards through the Education Quality and Accountability Office, and by providing the necessary support materials to make curriculum change possible.

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The economic and accountability goals of the province can be met. Local boards could remain in place, if assistance is forthcoming from the government, together with clear criteria and formulae for boards to meet in areas of classroom support, administrative costs and special education.

There appears to be no rationale for Bill 104, no criteria that the minister wants school boards to meet, no impact studies substantiating change and an apparent total disregard for individual differences and local consultation. Sweeping structural changes were announced without a supporting implementation plan. Is it any wonder that worry, anger and resistance result? We have no confidence that the province has a clear sense of direction or vision for Ontario's education system.

School board trustees, unlike municipal representatives, have been shut out of the decision-making process, but we will be left to pick up the pieces and make the new system work, which we will do. We are concerned that as a result of the government's lack of consultation and planning with local boards, our staff are demoralized, parents and students are confused and expectations may be unrealistic. This is the state of education as we experience a rushed, undemocratic and unplanned transition to a new system. The education of future generations is far too great a responsibility to be left to distant bureaucrats for their administrative convenience.

In conclusion, we ask you to acknowledge that central government solutions are not always appropriate for the rural north. We should be looked at individually. We ask that school boards be shown the respect of having our operations assessed separately, before forcing our adherence to this undemocratic and inflexible piece of legislation.

We have some recommendations attached on the last page. I ask you to read those. If there any questions now, we'd be delighted to answer them if we have time. Also, we do have a few copies of our amalgamation impact study and several other things, if anybody would like them.

Mr Skarica: I'm wondering if you could table that. I'd like to see it.

The Vice-Chair: If you want to table that, we can distribute it to members of the committee.

Mrs Woodhouse: I only brought a few copies.

The Vice-Chair: We'll make copies. We have approximately one minute per caucus.

Mr Wildman: Thank you for you presentation. There are a lot of things I'd like to ask you about. On page 5, I'd like to refer to the last two sentences in the first paragraph, where you say you are concerned about the government's lack of consultation and planning with local boards and you talk about the confusion and demoralization and then you say, "This is the state of education as we experience a rushed, undemocratic and unplanned transition to a new system."

Would you favour -- and I think it may be in your recommendations, I just glanced at them -- not proceeding with final passage of this legislation until you see the whole package of education reform, including the funding formula and whatever changes there may be coming with regard to collective bargaining and so on? Would that be a more planned and reasonable approach, do you think?

Mrs Ann Daleman: Yes, we have a lot of concerns that this has been rushed, that it's not been well thought out. Boards have not been consulted. From all of our impact studies, we do not see any value as to what's being proposed. We feel that if the government sat down and consulted, it could come up with a much better plan.

Mrs Woodhouse: Could I just add one --

The Vice-Chair: No, I'm sorry. The government caucus.

Mr Bill Grimmett (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): In your brief you've indicated that you had some ideas for local changes that you might bring in. I wonder if you could outline to the committee what ideas you had on local changes.

Mrs Woodhouse: Probably the easiest and most interesting to some of the PCs might be the fact that we requested change to assist us to reduce the number of trustees in our board and we requested that in 1995, the reason being based on the allocation of trustees through townships. There are five trustees in the town of Parry Sound but none in the area of the archipelago that was the one that paid the majority of taxes for education funding for our area. We placed a trustee in the archipelago because we thought that they had the right, since they were paying -- and most of them were non-resident anyway; they had cottages there -- to have a voice in what was happening in our education system and our budgeting process. That legislation wasn't changed but it needed to be changed. Now, with the assessment and the funding model changing anyway, that may become a little more irrelevant, and certainly the number of trustees looks as if it's going to be reduced but not necessarily rightly so.

Mrs McLeod: I have too many question for one minute, but I think I'll focus on the point that you make, that amalgamation is not going to save money. I'll be very interested in seeing your own impact study in that regard. But we know from the study that the Ministry of Education had done to confirm its own assumptions about savings that the most it could identify was $150 million across the province, and that included taking money directly out of classroom supplies and equipment, very little money actually to be saved from the amalgamation process itself. In fact, their own study consultant said that it could cost more to amalgamate. Given all that, why do you think the amalgamations are proceeding?

Mrs Woodhouse: I hate to be so cynical but I just think that something is being picked up by provincial politicians who think that people are going to accept the fact that boards are top-heavy. Trustees are not the story, trustees have never been the story; it's the children in the classroom that are the story. We are not egocentric politicians, most of us; we're ones who earn $5,000 a year in west Parry Sound, and many around us. I think it's just something that's perceived as a vote getter, for no reason.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation and for responding to our questions.

CONSEIL DES ÉCOLES FRANÇAISES DE LA COMMUNAUTÉ URBAINE DE TORONTO

Le Vice-Président : The next delegation is le conseil des ecoles françaises de la communauté urbaine de Toronto.

Bonjour. Maintenant, je veux exprimer quelque chose pour vous en français et aussi en anglais. Si vous voulez donner votre présentation en français, c'est okay. Notre service de traduction n'est pas ici aujourd'hui, parce que le comté de Simcoe n'est pas désigné par la Loi 8, mais pour le comité, nous pouvons avoir une traduction de vos remarques, si vous préférez donner votre présentation en français.

Simcoe county is not in its entirety declared a designated area for the provision of French-language services. Therefore, translation services have not been brought with us. I've checked that this has been the practice in the past. If it's your preference to give your presentation in French, that certainly is okay. I will caution you, though, that a number of the members do not speak French and it may make it difficult to pose questions.

Mr Mohammed Brihmi: Thank you, members. I wish I could have the opportunity to speak in French, but I understand that we are interested also in exchanging with the members of the committee and we accept -- I mean, we don't have a choice -- to make our presentation in English, even though I spoke with the clerk's office and informed them that we were going to make our presentation in French. They told us that there was no problem with that. We understood from that that we would have translation with it.

Le Vice-Président : Je regrette ces circonstances, mais c'est notre réalité maintenant. Si vous préférez donner votre présentation en français c'est okay, mais le plus grand nombre de députés ici ne peuvent pas parler français et ne comprendront pas votre présentation. Je regrette.

Mr Brihmi: I would like to thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation. My name is Mohammed Brihmi and I am chair of the Conseil des ecoles françaises de la communauté urbaine de Toronto, known as the Metropolitan Toronto French-language School Council. We are better known throughout the province by our acronym, CEFCUT.

I am accompanied today by our director of education, Alice Ducharme, and also by our student trustee, Pasha Yamotahari.

CEFCUT is one of only four French-language school boards which presently exist in Ontario. Bill 104 will create a total of 11 French-language district school boards, and as francophones we are deeply grateful. As you may already know, francophones in Ontario have been working very hard for several decades to have their constitutional rights fully recognized with respect to French-language education. Finally, after all these years, hope will become a reality.

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This jubilation, however, does not preclude the fact that our board has some concerns with respect to Bill 104. Naturally, our first concern is the students we will be serving in the proposed French-language public district school board for southern Ontario. Within this very vast territory, which by the way covers more than 70,000 square kilometres, an area greater than the provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island combined -- and you can see it on the map over here, the area we will cover; all this area from here to Windsor -- there are more than 8,000 francophone public students who are not receiving their education in French-language public schools. They are obliged to attend immersion schools, English-language public schools or French-language Catholic schools because several boards of education in this very large region have not fulfilled their obligations towards their francophone population.

The parents of these students have been requesting their own French-language public schools for years, and their expectations of this new board are extremely high. They have a right to their own schools, they want their own schools and they want them now. You can appreciate, therefore, that the trustees elected to the new board will be spending a great deal of time establishing long-awaited French-language public schools throughout this vast region.

In order to properly respond to the needs of students and to fulfil its legal obligations to the francophone electors, a board of this size will require the maximum number of trustees which Bill 104 will allow. Such a vast territory will also necessitate looking at new ways of conducting the board's business, such as by videoconferencing. This will in turn require not only special startup funding but also funds for the maintenance of such a communication system. Amendments to the Education Act will also have to be considered to allow for video meetings.

We therefore recommend that the French-language public district school board proposed for southern Ontario be represented by the maximum number of trustees proposed in Bill 104 and that the required funding and legislation be put into place to allow board meetings to be held via electronic media.

The diverse needs of the students within such a large board require a vast range of special programs. The needs of francophone students in Metropolitan Toronto who come from such areas as Somalia, Rwanda, Zaire and Haiti, to name but a few, are vastly different than those of students in Elmvale, Sarnia, Welland, London or Canadian Forces Base Borden.

The child living in Sarnia who enters kindergarten unable to speak French because his parents have suffered the consequences of years of assimilation requires a special program. That child also requires access to day care and after-school services in French, which in most areas are non-existent. That is why several French-language school boards and French-language sections have had to accommodate day care services in their schools as another measure to counter assimilation.

The 12-year-old student who arrives in Toronto from Rwanda unable to read and write because he has never had the chance to attend school requires a special program. The 15-year-old who arrives at Borden from Bagotville and can barely speak or understand English requires a special program. The small pockets of francophone families in Owen Sound, Kincardine and Peterborough who do not have access to any French-language schools will require special services until such time as a French-language school can be established in their area.

In accordance with the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act, our board cannot operate schools or classes for the trainable retarded. I'm referring to section 130, chapter 62 of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto Act. There are presently no French-language programs or French-language schools to accommodate these students anywhere in the entire territory to be covered by the proposed board. These students must be allowed to receive their special programs in French.

For francophones residing in areas that are not required by law to provide French-language services, a school board incurs even greater expenses by having to provide these services for its students, for example, social workers and speech therapists.

We are extremely concerned that the funding for such a large board with such a diverse student population will not sufficiently meet the identified needs. We therefore recommend that special funding be put into place for boards serving a minority language population within a geographic area greater than 50,000 square kilometres.

If the government's overall objective is to increase quality in the education system and to focus more resources on students and their needs, our board is very concerned about the flagrant disregard of student trustees in Bill 104. In September 1996, our board welcomed its first student trustee, Mr Pasha Yamotahari. The experience has been very rewarding, not only for our board but also for the student. Mr Yamotahari has provided us with realistic feedback and a different perspective on several matters brought before the board. This has made us more accountable to our students who are notre raison d'être, contributed to better, more informed decisions and has provided valuable insight into the impact these decisions have on the classroom. Several other school boards in Ontario have student trustees, and I have provided you with a copy of a report prepared by one of them on the benefits of student representation on school boards.

We therefore recommend that relevant legislation be amended to allow student trustees representation on district school boards in addition to the maximum number of trustees determined by subsection 327(6) of the act, Bill 104, and that the student trustee be allowed to vote.

Our fourth concern is the blatant unfairness of Bill 104 with respect to the omission of any measures relating to employees presently working within our boards. They should be given the same consideration that municipal employees will receive through provisions contained in Bill 103. We therefore recommend that the same provisions contained in Bill 103 for municipal employees be included in Bill 104.

In conclusion, as francophones, far from being dissatisfied with Bill 104, we see it as a major step in the full recognition of our rights with respect to French-language education. We believe, however, that this bill can be improved, and we hope you will consider our recommendations. They are very realistic recommendations, and we feel they will enable this government to better meet its overall objective, which is to increase the quality of the education system in Ontario.

Mr Skarica: As you indicated, many of the French-language boards are going to be very large and cover a great geographic area. How do you intend at the present time to deal with those types of problems and challenges?

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Mr Brihmi: As we indicated, it will be a real challenge to have real representation and the trustees being accountable to their population. The other problem we see is that we will have diverse needs, and we will have to work hard to satisfy different needs. For instance, the needs of the students in the Metro Toronto area might be quite different from the needs of students in Sarnia or in other areas, like Penetanguishene or Lafontaine, not far from here.

We are afraid the funding will cease because, for the time being, we are quite privileged to be part of Metro Toronto. Indeed, we benefit from the residential and commercial taxes we collect from the Metro Toronto area, which allow us to respond to most of our needs. But the difficulty is that a lot of the areas we'll represent won't have access to that large commercial and industrial taxation, and we are wondering how we'll fulfil our commitment to offer the best services to our students. It will be a real challenge, and we hope we get sufficient funding to accommodate that.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much. I think it's very legitimate wondering that you're doing, and I share your sense that this is a major step forward for something that Franco-Ontarians have wanted to see for some time. But as another presenter said to us in the north yesterday, the crux of the war is in the funding.

One of the concerns I have is how hurriedly Bill 104 has come forward and how much actual preparation has been done in terms of an understanding of the cost implications of the bill. Have you had a chance to do even some preliminary assessment of the costs of establishing the new board, establishing the new schools that would be needed and meeting those individual needs, and have you had any discussions with the Ministry of Education as to their understanding of the costs that will have to be met if you are to meet the needs of those students?

Mr Brihmi: For the time being, we haven't had any discussions with the government regarding those very important needs, and indeed we don't know exactly how much it will cost us, for instance, to offer the same education for the new school boards. We haven't done this type of research. I will let our director respond to this, because she was also working with other administrators in this same school board.

The Vice-Chair: I will ask you to keep it very brief.

Ms Alice Ducharme: We're working right now on an impact study. I did meet with Mr Cooke and Ms Vanstone to express our feelings about this. We are very concerned about the funding and how they are going to address this issue and how rapidly they should.

M^me Lankin : Monsieur Brihmi, merci à vous et à votre collègue. Je comprends que vous aimez ce projet de loi, mais vous avez quelques problèmes avec ce projet de loi aussi. Je voudrais poser une question, mais je veux faire ça en anglais.

It relates also to the size of the board. You've raised issues like, what will the funding be? We know that's not contained in this bill, and of course that's one of the problems, this piecemeal approach to reform of education that we are seeing and how all these pieces will fit together in the end.

I want to ask you a question that is also not directly contained in the bill but which I think poses a problem given the size of the board that is proposed, that being related to the new proposal the government seems to be considering: to download the cost of education capital, new school construction and school maintenance, to the municipal level. Far from disentanglement and taking all the education costs up, the new proposal seems to shift part of it back down.

What would that mean for a school board such as yours, for example, if you were looking at the need for construction of a new French-language school in Metropolitan Toronto or the surrounding area and people in Essex didn't have that same requirement and yet the municipalities covered by the area of the school board would be obligated to fully fund those costs? Have you thought through what that kind of proposal would mean and what problems it would pose for a board such as what is being proposed by the legislation?

The Vice-Chair: Very briefly, please.

Mr Brihmi: To be honest with you, it's a headache for us and we haven't gone through it, but I know that it would be very difficult for us, as a francophone board, to ensure the capital funding for our schools if indeed this situation, what you are saying, happens.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Merci beaucoup pour votre présentation aujourd'hui à notre comité, mais il faut que nous procédions maintenant avec la prochaine délégation. Thank you very much for appearing today.

Questions to the parliamentary assistant. I recognize Ms Lankin first.

Ms Lankin: I would like to follow up on that area with a question to the parliamentary assistant. Under the existing proposal by the government to remove education costs from the property tax base and bring it up to the provincial base, how will capital funding allocations be made for boards such as the boards proposed for French-language schools?

Secondly, if in fact there is a change in that funding and municipalities would take over a certain responsibility within that, how would that affect capital decisions and approvals for capital decisions for French-language school boards such as the one we've heard from today?

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We'll note those questions.

Mrs McLeod: My question is along the same lines but on the operating costs rather than the capital costs for establishing French-language boards. I would like to know the ministry's cost estimates of the establishment of the French-language boards under Bill 104, their commitment to meeting those costs and where the dollars will be found in the budget; whether they will be drawn from existing Ministry of Education budgets.

The Vice-Chair: Those questions will be noted and responded to. Just a point of information for the members of the committee, you'll note that your schedule showed a 10-minute presentation for the Metro Toronto French school board. That was a typo; it should have shown a 15-minute presentation. Just so you'll be aware, because it is a school board and that was agreed to by the subcommittee.

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ONTARIO COALITION FOR EDUCATION REFORM

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Ontario coalition for education reform. Mrs Somers, you have 15 minutes. Before you begin, I just want to point out to all members of the committee that, in addition to her written presentation, they have provided us with two copies of this book. It's called Could Do Better: What's Wrong with Public Education in Ontario and How to Fix It. One has been provided to the government, and one has been provided to the two opposition parties to share.

Mrs Maureen Somers: Good afternoon. My name is Maureen Somers. I'm a parent of three school-age children. Since 1991 I've been actively engaged in the education reform movement, and I'm presently the co-chair of the Ontario Coalition for Education Reform.

The OCER was founded in 1993 as an umbrella organization serving a wide range of educational groups. Member groups include teachers, parents, school trustees and ratepayers dedicated to improving Ontario's educational system. The OCER established itself as an effective voice for education reform in Ontario thanks in large part to its 1994 report titled Could Do Better: What's Wrong with Public Education in Ontario and How to Fix It.

It has often been said that the longest journey starts with the smallest step. For myself and the other members of the OCER, we believe that the reduction of the number of school boards and school trustees in Bill 104 is a small but crucial step on a very long road towards fixing a system which is in fact broken. The Tory government and the Minister of Education and Training must take this crucial initiative to bring real accountability to Ontario's educational system.

Bill 104 addresses the issue of what I call the little schoolers versus the big schoolers. There are two groups of people tugging at our schools. On one side are the little schoolers; these are parents, dedicated teachers and the taxpayers. On the other side are the big schoolers; these are the school boards, the unions and the school trustees.

The little schoolers believe they have been paying too much for too little. They have lost the right to determine how their tax money should be spent and how their schools should be run. They believe schools should stress achievement, financial and academic accountability, and that competition is better than the present monopoly. They believe schools were built for the children and are owned by the people; schools were not built to provide employment, not built for the administrators, the teachers and the unions.

The big schoolers believe that unlimited spending of the taxpayers' money and quality are directly related. This is not the case, as recent international test comparisons have proven. The big schoolers do not believe they must work in the disciplined world of balanced accounts, because they know they can always make up the revenue side of the ledger by drawing more money from the taxpayers. Big schoolers spend money on the bureaucracy, armies of educrats, directors, consultants, superintendents and the trustees. The big schoolers are responsible for having persuaded the governments of the last 15 years that all the system needed was more money, more consultants, more warm and fuzzy programs. The big schoolers created a top-heavy, centralized system to suit themselves.

The OCER's 1994 report on Ontario's education system found that from the beginning of the 1980s to 1991 the school-age population in Ontario dropped and the number of students increased by barely 0.5% annually, yet local government spending on education tripled, with school board employment showing average yearly increases of 2% and remuneration growing close to 9%. Over the decade to 1990, non-teaching clerical and paraprofessional staff increased by 84% and supervisory officers and consultants increased by 22%. In the secondary system the number of consultants grew by 80% and the number of teachers and principals working outside the classroom increased by 128%.

By now much of the cost of education relates to the growth in the bureaucracies that run our schools and the large pool of non-classroom staff. Probably 50% to 70% of the jobs in these bureaucracies could be eliminated with no noticeable effect on the schools other than profound relief. People working today in the administrative positions at the school boards and the school trustees are not needed at all for children to learn well. The truly competent and dedicated teacher is the only truly important employee of the whole system.

The school boards tell us that there's no evidence that our education system has deteriorated and Ontario has one of the best education systems in the world. Ironically, by every measure other than the school board bureaucracy's own tests and benchmarks, our education system has proven to be ineffective. What few international comparisons we have tell us that Canadian students consistently score anywhere from average to poor against their international counterparts, yet Ontario is one of the world's largest education spenders, $16.9 billion per year.

The educrats at the school boards, the unions and the school trustees are truly only interested in job security. These groups have a grave stake in preserving their authority and so far have had the clout to do it. They have large numbers at their command, they have our money and they have our children under their influence. Recent events prove my point. The picket-line unionists known as the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation and the Ontario Public School Boards' Association plan court action and classroom sanctions against Bill 104. Those who don't agree with Bill 104 feel no compunction about using our tax dollars to fight the government in court or using our children to their ends.

Clipping the wings of the school boards and the school trustees and dumping many of their lapdog educrats is long overdue. School boards must be reduced into accountable entities. School trustees have abdicated their responsibility as democratic watchdogs. Their numbers should be reduced. School trustees do have a place, but not in their present incarnation as yes-men instead of watchmen.

Bill 104 is a small crucial step that the Tory government must take now to bring real accountability to Ontario's education system. The power the unions wield has stopped many a government and ministers of education from improving Ontario's education system. The members of the Ontario Coalition for Education Reform believe that a majority government with plenty of political will has the ultimate power to eliminate two very expensive, redundant layers of bureaucracy. The OCER believes the task of reducing the school boards and reducing the school trustees is urgent, the need is clear and the time is now. Thank you very much.

Interruption.

The Acting Chair (Mr Ted Arnott): Thank you, Mrs Somers, for your presentation. Before we start with questions, I ask everyone in the gallery to please refrain from any sort of interjections.

Questions start with the official opposition.

Mrs McLeod: How much time do we have, Mr Chairman?

The Acting Chair: About a minute per caucus.

Mrs McLeod: So we've got to focus on only one area. That's regrettable. Perhaps then I'll pick up on your defining people involved in and concerned about education into the camps of little schoolers and big schoolers. I particularly note that you include in the little schoolers' camp parents. While I don't accept the differentiation you make between the camps, I do want to talk about parents and the kinds of submissions we've had from parents to our committee in the days we've had in hearings already.

I should tell you that without exception, parents from parent councils have expressed concerns about Bill 104. In Ottawa we had umbrella parent council groups representing some 57 parent councils. In Carleton they represented some 37 parent councils. In Thunder Bay we had a group representing separate school parent councils and there were 30 represented in that group, over 30 parent councils represented in the Lakehead, and that goes on and on. Without exception, the parent councils have expressed their concerns about Bill 104 and its implications for publicly funded education. I assume you would still consider those parents to be in your little schooler group. I wonder then how you would account for the fact that their view is so different from the one you've ascribed to little schoolers in your brief.

Mrs Somers: I do include parents from the parent councils as little schoolers. I myself sit on a parent council for our local high school. It's my opinion that many of the parents whom I've heard give presentations regarding Bill 104 unfortunately have been spoonfed the union rhetoric. They have been, in my area, holding meetings with a number of our parents from our councils locally. A lot of the information that these parent councils have been receiving, because I received it myself, is union propaganda. It's my opinion that many of these parents are misinformed.

I for one brought the first delegation of parents and teachers from across Ontario to meet with ministry officials back in 1992. We also in turn met with Mike Harris on two occasions, with 62 parents and teachers from across the province. We contributed to your Blueprint in Learning report.

As far as these councils go, these councils are sitting in advisory positions only. Many of them at my council who wanted to discuss Bill 104 were told at the parent council meeting that this was not the appropriate place to be discussing Bill 104. Mind you, a week later there was a town hall meeting held and our parent council people were invited to attend the meeting that was being held by the local union representative.

Mr Wildman: I take from your brief that you support Bill 104 and I also understand that you're very much opposed to educrats and bureaucracy. That being the case, could you explain why you are in support of a bill that establishes an Education Improvement Commission, an additional layer of bureaucracy in education?

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Mrs Somers: It's my understanding that Mr Cooke and Ann Vanstone are responsible for overseeing that the reduction of school boards does occur if this bill is passed. I didn't say I necessarily agreed with that extra layer of bureaucracy, but if they're going to do the job and follow through for the Tory government when Bill 104 is passed, I will support them, and I will support that commission.

Mr Grimmett: I noticed in your brief that you raise considerable concern about the mediocre test scores that Ontario students have. As a parent of two students in the public system myself, I'm concerned about this. Do you think Bill 104 is going to bring about some change in that regard?

Mrs Somers: Presently, Bill 104 unfortunately is distracting people's attention away from the curriculum issue, which I've been a part of for years, and also the testing issue. I feel if Bill 104 is passed and the school boards are reduced and are forced to be more accountable, the other things will fall into place. I hope curriculum will be taken much more seriously than it has been in the past by these new regional boards; they must take it seriously. Curriculum drives everything; if we don't bring our attention back to that, your government initiatives on all the other issues will not be effective.

The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Mrs Somers, for your presentation. We appreciate your comments and your advice.

Mr O'Toole: Mr Chair, I'd like to correct the record. It has been stated here in this small debate that the Ontario Parent Council is clearly on record as supporting Bill 104. I think it's important to have all those in attendance today recognize that the Ontario Parent Council -- which, by the way, was appointed by the NDP, David Cooke, when he was Minister of Education, for the right reasons. He is also clearly on record as being in support of Bill 104.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chair, also for the record, it must be acknowledged that the Ontario Parent Council is an appointed body, not a school parent council, and that its position has been disowned by every subsequent presenter, by parent councils that were aware of it.

BARRIE ACTION COMMITTEE FOR WOMEN

The Acting Chair: I'd like to call forward our next presentation, the Barrie Action Committee for Women, Ms Sherrie Tingley. Welcome and we look forward to your comments.

Ms Sherrie Tingley: Thank you for this chance to address the committee. I was at a meeting last night in Barrie where a lot of parents expressed concern that they hadn't realized the contents of Bill 104 and that they hadn't had a chance to address the committee. Apparently, they learned about it on February 28, and I think the next day was the last chance.

The Barrie Action Committee for Women was founded by a group of women in 1989. We are dedicated to social, political and economic equality for women, so I guess we're the whining hypocrites and a special interest. More than half our members are women living in poverty, so we often look at issues through the lens of poverty. I haven't heard that yet today. Over the years with our community in Barrie, we have worked to ensure that those most affected by issues and decisions being made have meaningful input into those decisions. We feel very strongly that Bill 104 is going to affect people and they haven't had meaningful input.

I am a founding member of the action committee for women. I have worked as a community volunteer for many years, sitting on such groups as the family violence committee of the Simcoe County Board of Education; Best Start Barrie, the maternal newborn committee of the Royal Victoria Hospital. I work as a coordinator of a very small non-profit in Barrie. I am the mother of a child in grade 8 in the public board here in Barrie. I spent two years working as a lunch-time supervisor and as a classroom volunteer, so I bring to my presentation an understanding of the daily life of the school community.

Bill 104 is not democratic. I think it's pretty simple. I'm sure you've heard it in every community. I don't know why we have to say it again and again: You're taking away the power of our elected officials and giving it to your own appointed body. What I have to ask is, why? I'm sure the government will tell me today that they are only trying to improve education. I wanted to take a look at the government's track record in terms of their concern about children and vulnerable people in this province.

In three court cases, lawyers for this government have argued that the government has no obligation to ensure that welfare is adequate, that children have food and shelter, so I'm finding it hard to believe that you're concerned about education or children. This government seems to feel that half a million children don't need food, so why would I believe you're concerned with education or their wellbeing?

When we learned that 10 families in Simcoe county had contacted the children's aid society asking to give up their children due to the cuts to welfare, the response of our MPP here, Joe Tascona -- and he can correct me if I have it wrong -- was something to the effect of, "One would only hope that people who have children would consider how they were going to support them before having them," this in light of the fact that 93% of these children were born well before their parents had to turn to welfare.

We also only have to look at the government allowing 7,000 families in the province to start school this year without the money that was theirs. I'm talking about the family support plan. Of course, this is another example of "improvement." I watch families in my community struggle to live on $150 a month for everything, with no end in sight -- and sort of denial from the government.

Why would I believe your concern is with education and our children, looking at your track record? You've already cut millions out of our school budget and we're seeing the affects on children. You've cut millions out of welfare; that effects our children. We're now seeing more women and children in this province homeless than single men.

All I have to say to the committee is, please withdraw the bill. Go back to the drawing board. Open it up. I don't know what your hurry is, unless it's the tax cut. Make it a democratic process. Bring in something that's a democratically elected body to govern education. We have that today.

I have a final comment about the volunteer aspect. It is an interesting question. I don't know if the people here today, sitting on the committee, are volunteering their time.

Mr Wildman: No, we're not volunteering our time. We are paid as MPPs and this is part of our job.

You said you attended a forum in Barrie and most people didn't know about the process or the impact of Bill 104. Who organized the forum and why do you think there wasn't more information available?

Ms Tingley: It was the local parent council at one of the schools that organized the forum. I'm having trouble recalling when Bill 104 came in. I don't know if it was part of mega-week.

Mr Wildman: Yes, it was.

Ms Tingley: I think people were overwhelmed with the question of downloading. Bills aren't necessarily a daily part of people's lives. I'm not quite sure where the bill came from. I hadn't heard any discussion that this was the direction we were going in. I think it's a very slow process, and added to that, parents do have demands on their time. They work. It's very difficult. It's a long process to be informed.

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Mr Wildman: You're right. The changes were announced on January 13 by the minister in Toronto as part of the beginning of the mega-week announcements. Initially, the government said they wanted to get this through and they didn't think it was necessary to hold hearings. Is there a benefit, do you think, from this process? Obviously, you think it's important or you wouldn't be here. Why did you choose to come and what do you hope will be achieved by us having these hearings here in Midhurst to allow you to have input and hear what you have to say?

Ms Tingley: I'm hoping I hear from the government after my presentation that they've chosen to withdraw Bill 104.

Mr Smith: Thank you very much. From a personal perspective, I don't think it should come as any surprise where this bill has come from. As a member who sat through the proceedings, during which time Mr Cooke was questioned very extensively and straightforwardly by Mr Silipo, the member for Dovercourt, concerning his viewpoint and the rationale for his accepting the position as a chair of the EIC, Mr Cooke made it very clear that he found comfort, some common direction between this government's intentions and the intentions of the previous government in terms of their aspirations to reform education in this province.

This is not a new issue in terms of who or how or when education finance, governance and curriculum were going to be addressed. Very clearly, given the concerns that other members from the different parties have expressed, there's some commonality on that point of view.

Given the extensive research, the royal commissions, the ongoing evaluations of education in this province, what would be your vision in terms of how you would go about reforming education in the province? What process would you use?

Ms Tingley: It's interesting that you talk about vision. I am concerned with the vision and I don't feel it's articulated very well in Bill 104. I don't see any guarantees for what we can expect in our school communities. I'm very concerned about the loss of the school family. I'm concerned about strangers being in our school every day. I don't feel you're articulating a vision.

In terms of equity of opportunity, I see that decreasing with this bill because I think parents will be expected to raise funds for things like libraries and what not. We will see within, say, the city of Barrie, vast differences, where one school has a library, or one school has clean floors --

Mr Smith: Excuse me for interrupting, but I'm most interested in the process you would use. If you were given the responsibility of reforming education, what process would you use to take on that task? As a government member, I have a responsibility to communicate observations back to the minister and I fully intend to do that, but I would like to hear what approach you would take in terms of addressing education reform in general.

Ms Tingley: I would involve diverse stakeholders and I would start with principles, in terms of starting from a principled point of view, and then have the legislation or whatever articulate that. I'm quite happy with the education my child is receiving today; maybe there are things I would like to build on. But all the stakeholders have to be sitting at the table if we need to redesign and throw out 100 years of a system, a very diverse group of stakeholders, and there has to be a process of people getting there.

Mrs McLeod: I can't resist wanting to help answer that question. If I were given the opportunity to start to reform the education system, I would say to Mr Smith that I would start by an identification of real needs. I wouldn't start by trying to describe the system as being broken and then describing the system as being overfunded and therefore targeting the system as a place where you can get $1 billion to pay for a tax cut. That's how this began.

Mr Smith: Mrs McLeod, everybody was very clear about your approach in the red book.

The Vice-Chair: Order, Mr Smith. Mrs McLeod has the floor.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Smith, I would love to debate this with you, because at no point has anybody else, other than the Premier and the Minister of Education, said they want $1 billion out of education. That was the prelude to everything we see in front of us today and everything we are likely to see in front of us for the next six to eight months.

Based on your presentation, one of your very real concerns is that there don't appear to be any dollars freed up for the classroom as a result of this. The ministry has not been able to find dollars to free up and they have not guaranteed that any dollars they might find are going back to the classroom; in fact, this could be the prelude to significant further cuts.

The question I'd like to ask you comes back to something that Gerald Caplan, who was one of the co-chairs of the Royal Commission on Learning, said to us when he presented to the committee. He reminded the committee members that in their study of educational reform they came to the conclusion that the amalgamation of boards was not something that should be undertaken because there was no indication it would make schools more effective for kids, no indication it would free dollars for classrooms, but it would certainly divert energies, as well as resources, to something that didn't really matter to kids in the end. He said the focus should be on early childhood and that's where we should put our resources. What would that mean to the families you work with, if that indeed was the first focus of reform?

Ms Tingley: I'm not paid to work with families; it's a volunteer organization. But one of our concerns is early childhood education, especially in light of workfare. People are very concerned about who's going to be looking after their children with workfare. In addition, to see JK gone when it was just in our grasp, that investment in children -- we're seeing a reduction. There's an increased demand on families. People have to choose now between food and school activities. It's just incredible, and of course that's going to increase. There's going to be the have schools and the have-not schools.

This is very Orwellian, "the educational improvement." It's educational destruction. Ignorance is strength, I guess. That's what we're hearing from this group. I mean, that's the way I take it. I don't believe it. Looking at Toronto, 79% voted for something else, I guess.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We appreciate your time today.

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JANE CAWTHORNE

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Jane Cawthorne. Welcome, Ms Cawthorne. You have 10 minutes.

Mrs Jane Cawthorne: My name is Jane Cawthorne. I am a proud member of a special interest group. I am especially interested in children, and I hope you are too.

I am a parent. My daughter is four and because there's no junior kindergarten in my area, she's currently enrolled in a Montessori school. I was also a teacher before she was born and I am very aware of the inestimable value of early childhood education. I am lucky that my family can afford to give my daughter this opportunity, can fill in the gaps in education left by the government. Many other people cannot. They depend solely on the government, on you in fact, to provide an excellent education for their children, one that utilizes everything we know about how best to educate children.

The minister has made it clear that he believes our schools are broken, that education costs too much. He says a staggering percentage of money spent on education is spent outside the classroom. But what exactly does he consider to be outside the classroom? Electricity, heat, custodial support, books, libraries, teacher-librarians, guidance counsellors, chalk? I submit that all these aspects of schooling and many more are a classroom expense. All of them have a direct bearing on the development and learning of our children. I know that government cuts affect the classroom and the government's attempt to hide the effect of the cuts by redefining what qualifies as a classroom expense will not fool me.

However, I am here today to talk about Bill 104, a bill that does not use everything we know about how best to educate children, a bill that does not have the best interests of our children in mind, a bill that does not even mention children. It is as though this government thinks it can recreate the conditions within which our children are publicly schooled without ever actually thinking about the children. You can, but at their peril.

Whether or not you believe that public education is broken, whether or not you buy into the idea that it's the cause of the deficit is, to a large extent, beside the point. This is not about ideology. The point is, we must serve the children and their best interests, not because they are customers or clients and we're some kind of service providers. That's too simplistic. We do it because it's our moral obligation.

The only rights and protections that children have in our society are the ones that the community of adults grants and preserves for them. These come at a price, the price is high, and the children are worth it. When you look at Bill 104, ask yourselves, does it serve the children?

First, the bill proposes reducing the number of school boards. Do this with caution, because this will affect the quality of local education, especially when you are considering reducing the number of boards in the province by half, from 129 to 66. Why so many? One of the factors that separates successful schooling from unsuccessful schooling is our ability to individualize curricula. Local boards design and implement locally relevant curricula, and as we reduce the number of boards we reduce our opportunity to make learning more relevant to our students, to represent diverse interests.

Seen within the context of a concomitant pledge to undertake standardized testing, I am questioning whether producing curriculum relevant to individual learners is still a priority in this system.

Our children will suffer further because of the huge number of students there will be in each new board. In Toronto, there will be over 300,000 students served by a maximum of 22 trustees, paid $5,000 apiece for the task. They'll have to maintain full-time jobs. No one can live on $5,000. How much will these trustees be able to do? How well can one trustee, who only has the hours outside of regular employment at his or her disposal, represent over 13,600 students in an area with the most diverse needs of any population in Ontario? How does this change serve our children?

Of course the role of the trustee is going to be pretty much academic anyway, with the creation of the Education Improvement Commission. This bill is clearly not just about amalgamating school boards. There is another agenda. In a nutshell, the EIC is appointed, not elected. They assume all decision-making powers, everything trustees used to do, including control of budgets and board assets. But the big difference is, they're completely unaccountable. They're not accountable to me, the voter, the taxpayer, to teachers, principals, parents, students -- no one but the minister. In fact, if parents like me have the audacity to interfere with the all-powerful EIC, we will be charged with obstruction and fined.

Worse yet, the EIC's decisions will have the force of law. The Education Improvement Commission can spend lots of money, it will cost lots of money, and it's a new level of bureaucracy, but it is unelected, unaccountable, unstoppable and fully protected from liability, and is already paralyzing school boards, since its tenure extends back into January.

We will lose a local level of democracy, we will lose local control of education funds that are crucial to meeting the special needs of each student, and what we lose will go directly under the control of the province, including board assets. Well, how convenient for a provincial government trying to fund a tax cut. I am astonished that you've attempted to overrule the democratic process here.

Who is this supposed to serve? The children? I can't see how. The bill suggests the EIC will find a way to contract out support staff. You're union-busting at the expense of the children. The support staff in school are part of a community of adults who ensure our children's safety. A custodian at school doesn't just push a broom. A custodian knows the names of many of the children as part of the group of adults who make a child feel welcome, known and safe at school. They can recognize unfamiliar faces and protect the children from potential harm.

The secretary is someone every child in the school knows, the person who does everything from dispensing Band-Aids to keeping confidential records using complicated technology. These support staff are the glue that hold this community together and you want to contract them out to the lowest bidder. You will teach the children that loyalty, dedication and quality of work are meaningless, but more important, you will be jeopardizing their safety by introducing a continually changing staff who will not be strongly committed to our children.

Bill 104 suggests that parents will continue to have an influence through the extension of their roles in school councils. Frankly, you're living in a dream world. You're living in a world where June and Ward Cleaver live. You think parents have the time and financial freedom to dedicate themselves to their children's schools, raising funds, funds that may not even be under the school's control any more, and otherwise picking up the slack left by the failure of government to adequately school our children. In an ideal world they would, but in our real world this is not the case.

Parents, myself included, do not wish to work as unpaid school trustees, and what if no one volunteers? In homes where both parents work, in single-parent families, in homes that are struggling with poverty, this is one role there will simply be no time or energy left to fulfil. You can't legislate people to volunteer.

The truth is, any public school system that depends on the generosity and volunteer spirit of community parents to function is doomed to provide unequal opportunities to its students across the province. This is the first step towards charter schools, not a way to improve public education.

The issue being addressed in Bill 104 is, how can we best deliver schooling to the children? This is something we know a lot about. It's called pedagogy. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. The question I'll leave you to answer then is, when we have all this vast knowledge, insight and expertise about how best to educate our children, will we ignore it? Will we sacrifice pedagogy to serve an ideology that is concerned not about children but about the financial bottom line? How is this bill going to serve my child?

In conclusion, I would like you to note that my request to speak at the hearings in Toronto was denied, along with so many other parents, because these hearings are ridiculously short. Parents are concerned about the direction of this government. I'm lucky that I was invited to come to Barrie, that I'm able to come here, so I'm one of the fortunate few who will be heard by this government, a government that has demonstrated time and time again its unwillingness to listen to opposition, to respond to its constituents. I really hope you're hearing me now, because the future of our children is at stake. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mrs Cawthorne. There is no time left for questions.

JANE BRANCHFLOWER

The Vice-Chair: The next presenter is Jane Branchflower. Mrs Branchflower, you have 10 minutes.

Mrs Jane Branchflower: Thank you for this opportunity to address the government on its proposed reform of our school system. Until now, I thought Ontario's school system was like the weather: Everybody complains about it but nobody does anything.

I am an Ontario parent and taxpayer. I am also a former teacher. I have taught in four provinces of Canada. My husband and I spent much of our adult lives living in other parts of Canada. We returned to Ontario eight and a half years ago with our three bilingual children. We expected that they would lose fluency in French but we did not expect that they would become less articulate in English. They came here from a structured system in which they were taught work habits and study skills to one which encouraged them to make lots of noise and have fun.

We are not surprised that Quebec French schools consistently outscore Ontario schools in the international science and math tests, nor were we surprised that our second daughter, having done Ontario's OAC courses, must take first-year engineering at McGill University while her Quebec contemporaries go directly into second-year engineering courses, even though in both provinces students spend the same number of years in school before entering university. Ontario children are not less intelligent or less capable than their Quebec counterparts. Rather, they are victims of a system that encourages sloth and mediocrity.

I think the elimination of the residential education property tax is good. The school tax portion of our property tax bill has climbed annually and now exceeds our total property tax bill of eight and a half years ago by a significant amount. The cost of education must be removed from property taxes. The province must finance education in a rational way. I am tired of paying Harrod's prices for a Wal-Mart education.

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In reducing the number of school boards the proposed legislation does not go far enough. I wish you had eliminated school boards completely as New Zealand has done. I did not see in the Fewer School Boards Act any reference to the function of the huge boards, so I do not know how they will be different from the boards we have now.

The education bureaucracy has become a black hole for tax dollars. One clear example of this is the $15 million spent to create the province-wide grade 3 test when a very good test already exists: the Canadian Test of Basic Skills. That test would objectively test basic curriculum rather than what has been intensively taught in the preceding two weeks. As well, since the boards still can levy business tax in their regions and future governments will be able to increase provincial funding, bureaucracies will flourish as they have in the past. Abolishing boards completely would inhibit such growth.

Some trustees have awarded themselves enormous salaries for what is usually considered community service. Nevertheless, I am not convinced that they, of and by themselves, represent a very big part of the humongous cost of education in Ontario. I was unable to find in the Fewer School Boards Act a description of their duties, nor is there any such description in the existing legislation. This vacuum has allowed school board administrators to develop trustees' job descriptions which tend to benefit the administrators rather than the public. If we must have boards, the act must direct the trustees to perform specified functions so that we all know exactly what their duties are.

Reducing the amount of money spent on education will not negatively affect its quality. A British Columbia study released approximately three years ago by Peter Coleman showed a negative correlation between the amount of money spent on education and student achievement; that is, as dollars increase, achievement decreases.

An article in the February 15, 1997, issue of the Economist discussed spending per student and student-teacher ratios. It stated that a survey of research studies did not support higher spending and lower pupil-teacher ratios. It is obvious that enough money is needed to fund schools. However, Ontario taxpayers pay billions of dollars each year for education. That is more than enough. We must spend our education dollars judiciously. Curtailing education spending is a good move, one that is long overdue.

Accountability must extend to everyone in the education hierarchy, especially the Ministry of Education and Training officials. Teachers have little control over the programs they must use in their classrooms. Unless they are given a detailed curriculum without the limitations currently imposed by circular 14, it is grossly unfair to demand accountability from them.

Too many unsubstantiated methodologies have been inflicted on our children and their teachers with disastrous results. Perhaps if those who control curriculum and programs had their continuing presence at the ministry linked to student performance they would be less eager to embrace the pedagogical flavour of the month. The education of our children is not a game. Those who would meddle in it must stake their jobs on the outcome: better student achievement. If there's no improvement, there should be no job.

We need a province-wide curriculum that states specifically the skills and content required in each subject at each grade level. There must be no room for misinterpretation or misunderstanding. Universities have had to set up remedial English classes to teach students skills that ought to have been well established in elementary school. Math classes will very probably be next. This is costing the taxpayers too much money. Teachers must understand that their role is to instruct and teach, not facilitate, and that the child's role is to learn.

The composition, election, role and powers of the parent councils must be clearly and precisely defined in the act using language that is directive, that is, "The parent council shall...." The councils must be able to hire and fire the principal, review the school's financial books, approve or reject the annual budget, approve or reject programs and school activities, and assist in developing the discipline policy for the school. Because parents use the school system to educate their children, schools must respond to and reflect the wishes of the parents.

Schools and parental expectations vary. Eliminating school boundaries would enable parents to select a school that is appropriate for their child or children. I encourage the government to enact strong charter school legislation and also devise a voucher system that allows parents to use private schools to educate their children.

Each elementary and secondary school should know what percentage of its students go on to university, college or other post-secondary education as well as what percentage of its students do obtain a secondary school graduation diploma, broken into advanced, general and basic categories by gender.

You have offered ordinary parents like me a welcome chance to help you redesign Ontario's schools. I take heart from the howls of protest emanating from the various factions of the educational establishment. It has been my experience that the more tenuous their claims are, the more vehemently they defend them. Keep up the good work. It will benefit our children. Thank you for this opportunity.

The Vice-Chair: We have less than 30 seconds per caucus for questions. We thank you for your presentation and it will be duly noted.

Mrs Branchflower: I attached some extra documentation at the back.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. That will be part of the official record.

Mrs McLeod: You don't think we can ask a question in 30 seconds, Mr Chairman?

The Vice-Chair: No, I do not.

VICTORIA COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Victoria County Board of Education, Sharon Summers, chair. Welcome.

Mrs Sharon Summers: Good afternoon. My name is Sharon Summers and I am chairperson of the Victoria County Board of Education. Joining me today are Judy Saunders, vice-chairperson, and Bonnie Kennedy, past chairperson of the Victoria County Board of Education.

On behalf of the Victoria County Board of Education and the community we represent, I thank you for the opportunity to share with you our concerns and suggestions on Bill 104. I would like to repeat that the comments today reflect not only the thoughts of the Victoria County Board of Education, but more importantly those also of our community.

Let me state at the outset that we are not here to oppose change nor to speak against restructuring. As responsible elected officials we have already begun the work of meeting with our proposed new partners. We are here to state our case for modifications and revisions that must be made to Bill 104 to ensure that the democratic principles we value are upheld.

In Victoria County we value democracy. We need only watch the nightly news to see that democracy is a concept that must be valued, treasured and protected at all costs. Wars have been fought to protect our democratic rights. Bill 104 gives away the democratic right we have enjoyed in Ontario for well over 100 years: the right to locally elect public school trustees who have the ability to raise revenues through the collection of property taxes.

As I said, that system has served Ontario well for over 100 years. It has adapted to changing times and there is every indication that today's trustees wanted to implement change. In fact, trustees have been finding new ways to do business within the confines of the current Education Act. Individual school boards, including Victoria county's, and the Ontario Public School Boards' Association have made many recommendations and presentations to the provincial government over the past few years requesting changes to the Education Act and to regulations affecting education. Boards expected to receive help from the province in the form of the so-called toolbox. The box wasn't just empty; it didn't arrive.

It is incredibly frustrating to hear the government continually blame school boards for failing to change with the times when it is the province that failed to provide the necessary changes to rules and regulations. While the rest of the world views our education with respect, this government chooses only to find fault. Rather than working with boards, this government chooses to trample on the rights of duly elected officials and is prepared to turn the education system inside out and upside down without any supporting data to suggest this is a logical step to take.

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Bill 104 must be based on democratic principles such as the following: the right of appeal; real consultation with all the parties affected; full access by all to the information on which the decisions are based; opportunity for local input; recognition that one size does not fit all -- Ontario is a large and diverse province.

Bill 104 gives sweeping powers to a new bureaucracy: the Education Improvement Commission. This commission is accountable only to the provincial cabinet. The Regulations Act and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act do not apply to the EIC and no decisions made by the commission shall be reviewed or questioned by a court. This is an unprecedented abuse of democratic principles. These powers of the EIC must be changed. There must be an opportunity to appeal decisions of the EIC.

We recommend, therefore:

That an appeal procedure be implemented through which new information and/or unusual circumstances can be presented.

That all data and records upon which decisions are made be available to the public.

That opportunities be provided for public consultation as the work of the EIC proceeds.

That the local education improvement committees include trustees and staff.

That the Education Improvement Commission be required to provide an annual report to each community showing the projected and actual savings from restructuring, the impact on student achievement and an analysis of the overall impact of restructuring on the economy of the communities affected by such factors as the relocation of board offices and the creation of surplus or redundant staff.

Bill 104 must have accountability built in.

Bill 104 supersedes the rights of current boards to manage their 1997 affairs. While the government has assured us its intent is to facilitate business as usual, we need only to look at the issue of capital projects to see how the proposed new bill inhibits practice as usual, since it states that boards cannot enter into contractual arrangements beyond December 31, 1997, without the commission's approval. Boards do not know how they can proceed with building projects. In Victoria's case, we will need to debenture to fund a much-needed addition to a school. We are in limbo as to our ability to do so.

It is also particularly alarming that the EIC will have the ability to change the board's 1997 budget after it has been democratically approved by the locally elected school board. Victoria county has a history of consulting with its community during the budget process and we question the right of the commission to change our decisions. Trustees are elected and, as such, are accountable to their constituents. When you depower elected officials, you depower the community and therefore you devalue the democratic process. Bill 104 strips the powers of trustees and therefore strips the rights of the community.

Any change, but especially major change, requires careful planning, study and consultation, and such a process requires considerable time. Time appears to be a commodity that is in short supply.

The government plans to eliminate all current school boards and set up new district boards effective January 1, 1998. How can proper planning and consultation take place in such a short time? Will the information being presented today have any impact on the legislation when the legislation is expected to be passed in one week's time? Victoria county is unaware of any impact analysis to study the effects on our community, staff or students by the changes imposed by Bill 104.

Victoria County Board of Education, according to the bill, will join with the Muskoka and Haliburton boards of education to become one very large district board. The government has yet to demonstrate that this change will or will not actually save money or improve the quality of education. The trustees on my board are concerned about the needs of the children of Victoria county. We want to see the facts, not hear the rhetoric.

During the last couple of years, trustees and staff at the Victoria County Board of Education have worked diligently to keep parents and community members aware of the potential changes to education in an effort to inform and to receive feedback. We have heard very clearly from our communities the following messages:

They value local representation and see the reduction of trustees from Victoria as an erosion of their current level of access to the board's decision-making process. In short, they will lose their voice.

They want to see a reduction in the cost of education, particularly as it relates to their local taxation, but they also want to see evidence that the proposed changes will not cause an actual increase in property tax and, equally important, that the quality of education for students in Victoria county will not be in jeopardy.

They do not see school councils filling the void created by less local representation. Representatives of our parent community support parental involvement in schools, but have indicated that they do not want to assume a governing role. As well, the majority of our community who are non-parent ratepayers feel that giving more sweeping powers to parents will prohibit them from being represented in a democratic fashion.

They want to see the financial data to support restructuring.

They do not view local trustee honoraria and travel costs as excessive and frequently commented that this was a Metro issue. They are concerned that the recommendation of a $5,000 ceiling on trustee honoraria will disqualify many capable and interested individuals from seeking election, and that it indicates the disdain the province has for the role of the trustee.

Many suggested the need to look at only one publicly funded school board.

Victoria county is concerned that completely removing education from the residential tax base will render our community helpless in addressing local needs and protecting students from future funding cuts. Our community members have stated a concern that they will no longer have local control over inadequacies among communities. The education portion of the property tax is a guaranteed fund for education. If this guaranteed funding is lost, Victoria county states that it must be replaced by another guaranteed fund that cannot be removed at the whim of any government.

Victoria county has three student trustees, one from each of our three secondary schools. We have a group of secondary school students who meet with the director on a monthly basis. The students wish to retain this representation. The board finds their input valuable. It will be difficult to retain student input to this degree in an expanded board.

Section 335(3)(f) in the proposed Bill 104 gives the Education Improvement Commission the power to "make recommendations to the minister on how to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services by district school boards."

Over the past few years the Victoria County Board of Education has taken specific steps to streamline its operations and to recognize efficiencies that can be gained through a balance of non-professional staff and professional staff, and a balance of outsourcing and in-house trained staff. We can demonstrate how we have been able to make substantive savings.

We urge the government not to apply a one-size-fits-all solution by mandating the outsourcing of non-instructional services. We recommend that the government permit boards to demonstrate where alternatives to outsourcing can generate savings and increase efficiencies, as well as improve the quality of instructional program.

Where restructuring has taken place, the result has always been that there are surplus and/or redundant staff. The bill contains no recommendations or guidelines for managing this issue. We recommend that guidelines for managing surplus staff be developed.

Given that municipalities will be asked to take on increased responsibilities and will therefore need to acquire trained staff to assist with its new functions, we recommend that municipalities be required to give first right of refusal to surplus and/or redundant qualified staff displaced through restructuring of boards and that incentives be offered to municipalities to do so.

As well, the Victoria County Board of Education has a concern for the surplus professional staff at both management and teaching levels. Currently, separate school boards have the right through legislation to place certain conditions on individuals who can apply for positions within their systems. Public boards do not have such rights. We recommend therefore that throughout the restructuring period surplus professional staff be granted equal access to positions. This must be done to ensure fair practice and equity as we move through this restructuring period.

Bill 104 puts in place four types of boards -- English public, English separate, French public and French separate -- with an equal number of separate and public boards, even though public boards have 75% of the students and separate boards have only 25%. Currently, public and separate boards do not work under the same set of rules. That must change.

Let me conclude with a statement made at a recent educational conference by an educator from British Columbia who has just come through a massive restructuring of the system:

"In democratic societies, education is the means by which we protect the public good and ensure the quality of future societies. We are at great risk through the restructuring process of having it become nothing more than a public service."

Don't allow this happen in Ontario.

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The Vice-Chair: We have approximately three quarters of a minute left to each caucus. We are now running about a half an hour behind, so I will ask if you'd just like to make a very brief statement or ask a very brief question.

Mr O'Toole: I'm pleased to represent part of the area of Victoria county and I know just how hard the board does work with limited resources. I've listened very carefully to many of the points you've made. I recognize also the contributions you've made to the Ontario public school association in the past with reference to the tool kit. Many of the things that you said -- I don't think one size fits all and I certainly have heard that not only here today but in northern Ontario. I think the government is listening. Thank you for your input.

Mrs McLeod: I wish the government also had the cost impact studies that you've questioned here. You've asked for annual reports. On the savings projected, I'm wondering whether you believe there will be any savings achieved through the amalgamation.

Mrs Summers: We have no indication of any savings.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. You've indicated that there are problems that your board faces as a result of Bill 104 and the Education Improvement Commission with regard to the capital construction and your building projects, yet the minister has said boards shouldn't feel this way; they should just go ahead and debenture. Why the difference?

Mrs Summers: I don't believe we have the right to do that. He may say that, but as we read the legislation, we do not interpret it that way.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I'm afraid we've run out of time. That concludes this presentation.

JUDY WATSON

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Judy Watson. To the members of the committee, we found out just a little while ago that Ms Watson will not be here, that her presentation will be read by Mr Walter Connell.

Mrs McLeod: I have a question of information for the committee. Recognizing that neither the parliamentary assistant nor the research officer is here, so if it could just be noted, I would like to have any and all individual cost analysis impact studies for the individual amalgamations proposed tabled for the committee.

The Vice-Chair: Duly noted.

Mr Walter Connell: Good afternoon. This rendition has been beautifully crafted by Judy Watson, as you outlined, and I'll do my very best to read it as it's intended, unabridged and so on. It's entitled Ready Fire Aim.

Corporations are admitting today that some of them, instead of downsizing and rightsizing effectively, found themselves capsizing. As so often happens in government, just as the private sector is acknowledging that they were wrong to throw away their corporate history and culture, the government decides to copy them. Why is your timing always so wrong? Why can't you learn from the mistakes of others? Odd asking a group of successful politicians those questions. So often it's the kind of thing parents yell at their teenagers.

Which brings me to the whole point of this presentation. As a parent who has two children who successfully graduated from Ontario's public school system and who are now working in professional jobs in Hong Kong, along with thousands of other young Canadians from Ontario and other provinces who work throughout Asia where they are highly respected and highly paid, I am furious every time our current minister uses some mediocre test results to market his simple-minded notion that our students in Ontario are somehow less well educated than others who scored well on some test that may or may not have been well designed.

The real indicator of how well we educate our children is how well they are doing at about age 25. I can tell you, that generation of our children that age are doing very well indeed, no thanks to either the provincial or federal governments currently in power.

How dare this government decide that everything about our current governance of local school boards is wrong? How dare one politician decide that his fellow politicians are infallible and yet another level of elected officials, namely trustees, are to be distrusted and disempowered because he thinks he knows best. Remember that this is the minister who was caught saying that to speed up change you create a crisis. Remember that this is the minister who killed the funding for JK and adult education. Remember that this is the minister who said that secondary reform was to be in place by September 1997. Remember that this is the minister who thinks we are all so stupid we won't remember any of this, and because of this government's cynical marketing plan he may be right. But O.J. Simpson has taught us that just because you get away with something, it doesn't make it right.

Yes, if everything this minister had said and done up till now had filled us with respect and confidence, then we might well have been convinced that he and his ministry should be trusted with our education dollars and we might even be willing to trust them with effectively merging our school boards. But this minister has never given any of us the evidence that he has any clue about how county and district boards operate. He didn't even seem to know that school boards get elected in November and inaugurated December 1 of that same year. Under this proposed Bill 104, we'll have no one in charge for a month -- just one of thousands of details this bill doesn't address.

But we are not to worry, because this minister has all the answers. Just watch him in the House. He has no respect for debate, no respect for members opposite, just smug, smart-aleck quips. He doesn't have to listen to anybody, especially anyone with an education or anyone in education, because he has all the answers. He doesn't have any real respect for education because he didn't need one, and besides, his government is in power and they don't have to listen to anyone. Of course, he does get a little paranoid every once in a while, and then his defence is to yell at the members opposite and tell them they did a worse job than he's doing. I'm sure that's not much comfort for the children who are in our schools today while all this chaos is going on.

Fortunately, trustees and teachers and other workers in our schools carry valiantly on and just hope that this nightmare will soon be over and their dreams of a helpful, caring education system in Ontario will not be lost forever.

Ontario has had a reputation throughout Canada and the world for its education system, thanks to the leadership of its many brilliant education ministers. It seems almost criminal that one minister and one revolting government have the power to put all that history and reputation at risk, and we all know from corporate example that once a reputation is lost, it's almost impossible to regain.

As one who saw township school trustees amalgamated, when the government of the day took years to consult and organize the local boards effectively, I'm frightened as I watch this bill bulldoze a system that took years to build. Please stop it before it harms all those children in front of it.

Please do not dismiss this request as one that comes from some caveperson averse to change. Positive change is always needed for continuous improvement. But the fundamentals of positive change involve building on the strengths of a system, involving the people affected by the change in the planning and the process, and buy-in of the stakeholders. This minister and this bill start out by offending everyone involved, showing no signs of carefully thought-out plans and demoralizing all those who need to be on board for effective implementation. How can any thinking human being be optimistic in a situation like this?

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and here's hoping you can stop Bill 104. It is hard to unring the bell.

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Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the brief and I appreciate your being here to present it. I am not sure if you feel comfortable answering questions on it on either your own behalf or Ms Watson's behalf, but I'm sensitive to the frustration that's in the brief and sensitive to the concern about how difficult it will be to undo what is being done if it proves to be devastating for kids.

I guess I'm most concerned with the statement at the top of the second page where she says she hopes the "nightmare will soon be over and their dreams of a helpful, caring education system in Ontario will not be lost forever." I'm truly afraid about what this is going to bring at the end of the day, but in the short term the sheer chaos that it's going to bring to our children, and I just wonder if you or Ms Watson see any potential benefits that can be derived from this to make up for what will be absolute chaos in the next few years.

Mr Connell: I can see that we can learn to gird our loins as we've never had to gird our loins before. When this is over, we'll be better equipped to deal with a crisis such as we haven't seen yet. I thank you for the compliment too, because if I brought the sensitivity that Judy has written into this to you, I would consider that a compliment that I presented it in the way she meant it.

Ms Lankin: It's a fantastic brief, it's a fantastic capturing of sentiment, and it's one that I hope to be able to use in the Legislature so that other people in the province can hear it.

Do you have any thoughts of your own that you want to add to this process? I'll just give you the time.

Mr Connell: Thank you very much, Frances. I have a concern for this one. It seems to trample on the rights of the public boards. I mentioned this to the minister at an OPSBA conference not too long ago, this business of confederation. We can go one way on this street and we can't do anything to the separate board, we can't take anything away from them, but it doesn't matter if the rights of the public board are trampled upon. We're in that dilemma. We're wondering where the equality or the equity in this business is.

Mr Allan K. McLean (Simcoe East): Mr Connell used to write some of my speeches in the Legislature, but they weren't quite as forceful as this one.

Mr Connell: Sure they were, Al.

The Vice-Chair: That uses up our time. Thank you very much, sir, for your presentation.

Ms Lankin: Just in response to Mr McLean's interjection, I would like to offer to him that if he would like to read this into the record of the Legislature I'll forgo the opportunity and I'll give it to him.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Ms Lankin. We're already half an hour behind.

You've just had distributed a document that's been done by research with respect to the background on the Hornepayne Board of Education and the Hornepayne Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Did you want to address that?

Mr Ted Glenn: Yes, please. If you have any additional questions about the Hornepayne board, I have a 20-page backgrounder on much more specific things. If you'd like to come and have a look at that, you're welcome.

The Vice-Chair: We'll address the Hornepayne resolution later in the day.

ROY PALUOJA

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Roy Paluoja. You have 10 minutes.

Mr Roy Paluoja: I would like to begin by giving you a little bit about my background. English is my third language. I attended all my high school in the city of North York, both my children were born in North York and I have been a resident of Scarborough for 20 years. Currently I am teaching at a community college in North York, and I have been for 17 years. In addition to that, I have been president of Human Services of Scarborough, which is a volunteer position. My wife and I have two daughters; one is currently in grade 9; the other is in grade 12 and has completed two OACs. For the last six years I have been involved with the parent councils at my daughters' schools, being the senior public school and the high school.

Up until last year, my wife's family owned a cottage in Simcoe county and had been taxpayers in respect to Simcoe county. The reason I'm here today is because I was concerned about the rhetoric that is going on right now and a lot of the misinformation that is being disseminated by the various teachers' unions, by the various groups saying they represent parents. The information, if you are to believe it, at the last meeting that I attended in Scarborough -- which was brought together by the head of the music department at the Scarborough Board of Education for parents that were concerned about losing their music program -- if you were to believe what was stated that day, today is the day that the bill was going to pass through the Legislature. Of course, this was another tactic that was being used to stifle public input. Well, here I am at this meeting. When I pointed this particular item out, I asked him specifically, "Where did you hear this?" "Oh, I've been told this."

If you are to believe everything that is being stated right now, everything is going to disappear off the table. We're going to lose French immersion. My daughter just completed OAC credit in French immersion. We are going to lose all our swimming pools. We are going to lose all ESL. I don't buy into any of that rhetoric that is going on right now. It has infuriated me that this position is being brought forward as being a position of the parents of Ontario.

I attended a meeting that was put on by the ministry on secondary school reform, and I was lucky enough at my table to actually go to the microphone and bring forward the position that had been discussed at the table. I asked a very simple question: How many people in the audience are teachers? You should have seen the reaction. People got really angry at me because I was suggesting that somehow or other they did not have a right to speak. I'm a teacher. I felt really disgusted by the actual reaction that occurred there. This is not a discussion to be held by teachers and only teachers. It is not to be a discussion held only by parents who happen to have access to various trustees. This is a discussion that needs to be made and done between the stakeholders.

I firmly believe that Bill 104 is the beginning of a needed reform in the education system. I have felt for quite some time that the trustees do not listen to what you are saying. The outs want to be in, and they campaign on that basis. Once they get in they, all of a sudden, revert back to exactly the same way as the previous trustees were.

I firmly believe we need to have this reform take place. This is a start. We need to reduce the number of school boards. It seems to me that we need to do this to get the dollars back into the classroom. I commend the government for introducing this bill. I believe it is needed, it is a first step and I wish them success.

Ms Lankin: Thank you for coming and for your presentation today. I understand from what you've put forward that there are certain groups that you think have painted themselves as representing parents that perhaps may not be a legitimate voice of all parents. But over the course of these hearings we have had representatives from parent school councils come forward. This is the body in place now that this bill purports to push certain decision-making down to. What I've taken from what they've said is that whether or not they believe in fewer school boards -- that's almost a separate issue -- they believe that stripping elected trustees of decision-making power with respect to the education system, burying it in the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Education and pushing some tough decisions down to the parent level, where they think they're not ready to take them on, actually isn't going to improve the way in which decisions are made around the education system.

You talked about getting that money out of bureaucracy and putting it back into the classroom. They fear that the minister has said there's going to be another $1 billion in cuts and that nothing's coming back to the classroom. Do you think those voices are legitimate representations of parents' concerns?

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Mr Paluoja: You've raised a number of issues there. First, I firmly believe that as parent councils evolve, the role will change. I think there is a legitimacy with respect to them wanting to have a role, and a real role, on parent councils.

The Acting Chair (Mr Bill Grimmett): I'm sorry, we'll have to move on to the next question.

Mr Tom Froese (St Catharines-Brock): I'd like to continue on the line of the parent councils. Bill 104 asks the Education Improvement Commission to look at strengthening the role of the parents in parent councils. Could you give us any suggestions how parent councils could be involved, what they should be involved in? Could you give us your thoughts on that?

Mr Paluoja: I think they should be undertaking their mandate of being in a capacity where they will act as a board in the sense that a board of directors acts. When I was on Human Services of Scarborough, we didn't run Human Services of Scarborough; we acted as a board. The day-to-day operation of the school should be the legitimate purview of the principal, but I think there is a need for input there.

Mrs McLeod: This is the eighth day on which I've been present at the hearings and we've heard from a great number of parents. I'm disturbed by your suggestion that the people who have come before the committee "say" they are representing parents. I would suggest to you that they don't just say they are representing parents; they are. The parent councils that have come to us have been represented by their chairs. They often represent groups of parent councils. They have often come to the committee with surveys of all their parent councils and in some cases they have even come before us with surveys of their entire school communities. In many cases, because the community was too distant from where we were holding our hearings for individuals to appear, they've made the effort to survey members of their community.

I would suggest it really does a disservice to these parents to suggest that they are only "saying" they represent parents. They are as independent as I believe you are in coming forward today, but they are most certainly representative. I just wonder on what basis you would dismiss the representative nature of their presentations.

Mr Paluoja: Because I think they've been captured by the bureaucracies within their particular schools with disinformation that has been a program and that has been undertaken by the unions and by the principals.

The Acting Chair: Mr Paluoja, thank you for coming forward today and representing your views.

ENDA MAGUIRE

The Acting Chair: The next delegation is Mr Enda Maguire. You have 10 minutes to make your presentation. If there's time at the end, we'll have questions.

Mr Enda Maguire: It's quite short. A careful reading of Bill 104 makes it clear that this bill is intended, first, to perform a massive tightening of the ministry's control over the power of school boards to spend taxpayers' money as they see fit; second, it encourages greater involvement by parents and eliminates the enormous conflict of interest that exists in the election and appointment of trustees; as well, by removing power from trustees and administrators, Bill 104 will make it easier to introduce further changes and reforms to this bloated system of education in Ontario.

Looking at the overall state of the semi-autonomous bodies in Ontario, bodies supported by taxpayers of the province, one cannot help wondering if the traditional notion of allowing these bodies to set their own budgets, including wage scales, will have to be changed.

For example, the Toronto Transit Commission -- I'm digressing slightly here -- built the first subway in Canada in the 1950s at a cost of $234 million. On completion, there was no increase in property taxes, no increase in fares, no deficit. Today the TTC can't buy five buses without asking the province for assistance. Ontario Hydro is $33 billion in debt, workers' compensation is $13 billion in debt and so on.

Public education in Ontario is by far the largest of the publicly supported bodies and it is and continues to be the most out of control in regard to costs and expenses. The cost of education in Ontario exceeds the cost of the armed services for all of Canada: $13 billion versus $10 billion. Every year since the mid-1960s, school board budgets have increased and the wages paid to teachers etc have increased steadily regardless of the cost-of-living index or the rate of inflation, this despite the fact that the larger boards have had increased assessment to draw upon. Where I live, education represents 70% of our property taxes.

Stories abound concerning the waste and extravagance in the operation of school boards. Bill 104 is a wonderful start to reforming the system of public education in Ontario. Once the financial side of things is brought under control, the minister and his staff can concentrate on the abysmal state of the quality of public education in Ontario.

Finally, I'm sure you will all feel better when you know that the director of education of the Peel Board of Education, in his 1995-96 budget, made the following allowances: For books and periodicals to help him understand the Education Act, he spent $4,780; microfiching $2,186; and the one I like best, for recognition dinners for community representatives, retirements, receptions for parent volunteers, student awards, directors' breakfasts and exchange student luncheons, he spent $60,000. He also spent $1,000 on consumables, whatever they are; he spent $201 on repairs, whatever that is; on board functions he spent $15,000; and on discretionary and special projects consisting of donations, memorials, planning sessions, special projects, videos, framing etc, business-related expenses, he spent $10,000. Finally, he spent $1,000 on two chairs for his office. I think that brief little bit out of the Peel Board of Education's budget document tells all we need to know about the waste in the system.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, sir. You've used up your time. We appreciate your coming forward today.

Mr Wildman: The Peel board isn't affected by this legislation.

The Vice-Chair: Mr Wildman, the time is up.

METRO TORONTO MOVEMENT FOR LITERACY

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy, Betty Butterworth, Lloyd Pike and Jane Larimer. Welcome. You have 15 minutes in total for your presentation.

Ms Betty Butterworth: Members of the committee, I'd like to introduce the three of us. Jane Larimer is the staff person in the movement who works with and liaises with government, among other things. Lloyd Pike and I are co-chairs of the Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy. I worked for many years in the provincial government in adult basic education and immigrant services, and when I retired two years ago was asked to run for the board of MTML. Lloyd has been involved for many years and is a student who has been through programs in a community literacy organization, a life skills course in George Brown College, and is currently taking courses from the Independent Learning Centre with support from the Metropolitan Separate School Board.

The Metro Toronto Movement for Literacy, known as MTML, is the largest of 19 literacy networks across Ontario. Our membership includes all the publicly funded organizations which deliver literacy and basic skills training to adults in the Metro Toronto and York regions. That includes colleges, school boards, community groups, libraries and others. We also provide many of our services to Peel region in collaboration with the Peel Adult Learning Network.

Our organization has existed for 20 years and over that time has evolved to provide a variety of services for our members and to coordinate provincial government initiatives which will improve programs for adult learners in the region. Most of our ongoing program funding comes from the Ministry of Education and Training, while the province negotiates with the National Literacy Secretariat to provide most of our funding for short-term initiatives and projects.

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MTML operates a hotline for potential learners or intermediaries to provide information about literacy; English as a second language, or ESL; upgrading; adult basic education; basic skills and basic employability skills programs in the region. We are the busiest such hotline in Canada.

Our preparatory training program, or PTP -- the Minister of Education attended an open house today and spoke with students and others; we're honouring students over the past four years who have gone through the program -- is an integrated basic skills and employment preparation program to help unemployed workers with gaps in basic skills get back into the workforce or into training which will lead to sustainable employment. MTML also houses the southern Ontario coordinator for the workplace employment and basic skills program. This service can assist employers to connect to local delivery agents in their area if they want to mount a workplace program. We're also involved in practitioner training for people working in adult literacy in all sectors.

Perhaps most important, MTML works through its five local literacy committees in Metro Toronto and York region to assess needs and coordinate training by all the delivery agencies in each area so that adult learners have access to the programs which will help them achieve their basic learning goals and then move smoothly to further training, education and employment. This initiative aims to make the most effective and efficient use of resources.

The target group we define for literacy is essentially the adults identified as being at levels 1 and 2 in the seven-country International Adult Literacy Survey, or IALS, conducted in 1994 and reported on in the 1995 StatsCan publication Reading the Future: A Portrait of Literacy in Canada. The study demonstrated a strong link between literacy and a country's economic potential.

Three literacy domains were defined and tested with a sample of adults. They were prose literacy, document literacy and quantitative literacy. There were five proficiency levels established, each covering a range of scores on a scale from zero to 500. Some 20% of Ontario adults between 16 and 69 fell into level 1 and 24% into level 2. This compared with the Canadian average for level 1 of 17% and level 2 of 26%. Just in contrast, the averages for Sweden were 7% for level 1 and 19% for level 2.

Literacy is closely associated with educational attainment. Fewer than 10% of secondary school graduates were at level 1. The largest number of those with secondary school education were at level 3, the next largest at level 2. The gains in literacy for people moving from secondary graduation to post-secondary graduation were not as large as those for people moving from less than secondary graduation to secondary graduation. This result implies that investments in training at the lower end of the literacy spectrum are very worthwhile.

Why do some aspects of Bill 104 and related financial proposals concern us? It is out of our work to increase the literacy skills of Ontario adults that we are presenting this brief on behalf of adult learners who participate in the programs currently available across Metro Toronto. We feel these programs are threatened by the proposed legislation's lack of attention to adults and by the lack of representation which people in our community will have with the new approach to school board governance.

In Metro Toronto, it was often the full-time trustees who took the time to meet with people evenings and weekends, often with interpreters, to become knowledgeable about their needs and concerns. Out of their leadership and direction to staff, the school boards in Metro Toronto have developed a truly broad and comprehensive range of services for adults. The province built on initiatives in the school boards when developing its own policies.

We understand that currently 88 trustees serve Metro Toronto. We do not believe that 22 part-time trustees paid $5,000 a year each to lead the largest school board in Canada will be able to provide the level of responsiveness needed. How will they ensure the successful integration of people from very different backgrounds into our community? We don't think, when hard choices about how trustees spend their limited time are made, that adult services will receive their attention.

The proposed parent councils may work to make schools accountable for the education of children and youth, but we do not believe they will contribute to the quality of adult education. A well-connected system of diverse program opportunities in multiple delivery systems is needed for adults.

Currently, the public school boards in Metro Toronto are by far the largest providers of adult literacy programming in the region, but unlike all the other programs, which are funded by the provincial government, Metro Toronto school boards provide all their literacy services from municipal tax dollars. Unlike adult high school credit courses and ESL, which are paid for through the municipality but which are at least recognized by the ministry under the general legislative grants, or GLGs, although at a lesser amount than is actually spent by the public boards in Metro, spending for adult basic literacy by these school boards does not show up in provincial records anywhere. The same applies to the Ottawa Board of Education.

This anomaly results from a decision of the previous government, as part of the expenditure control plan of 1993, to transfer literacy funding out of the GLGs to the then Ontario Training and Adjustment Board and at the same time reduce the funding by over 50%. To reduce the impact of this decision on programs and learners across the province, OTAB made the decision at that time not to begin funding the school boards, which would not have been eligible previously for direct funding from the province. It also spread the cuts across the whole system, that is, all deliverers, and initiated regional planning by all literacy programs, such as that done by MTML, to make better use of existing resources.

According to an article in the Toronto Star last year, public school boards were denying adult students access to courses they needed, and only a quarter of adults were finding these courses elsewhere. Only the Ottawa Board of Education and Metro Toronto school boards were an exception and continued to provide adult services at a level which came closer to meeting the need. If learning opportunities are lost through a shift in priorities by a new amalgamated school board or through the move to provincial funding, there is no possibility of the college or community sectors picking up those affected. Both have had waiting lists for years and serve different needs.

The total spent for literacy and basic skills programs by the province is approximately $59 million. The North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke and Toronto school boards spend $5.4 million on adult basic literacy, not including any overhead for schools. The $5.4 million includes the amount of $240,000 which the Toronto board transfers to its community partners. There is no possibility that the students from closures of these public school board programs could be accommodated by other deliverers in Metropolitan Toronto, including four colleges, the Metropolitan Separate School Board, Metro Labour Education Centre, 21 community groups and the PTP, which receive in total about $9.1 million from ministry.

If the $5.4 million in Metro plus the approximately $1 million spent by the Ottawa Board of Education were found within the existing provincial budget for literacy, it would take the equivalent of funding for 95 community groups across the province out of the system.

As Ontario Works allows basic education as an eligible program under the employment support component, and 40% of those currently enrolled in school board programs, 48% of those in colleges and 15% of those in community programs are on social assistance, it would be short-sighted to compromise these programs in any way.

Similarly, all levels of government are concerned about youth unemployment: 23% of those in college and community programs and 19% of those in school board literacy programs are under 25. In Ontario 30% of youth drop out of high school, but subsequently 50% of dropouts return to get their diplomas. A substantial number of these students gain the confidence to go on with credit courses, often in the adult system, by first attending a basic literacy program.

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There is no mention of adult programming in the current bill or in the description of the Education Improvement Commission. In fact, one restriction on school board powers for this year would make it especially difficult to operate school board adult programs: It is that the "board shall not...appoint a person to a position, hire an new employee, or promote an existing employee." If this applies to the hiring of continuing education staff, it would make it difficult to run an adult program in which staff are hired and placed to meet the needs of adult customers as those needs arise.

There is also a clause related to outsourcing of non-instructional services by district school boards, which may or may not affect adult education. Is adult basic education considered non-instructional as it lies outside the regular K-to-12 system? With the increasing complexity of teaching to meet the new economic realities, the possibility that school boards would have to contract out such services as adult basic education is a concern. There is a proven track record in this area by school boards and their ABE staff, many of whom are experienced teachers.

We know that children who do not have literacy in their homes are severely disadvantaged at school. To some extent junior kindergarten can make up for this disadvantage. Both adult literacy programs and JK can thus be seen as preventive measures.

We are concerned about the possible demise of publicly funded JK in Metro Toronto when the province controls the purse strings. We also fear its continuation may be at the expense of adult programs. We have to be concerned about any decisions which would increase the likelihood of adding to the number of people who leave school early because they can't cope, or end up without the required reading, writing and literacy skills. We believe that ending JK would have a negative effect on Ontario's education levels in the future.

MTML believes that provincial reform of education coupled with the devolution of adult training to the province provides unique opportunities for defining a coherent adult education and training policy in Ontario.

There is an opportunity for the Ontario Government to develop a comprehensive, accessible, articulated and integrated system of adult education and training as part of the reform of education. MTML would like to participate in a broad consultation, along with others, to provide input to an adult education policy. The current bill is titled An Act to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system.

At a minimum we trust that in your review of Bill 104 you will pay attention to the important role school boards play in adult education in Ontario; do nothing to jeopardize that role or the quality and effectiveness of the programs; and ensure that adult programming is explicitly recognized in any legislation, subsequent regulations and financial agreements or decisions.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you. We have six seconds left, so there will be no time for questions. Your presentation was very thoughtful. We're very grateful. I'll entertain a question for information.

Mrs McLeod: I was concerned to realize that the figures for the Ottawa and Metropolitan Toronto adult basic literacy programs do not appear in separate provincial records. I would ask whether or not the figures that are given to us by the ministry showing the annual operating costs of education in the province -- those are the total figures we've been using to get some understanding of what spending is now going on -- would include the full cost of adult basic literacy programs in both Metropolitan Toronto and Ottawa.

Mr Skarica: I imagine they would.

Mr Wildman: I have another question for the Ministry. I have a document here entitled Excellence in Education: Ontario's Plan for Reform, Better-Educated Students for a Brighter Future, printed by the Queen's Printer this year. It deals with the government's agenda on education. The last part of it deals with bill 104 and the government's interpretation of it. I would like to know how many of these were printed, how they were distributed, how many were distributed and at what cost to the Ministry of Education.

Interjection.

Mr Wildman: No, it talks about the plan for education.

The Vice-Chair: We'll have your question responded to.

COALITION FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Marilyn Dolmage, the Coalition for Inclusive Education.

Ms Marilyn Dolmage: First I'll introduce Matthew Strang, and he'll introduce the others.

Mr Matthew Strang: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I'm Matthew Strang. I attend Patrick Fogarty Secondary School, which is a Catholic school. We have inclusion there and we really enjoy it. Jennifer Strang is my sister and Marita Cowan is a fellow student at PF.

We're here representing all these groups. I'll just list them quickly: Down Syndrome Association of Ontario, Family Alliance Ontario, Integration Action Group, Ontario and Canadian Associations for Community Living, People First Ontario and Youth Involvement Ontario, otherwise known as YIO. I'm a mid-northern representative for YIO and I've been in the group for a whole year now. Marita's been in it for I think three years and Jennifer's been in it for two years.

I've talked about Bill 104 with all my students and our point is that inclusion's the best way to go. It's cheaper than segregation, and segregation is really expensive compared to inclusion. It not only benefits the segregated students, it benefits everyone. They're all getting more out of it. They're being able to be with not just regular people but other people who have differences from them. I think that's everything.

Ms Dolmage: We perhaps need to define inclusive education because it's used fairly loosely across Ontario. I think our major point today is that there's been very much a situation of inequality across the province, very dependent on the individual school boards' directions in special education, and left to the discretion of principals and the sometimes outdated attitudes of principals. That's why I brought some young people with me today, because I think they point to a different kind of future.

Inclusion means that all students, any students, receive support to learn in a regular classroom as members of the regular classroom, not just there part-time or in and out; membership being very important, participating fully in the neighbourhood school. Inclusion cannot happen in a school that is not your neighbourhood school.

Unfortunately, some school boards have defined neighbourhood different for Jennifer, for example, as opposed to her brother Matthew, and that splits families and splits communities and leads us in the wrong direction. Many of us and our family members and friends have been hurt by segregation. A lot of energy has gone into fighting for rights that others take for granted. Slowly, though, some change has occurred and we see a very different future ahead of us.

The coalition includes people with disabilities who themselves have suffered through segregated education, many of whom are now learning in adult literacy programs and now ask what happened for all those years they were in school. Since the early 1980s huge empires of special education have been built by school boards across Ontario, some more than others. It's a very expensive system to maintain a whole segregated system, a special system and a regular system. We're advocating the merger of those two.

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Some school boards in Ontario put all their resources into regular classroom supports. One province of Canada, New Brunswick, has shown the leadership to make sure that the only option considered for students is regular class and all the energy goes into a range of supports rather than a range of placements that remove children from their neighbourhoods and their brothers and sisters.

The policy presently in Ontario, as stated by this Minister of Education and previous ministers, is "The integration of exceptional pupils should be the normal practice of Ontario, when such a placement meets the pupil's needs and is in accordance with parental wishes." Unfortunately, the system we now have does not really look at students' needs. It looks at labels and it does not take parental wishes into account.

Recently, there has been the decision regarding Emily Eaton at the Supreme Court of Canada. The Ministry of Education and the school board told the Supreme Court that Emily Eaton was receiving support in the regular class. They also said the policy is that should happen to most students in Ontario. But parental wishes were not really observed in that case. We've been waiting since 1994 for changes in regulation 305 which would force school boards once a year to really look at students' needs at identification placement review committees and evaluate how to return students to regular class after specialized placement, and would rebalance the decision-making so that parents have an equal say.

We are members of Youth Involvement Ontario. We have been consultants to schools now in Ontario since 1995 because of the building inclusive schools project, of which I am the coordinator. We're working with elementary and secondary schools, public and separate systems. We have a number of schools that are demonstrating best practices, so they're leaders, ready to share their ideas with others. We're looking at large cities, northern, southern, small communities, quite a range. That expertise is available to other schools should the ministry direct schools to include students in regular class.

While we're not here today to look at all the impact of amalgamating school boards, we have concerns about the role of parent committees and of special education advisory committees, now and in the new system. We're concerned that some boards create supports and some don't. We certainly hope the amalgamated boards move in the positive direction for students.

We're asking that if the Education Improvement Commission has the opportunity, it should gather information about the wide disparity in special education practices across the province. Our groups have been waiting a long time for some leadership from the province in this regard. At the moment families have to sometimes change religion, they have to move, they have to take on expensive legal battles or they despair of opportunities for their students. Regular class supports exist in a few schools, but it is not the normal practice in Ontario, especially for students with certain disabilities like developmental disabilities.

We're asking the Education Improvement Commission to do some fact-finding and find out which boards have segregated schools, which are very costly such as one we heard about recently in Ottawa; what are the rates of special class placement; what are the rates of identification of students, because right now in school boards across Ontario huge amounts of money are spent in meetings to just determine labels for students and placements, and not to discuss classroom supports.

We have information from the Hamilton Board of Education that it costs them three times as much to support a special education student in a segregated class as it does to support the average special education student in a regular classroom. So we're very angry that families are still being told there is no money for regular class support, integration inclusion, when the other costs considerably higher.

We think this is a great opportunity to have an overview of the excessive costs of segregation. We also know from our own experience, and these students could speak further to that, that inclusive education is better education, not just for students with exceptionalities, who have better role models and who are learning academics when they weren't learning those things in life skills classes, but also for other students who have learned how to be leaders, how to value each other in a very positive way.

The other request we have is that this opportunity for restructuring means that at last regulation 305 will be enacted, which will force school boards to consider parental wishes fairly as they make decisions about students. We're asking that segregation be curtailed, that there be a good hard look at placement decisions for students. At present it is very easy for school boards to support parents who want segregated placements, but those families who are requesting what has proven to be a better education and a more cost-effective education in the regular classroom are being penalized, at great cost to the system.

We're asking that this opportunity for restructuring schools ensure someone looks across the province at school board practices and ensures there are opportunities for exceptional students in regular classrooms. Maybe Marita and Jennifer can just speak for a minute about what Youth Involvement is and why they are consultants, for example, to the building inclusive schools project, what they want people to hear.

Ms Marita Cowan: Jen and I are both members of Youth Involvement. We're also good friends at the same school. The reason we're good friends is because we're in the same classes. I don't think we would have the same friendship if we didn't have the same classes. We're both 17; we go to classes together; we do activities together; we're in clubs together. Unless inclusion is active in the school, that opportunity isn't as welcome to students who have labels. I personally don't have a label that any doctor has labelled me with. My parents label me stubborn.

Since I don't have a medical disability or developmental disability, I benefit from inclusion because I get the whole view of society and school and friendships. I was just going to ask Jen if she can answer this too because she has been labelled with a disability.

What do you prefer? Would you rather be in a classroom or in a segregated classroom? A segregated classroom is one that is with just the resource room. Would you like to be in a classroom, or do you like to be in a resource room?

Ms Jennifer Strang: A classroom.

Ms Cowan: So what's better about the classroom?

Ms Strang: I don't know.

Ms Cowan: Do you like to do work?

Ms Strang: Yes.

Ms Cowan: Do you learn more in the classroom?

Ms Strang: Yes.

Ms Cowan: Do you have more friends in the classroom?

Ms Strang: Yes.

Ms Cowan: If she's in the classroom, then she has people she can do all her other activities with. She's in Youth Involvement. We get together and do social things, just like anyone else would do after school.

There are some things in Bill 104 we are in favour of. We've discussed it. We have meetings and we like to talk about political things that in a lot of cases we don't understand. One thing we just want everyone to be aware of is that inclusion is a good thing, and if a school board hasn't tried it, not to knock it if they haven't tried it, and if you have tried it, not to knock it because it's good.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you all very much for joining us today. We have a little under a minute left for each caucus so I'll entertain very brief comments. We begin with the official opposition, Ms McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: It will be very brief.

One of our earlier presenters today was asked whether or not he or she supported the same funding for every student in the name of something that was equitable. Would the same funding for every student be equitable for students who are looking towards an inclusive education?

Ms Dolmage: We would be very concerned if funding was tied to some disability label. We think the type of educational supports do not always depend on the needs of the student, but also on the needs of the teacher and the organization of the school. We prefer the system that exists now where funding is based on a total per capita enrolment at the school board, but we ask for some leadership and we think school boards haven't been looking carefully enough at where that money's being spent. We think there should be some overview.

Mr Wildman: Are you worried that in amalgamated boards there will be less willingness to have inclusion, or do you think it will make much difference one way or the other?

Ms Dolmage: It all depends on provincial leadership. There has to be provincial leadership. With the current system, there is none, and we don't have any guarantees from one board to another. We are concerned that we could have all Brant county boards that go to all kinds of lengths to oppose that. We're carefully saying that more students could be supported with the same amount of money. We must really safeguard that there are not cuts.

Mr McLean: I just want to say to Mrs Dolmage I'm pleased to know that you had the opportunity to come today, for the members to hear what you've been telling me for some time. That's what it's all about and I'm happy to say that your presentation was well put.

Matthew, that term as a page at Queen's Park certainly helped you out. You've done a great job. Thank you for being here.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you all very much.

To members of the committee, we are running approximately half an hour behind schedule, which will cut into our recess. I understand there's an opportunity for you to slip out and make calls or have a meal in that time, so I just want you to be aware now that I will try to make up a portion of that time in what we have scheduled as our recess, because we are already scheduled to go quite late.

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ONTARIO COALITION FOR BETTER CHILD CARE

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Laurel Rothman, council member.

Ms Laurel Rothman: You all look tired, like you've been listening, so I'll tell you a little bit about the coalition briefly and then I want to ask a question. Probably most of you are aware we've been around since 1981. We're a group of parents, child care workers, child care programs, local child care coalitions, trade unions, women's groups and interested individuals. For a long time, we've advocated for a range of high-quality, affordable child care and early childhood education services. We've monitored successive governments in their various efforts to respond to public pressure for high-quality early childhood education.

I want to ask a question: How many committee members are parents? Okay. How many committee members have ever used high-quality early childhood education in the form of kindergarten? Okay. How many members have ever used licensed, high-quality early childhood education in the form of child care? Okay.

Ms Lankin: What about having worked in it?

Ms Rothman: Having worked there certainly counts.

Mr Wildman: And junior kindergarten?

Ms Rothman: I used the term "junior kindergarten" broadly to include that for both four-year-olds and five-year-olds. I asked the question because it's always important to remember how terminology affects things. I guess we would say high-quality early childhood education delivered in kindergarten classrooms and delivered in licensed child care programs is very similar. That's why I have to underline "high-quality," and that goes for both interpretations of how you deliver it.

What I want to say is, in our looking at the themes of what's happened to early childhood in Ontario, say since 1981, there are a couple of common themes that have served to strengthen and expand what I'll call the fragile network of child care/early childhood services. One was a decision made actually as far back as the Davis government to use capital funding directed only to the non-profit sector -- obviously that goes without saying for school boards; it doesn't go without saying for child care programs -- and also to recognize the neighbourhood school as the logical home and location for licensed child care services. It meets many families' needs. I should say that includes part-day services, full-day services and, in a few instances, extended-hour services. Not a lot; we haven't come that far.

I want to note two particular policies that have served families across the province. The reason I'm going to note them is because they're missing, they're gone, and we're quite concerned that under Bill 104 the remnants of some gains that we've made for Ontario families in receiving early childhood education are further going to disappear.

One particular policy was the New Directions policy the Liberals initiated -- I can't remember if was in 1987 or 1988 -- where there was a requirement that a child care centre be built in every new school. That resulted in at least 10,000 new licensed child care spaces. That's everywhere, and when you go up to Thunder Bay, you'll hear from people in remote and rural areas, people who want -- I was interested to listen to the literacy people on inclusive education. Child care is very much the foundation. It's also an important ramp for women's equality, it's a support to employment and it certainly is a key measure to help fight child poverty. I guess what we want to see is that that core remains and it remains in one place, not divided up in two or three places, so that we have kids in a neighbourhood come together and be able to learn together.

Subsequently, the Rae government built upon the partnership with schools and undertook the greatest expansion and fee subsidies through the Jobs Ontario program. Those 14,000 subsidies helped parents, some young and some not, participate in training programs. Many of those were secondary and post-secondary students and also some were social assistance recipients who were able to voluntarily enter the paid labour force. There was an important recognition that high-quality child care needs to be affordable, not only to families but to our municipal partners, and those subsidies were provided at 100% of the cost.

I'll try to be brief.

The Rae government also underlined the importance of early childhood education by requiring school boards to provide junior kindergarten. I think I have to point out that broad-based, whether we want to call it polling of public opinion or the actual enrolment of parents in child care shows that many families, in fact the vast majority of families in this province, have utilized junior kindergarten when it has been there, so I think there is some evidence for strong support for universally accessible early childhood education.

I guess had the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Learning gone forward, we would have seen our services move in the direction of the way the European Community operates. Instead, what we're seeing is the direction of moving towards the way the US operates in very much a market-driven system. We've seen those Jobs Ontario subsidies go back to the cost-sharing of 80-20, and indeed a survey that we did showed we have lost 9,000 fee subsidies in this province. That means that for lots of parents, usually mothers on social assistance, who want to enter the workforce, the lack of affordable child care will be a tremendous barrier.

The other major concern to us is that for the first time in Canada, not just Ontario, this government is introducing capital funding to the commercial, for-profit child care sector. We have concerns about what that means for quality child care.

The impact of Bill 104 threatens to wipe out a number of those gains that have been made in concert with local communities and school boards. Currently, 40% of licensed group child care spaces are located in neighbourhood schools. They serve kids in that location and sometimes they serve kids in the neighbouring neighbourhood. Those programs operate parallel, let's call them -- some boards call them "parallel use." Often they get support in the form of either no rent or low rent. They often share services. They may join a bulk buying program. It's not only an important support to neighbourhoods and families but a support to the programs.

Our concern is that with Bill 104 taking away the authority of the local boards through elected trustees to develop programs that local communities want and need, we don't know what will happen to child care. There'll be virtually no ability to levy local funds and it will be difficult for boards to meet specific local needs.

I also think the lack of any policy about what's going to be the funding formula by which school boards will be bound raises many questions: What will the provincial education grant pay for? Will boards that want to continue to provide junior kindergarten be able to? What will happen to the hundreds of child care programs in schools with no security of space or support? The minute enrolment goes up, is the child care program out the door? There's nowhere else to go and there's nowhere else to get funding to provide a space.

For example, in the most recent capital allocation, the $58 million includes no funding for child care in many fast-growing areas with young families. What about the child care programs in old schools that are being rebuilt? We know that in Metropolitan Toronto alone, as well as Ottawa, Windsor and London, there are programs, at least six of them in Metro, where child care programs have been in the local public school for at least 15 years. The building is over 50 years old, it's being rebuilt, and there's no way to replace the child care, so we're going to lose it. There's nowhere else to go. A non-profit board cannot, even if they thought they could pay it off, get a loan to build or renovate a space.

So while, as I understand it, local schools are going to be expecting more input from parent volunteers, the same schools may be forced to withdraw support from child care, which is very much a volunteer-led, although professionally serviced, program. Parent boards run and fund-raise for those programs all along. That seems to me a real contradiction.

What we're really saying is we urge you to send Bill 104 back to the drawing board, abolish the plan to amalgamate local school boards, and we call upon you to maintain your supports to child care programs in schools and restore the capital funding for child care and junior kindergarten programs.

We're also taking the formal opportunity to request a meeting with Minister Snobelen to discuss these recommendations. We have not been successful in obtaining that meeting to date, and I haven't really had much time to talk about the importance of early childhood education. Maybe we can get to that.

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The Acting Chair (Mr Arnott): Thank you very much, Ms Rothman, for your presentation. Ms Lankin, you have a little more than a minute for your question.

Ms Lankin: Not a lot of time. Thank you very much for your presentation. I truly appreciate it. I think the issues are very linked, and I think we haven't had this focus brought before the committee, so it's important.

Southeast Grey, that part of the province, I visited there and there was a tremendous partnership between the local school board and the not-for-profit child care network that deals with child care, junior kindergarten, after-school programs, onsite rural servicing of farm families. Can you tell the committee just a bit about that, because that's the kind of partnership we're going to lose.

Ms Rothman: I think what you need to know is, in southeast Grey they have approximately 14 locations where they deliver early childhood. We have one location where the JK program is delivered in the child care centre because that's what makes sense when you live in Feversham, for example, which is 30 miles from Collingwood, that kind of thing.

Also, when the kids are in kindergarten for a two-hour program, it has a part-day program for whoever in that neighbourhood wants to come in for two days a week, so it's a program that serves a wide range of needs of families. That's the kind of partnership that we'd lose. We have a similar kind of variety that happens in two extra rooms in public schools in southeast Grey and in urban areas. That's why I asked earlier whether people were aware of child care in schools and how they work.

Mr Smith: Thank you for your presentation. I certainly found it interesting and I acknowledge the challenges that you've raised in your presentation, particularly as it applies to the city of London.

With interest, yesterday in Sudbury we heard the story of the Sudbury board that was proceeding with discussions with its partners. Some might describe them as mavericks and others as leaders in terms of the positions they're taking with respect to school board amalgamation.

Given the top sentence on your last page, why do you come to the conclusion that those discussions that will take place between school boards will compromise what you have suggested will threaten or wipe out many of the gains? The Sudbury school board made it very clear that they're listening to the interests of their new partners and are going to position themselves to respond to those interests, so how are you coming to that conclusion at this point?

Ms Rothman: I think I have to be honest and say in watching many activities over the last year and a half, in this particular one we know how the partnerships work well but we also know the pressures. For partnerships to work well, there has to be some moving room. We have the Toronto board that's had child care in schools since the mid-1970s, long before there was any encouragement, but as their enrolment goes up and there's no space, they'll have no choice but to move out the child care centre.

There have been tremendous efforts on the part of the community, including, I might add, Minister Saunderson and the federal Liberal MP from one of the ridings, for the child cares in the old schools that are being rebuilt for which there's no child care, and there's been no resolution to this issue in nine months. I can't imagine that your government or any government wants to lose 50 or 70 child care spaces.

Ms Lankin: Two hundred in the four centres.

Ms Rothman: Two hundred in the four centres in Metro, and with all due respect, this will be happening in other places. Our concern is we have to date seen no goodwill, action or policy to convince us that anything will support those willing partners to respond to local needs. They won't have much financial ability, they'll have tighter strings on delivering programs, and I have no reason to be hopeful that even in the most willing boards they'll be able to hold on. If they have to charge seven to 10 bucks a square foot -- I forgot to say that. If they have to go up to market rent or some kind of rent, child care programs can't afford it. They can't.

Mr Dwight Duncan (Windsor-Walkerville): Just one very brief comment and a question. The theme that I took from your presentation today is that 104 has a dramatic impact on every aspect of education, particularly early childhood education. I think you said this in your presentation, but just so we're clear, what impact, in your view, will that have on Ontario's educational achievement or ability to achieve quality education down the road?

Ms Rothman: That's a good point. I don't claim to be an educational researcher but I'm a little bit familiar with the research in early childhood education and I think we all know that's where you have early identification of problems. That's also where you begin to come to some common foundation for children who've come from a diverse range of cultures, languages, backgrounds, economic situations. We also cement an important link between parents and communities at that early school level. I don't know if that sort of outlines it for you, but certainly early childhood education is the foundation. It's at the centre. We've had more research in the last five years and we'll continue to get more.

The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Ms Rothman, for your presentation. We sincerely appreciate your advice.

SIMCOE COUNTY ROMAN CATHOLIC SEPARATE SCHOOL BOARD

The Acting Chair: Our next group is the Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Welcome.

Mr Robert Gill: Thank you. My name is Robert Gill. I'm chair of the Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board. Delio D'Giovanni is a principal seconded to the board office, and Ernie Vaillancourt is a French-language trustee and vice-chair of the board.

The Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board is a separate school board serving approximately 19,000 Catholic students in a jurisdiction which stretches from the northern boundary of the GTA at Highway 9 to Bracebridge and encompasses a territory from Collingwood in the west to Brechin on the east side of Lake Simcoe. Simcoe separate is proud of its long heritage and involvement in Catholic education, commencing with the establishment of Fort Ste Marie Among the Hurons and the early Jesuits bringing Catholic education into this region of Canada.

We are among the fastest-growing regions in Ontario, and in fact the city of Barrie has recently been identified as the fastest-growing city in all of Canada. Projections would indicate this consistent growth will be sustained well into the 21st century. The Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board has had a long and proud tradition of serving the predominately French-language community clustered in the Midland-Penetang-Tiny township areas of the county. It is from this region that there has been strong representation and defence of the Francophone rights to French-language education.

It is certainly a pleasure and a privilege to address the committee on our home territory and we wish to express our appreciation for your efforts in travelling to Simcoe county as part of your hearings.

Initial reaction to Bill 104 is one of some pleasure in recognizing that the act has cooperated with the wishes of the local people in terms of the designation of the jurisdiction of this board. It was in 1994 that the Nipissing District Roman Catholic Separate School Board and the Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board negotiated an agreement to transfer the northern two municipalities of Muskoka to the jurisdiction of the Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board. This agreement was reached on the basis of community discussion and a desire on the part of Huntsville and Lake of Bays to join with Simcoe separate as a recognition of the traffic, economic, social and media flows of people and information in this area.

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Subsequent to the agreement being reached between the two boards, the Minister of Education and Training was approached and requested that the Lieutenant General in Council take the necessary steps to enact appropriate regulations to bring this about. It appears that under Bill 104 this has been accomplished. Thus, specifically for Simcoe separate, the nature of the amalgamation and reorganization which will take place is one that has been contemplated by the boards involved and responds to local community desires.

The Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board is one of the lowest-spending school boards in the province. It has had a long history of frugality. There is, however, a fine line between being frugal and having insufficient funds to provide an adequate, comprehensive program for the students we serve. Over the years it has often been felt that we were walking very close to that line.

There has been a strong feeling in Simcoe county that there have been boards in the province that have had access to significantly more funds than those that were available to Simcoe county. They were, because of this, able to provide opportunities for some of their students which were not able to be provided within this jurisdiction.

We have, therefore, long maintained that education should be funded in a manner which is fair and equitable to all concerned. This will, we believe, necessitate the making of choices and determining courses of action which are of benefit to students within limited financial resources. It is our expectation that as part of the implementation of Bill 104 the government will be bringing forward a fair and equitable funding model for all students in the province.

Mr Ernie Vaillancourt: It is indeed encouraging to see implanted in the bill the recognition of the constitutional rights of separate school boards, French and English. With regard to school amalgamations in general, it is the opinion of the Simcoe County Roman Catholic Separate School Board that some amalgamations indeed will enhance the educational opportunities for children across the province.

We have concerns, however, that a number of the jurisdictions seem to be inordinately large. This mitigates against any type of legitimate representation and dialogue on the part of trustees, who are required to bring forward the views of their constituents for such large areas as we see being identified in northern Ontario. It will take a great deal of ingenuity on the part of the government to find methods to overcome the problems and concerns that are inherent in this type of representative model. Certainly even in the jurisdiction of Simcoe county, the possibility of having severely reduced numbers of trustees to represent a broad geographic area is difficult to imagine. We believe the government should consider seriously increasing the number of trustees from five, in order to provide for greater potential for representation.

It is also of concern to the trustees in this jurisdiction that the eligibility requirements have been significantly changed. It appears that this legislation focuses on a greater conflict for those who have spouses working in the system than those who have children working in the system. One would ask the question, why would one group of individuals with a conflict be singled out as ineligible and a second group be left with their conflict intact but still eligible to run for the office?

Mr Gill: At the heart of Catholic education is a highly competent Catholic teacher. It is for this reason that we petition the committee to recognize the continued need for Catholic teacher organizations which represent Catholic teachers. While we recognize that Bill 104 is silent on this particular issue, it is common knowledge that there will soon be a response to the Paroian report which must be integrated with the goals and objectives of Bill 104. For this reason, we would bring to your attention our great concern that Catholic teachers be represented by Catholic teacher organizations.

Bill 104 speaks to the creation of an Education Improvement Commission. This commission has not as yet been formed in all its fullness and will take at least some time to get organized and up and running. Subsequent to the passing of appropriate legislation, it is of concern to this board that many tasks are left to the commission in its unfettered authority which need to be done quickly and with some decisiveness, as well as with some understanding of the issues at hand. There is some concern that the commission, in responding to the multitude of issues, maintain a perspective of the Catholic school community and its constitutional rights as a basic principle of operation. It would be our contention that legislative direction to the commission should clearly stipulate that directions must be made with full respect to the constitutional rights of the separate school system and based on the principles inherent in that system.

We bring to your attention as well the concerns we have regarding the minister's announcements relative to the establishment and legislation of school community councils. It is clear to us as trustees that school community councils can provide a vibrancy and a connectivity to the local school community that is of tremendous value. This type of approach has been used in the special education areas for a number of years through the establishment of special education advisory committees. Those committees, when they are established, respect the rights of Catholic communities by requiring that members of the committees be supporters of the system to which they are providing advice. This we believe is a mandatory requirement for the establishment of school community councils if they are to respect the constitutional rights of the Catholic community.

Our final comments are on the need for stability and direction within the field of education. As the election time lines come nearer and information is not readily forthcoming, a great deal of unrest and concern develops within the educational community. It would be our hope that the contents of Bill 104 would be proceeded with quickly and those additional steps which are necessary to the implementation process proceeded with in a prudent and speedy manner to stabilize the educational community in Ontario.

I take this opportunity to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. We will, of course, be available for any questions.

Mr Skarica: Dealing with the issue of trustees, I am looking at a report card prepared by the Coalition for Education Reform. They have an interesting cartoon on page 27 which shows information and trustees with a lock on it. I find it interesting; it was for the Metropolitan Separate School Board. Because the following year, as you know, there was a huge deficit in the Metro school board budget and the trustees indicated that they weren't aware of what was going on within the school system itself and the auditor who came in indicated the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. We heard from the Lakehead trustees that they felt that many times they were just a rubber stamp for the administrators. Currently now, do trustees have easy access to information? If they don't, how could that be alleviated?

Mr Gill: Of course, I can't speak for the other boards. I can speak for Simcoe separate. We have a good relationship with our senior advisory staff and we have input into the budget process. We are apprised of all budget restraints in spending and we can get that type of information from our director or the senior staff at any time we need it. We've not had a problem in that area and I feel that the trustees of Simcoe separate are kept very well aware of the situation.

Mrs McLeod: A quick question on the amalgamation and then I hope there will be time to ask a question about the trustees' role. The Muskoka portion of the area gets attached to you as a separate board and the public board gets attached to Victoria-Haliburton. Does that create any problems in terms of joint efforts, or is it not an issue for you?

Mr Gill: I believe there's only one school in the Muskoka area that we will be attaining and I don't think there'll be many joint ventures that we could do with the public board in that area if there were any more facilities there.

Mrs McLeod: You've touched on less access, whether it's in terms of numbers of trustees or, in some cases, geographical distance. I'm also concerned about less financial accountability as the government brings in the companion piece of taking over the 100% funding. I'd like you to comment on what you see the trustees' role being under that kind of scenario and whether you have any concerns about the continued existence of separate school boards as the governance body for Catholic ratepayers.

Mr Gill: We have grave concerns with the possible loss of the Catholic education system throughout Canada, not just Ontario, but our main concern is Simcoe county right now. We feel this is the first step in a process along the line to maybe take Catholic rights away from the Catholic ratepayers.

Mrs McLeod: Which would obviously be a concern.

Mr Wildman: The last comment really raises questions for me. Are you in support of the position that Patrick Daly and the association have taken, that the Catholic boards should hold in abeyance their right to tax pending the funding formula being published and seeing how it works for, say, five years? Or are you concerned that by doing that you may weaken your constitutional position?

Mr Gill: We are a bit concerned with the possibility of putting that off for five years, with the weakening of our possible chance of saying in the future that we would like to take that back. We feel that if we partway give it up now and put it in abeyance for now, somebody's going to say down the road: "You didn't care about it then, five years ago. It's out of the books now." We have concerns with that, yes.

Ms Lankin: Following up on Mr Skarica's question, I would point out while he said Lakehead trustees were just rubber stamps, that was one Lakehead trustee, not the majority board position that was put forward.

But again, you have a good relationship that you've indicated. Are you worried at all about the stripping of powers of trustees and of centralizing power in the bureaucracy and what that might mean for governance of Catholic schools?

Mr Gill: We believe there is in the footsteps right now a swing to that way, that the government is eventually going to take all the power away from the trustees and have the advisory councils there as a voice. We feel they're seeking control of the school boards personally and the trustees' role is being diminished to the point that they are going to be more or less bystanders. To put it in better terms, they're wanting to make us rubber-stamp people instead of the people who get involved in decision-making.

The Acting Chair: Thank you once again, gentlemen, for your presentation. The committee appreciates your advice.

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ONTARIO ENGLISH CATHOLIC TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION, DUFFERIN-PEEL ELEMENTARY UNIT

The Acting Chair: I would ask Krystyna Peever, the president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association, to now come forward. Welcome to the standing committee on social development.

Mrs Krystyna Peever: I'm Krystyna Peever, Dufferin-Peel elementary unit president of OECTA. With me is Cathy Astolfo, a past president of the unit and currently vice-principal of one of our elementary schools.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you. We are going to, in a brief discussion, cover what we feel are five important issues that need to be addressed when looking at Bill 104. I expect that you have heard some of these, but I am going to reiterate them nevertheless: Denominational rights, the Catholicity issue is one; democratic issues in terms of constitutional rights of all taxpayers; the finance questions that have arisen out of the lack of information in Bill 104; also staffing; and finally, meeting students' needs. These we feel are issues that have not been dealt with in detail and raise some concerns. I am going to ask Cathy to deal with the first two.

Mrs Cathy Astolfo: I will just highlight some of the concerns we have with regard to denominational rights. The first concern that we would like to bring to your attention is a very specific concern to Dufferin-Peel, and that is that in our area we will be, under Bill 104, suffering a dissection rather than an amalgamation. Dufferin will be removed from Dufferin-Peel and will go with Wellington.

The reason we are concerned about this is because central to our Catholic education is the partnership with the church. Specifically in Orangeville schools, the relationship with the church has over many years been a very close one and it is, as I said, central to our Catholicism and to our catechism that that relationship continue. The schools in Orangeville: It highlights very much that if we remove that relationship, what will happen is we will actually be removed from the archdiocese with regard to school; for example, our sacraments. We have a very close relationship with the schools. The bishop, for instance, is involved in the sacrament of confirmation and we rely on the archdiocese to provide that service for us. In removing Orangeville from the Dufferin-Peel segment, you're actually moving those schools into another archdiocese and we believe this will infringe upon the denominational rights and our right to provide that excellent Catholic education and that faith which is central to it.

As well, again specific to Dufferin being removed from Dufferin-Peel, the only Catholic secondary school that would be available in the new, amalgamated Wellington-Dufferin board would be one that is currently in Guelph. That is approximately an hour's drive away from Orangeville. The students would then perhaps be allowed to attend, as they currently do attend, Robert F. Hall Secondary School in Caledon.

However, we don't see the sense of removing Dufferin if we are simply going to have our students having to try to have a relationship with a church that's outside their archdiocese, in addition to which they're going to also have to have a relationship with a secondary school that is outside their board. So we really, strongly would like to see that part of Bill 104 changed. We would like to see Dufferin-Peel remain as it is.

We would like to also add to that, to quote Minister Snobelen's memo regarding meeting student needs, where he says, "The model must recognize the significant differences among communities, schools and students, and address these differences to ensure that excellence in education programming can be consistently attained." We would submit that if Dufferin is removed from Dufferin-Peel, the schools in Orangeville would be left in a situation that could not ensure that their excellence in Catholic education can be attained.

We would also like to mention, and again, this is a less specific concern, but still it is one that Dufferin-Peel shares, that Bill 104 is silent on the issue of Catholic representation. We currently have the right to elect Catholic trustees and we are concerned that there is not a specific mention of the fact that we should retain that right. We would be very nervous about the fact that this is not being addressed.

We also believe Bill 104 jeopardizes the long-held democratic rights of the Roman Catholic education system as it currently exists in Ontario, particularly since the commission has not been established and yet some of the powers of that commission will be retroactive. In the meantime, we are not being given direction about issues that are of vital concern to the Catholic system and to the continuing existence of the Catholic system.

We believe any initiatives or decisions that are made by the commission should not be in some way retroactive. We also have some concerns about the powers that have been given to the commission, especially with regard to Catholic education. We have some concerns and questions about the purpose, for instance, of recommendations on outsourcing of non-instructional services. That affects our Catholic education specifically, and in general we believe it will affect the excellence of education, period. We would like to mention such things as custodians and secretaries, teacher-librarians and kindergarten teachers. We have grave concerns about the mention of outsourcing and that they are outside the education system. We don't believe they are.

We also have some concerns about the involvement of parents in school councils. It is silent on the issue of Catholicism being represented. We also have concerns that some of the load of the education system is being put on to parents when they don't really want it.

We also have concerns about the mention of charter schools. We are concerned that this could set up a two-tiered system, one for the rich and one for the not-so-rich.

We also have grave concerns about the removal of local jurisdiction rights, particularly with the Catholic school community. Catholic trustees were able to respond to and reflect the needs of their local communities, and Bill 104 usurps that right and undermines the ability of Catholic trustees to assist with our particular identity and particular needs.

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Mrs Peever: I'll continue with the discussion of financial implications. We're quite disturbed by the inflexibility that seems to be created by Bill 104. We work in a school board that is really very much dependent on the economy around Toronto, as well as the immigrant patterns, which constantly change. We find that the suggestion that a budget will be set and then will need to be approved, should there be any changes to that budget, puts Dufferin-Peel in a really horrendous situation.

Certainly we have found that whatever plans are made in the school board in May have to be changed drastically in September and October. If hiring and if putting up new schools or portables -- because essentially 40% of the students in our particular board live in portables -- cannot be done without waiting another month, I can tell you that the quality of education for the students of my area is certainly compromised there, because first of all, you get the extra influx of children, then you have to apply to the commission for permission to purchase new facilities and then you have to get them. We are now talking three to four months of children being unable to learn in the best kind of accommodations they should be able to. That's a very definite concern. You will note in our brief that our population projections continue to indicate growth, so we're very concerned with being restricted the way the bill appears to.

Next, there's a definite problem with transfer funds being frozen. We have to question the intent behind that. We are a school board which has gotten out of debt through sacrifices by the employee groups and we have worked very hard, not only to get our board out of debt, but also to make sure the board has a fairly enviable surplus situation. Where will this money go? Will it suddenly disappear? We cannot help but be suspicious that the money that has been raised from our ratepayers will not be available for the children of those same ratepayers.

Another very serious concern is the question of the transfer of staff, as it's going to be controlled by the Education Improvement Commission. It was already alluded to. Our schools in Orangeville have some real problems, not only with the geographic distance to the board that they're supposed to be joining, but also as to the staffing needs of the two elementary schools that do exist.

In particular, I'm speaking about 62 teaching members, and there are other support staff, who are essentially in a position of waiting to know what will happen in their lives. At this moment, because the commission is really not active, or shouldn't be, according to the law, our teachers do not know what to do. They have not been allowed to access the transfer processes that are available to all of our members because the board is waiting to find out what is permissible in this situation, so we have people whose personal lives are hanging in the air. They are reluctant to leave the area they've chosen to live and work in; on the other hand, they are also very aware of the fact that they will not have the same rights and the same benefits and wages if they are forced to join Wellington.

We're in a situation where we're saying there has to be a consideration of red-circling these members' wages and benefits and retirement gratuity, or at least providing them with an open window to return to the Peel separate area, if that's what we become, just as was done for Bill 30. We refer to the process in our brief. Also, to go back to the idea of red-circling, I know that Timiskaming and Cochrane were forced to amalgamate. I also know that they are still working under separate agreements, and it's 1997.

I would hope that if the decision is made that indeed Orangeville must join Wellington and the children there will have to share whatever resources they were able to get under a suburban board with the rural board they're being forced to join, at least the rights of the workers in Orangeville schools be considered by looking at some of the prior precedents that have been set.

The Vice-Chair: You have 30 seconds.

Mrs Peever: Oh heavens. A very important thing for me to cover is outsourcing. Our children need consistency. They need to work in an environment of trust and acceptance. Outsourcing makes that hard to achieve.

Is that it? I understand. I'm assured all of you can read, so some of the points I wasn't able to cover by speaking, I'm sure you'll be able to read. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is scheduled for 5 o'clock. That makes our break 10 minutes. Would the members of the committee like additional time, bearing in mind that we have no cancellations for tonight and that will push us back?

Interjections: Just keep going.

The Vice-Chair: Okay, we'll resume in 10 minutes.

The committee recessed from 1649 to 1701.

AURORA HIGH SCHOOL ADVISORY COUNCIL

The Vice-Chair: Welcome back after that long break, refreshed, rested, ready to go. The next delegation is Aurora High School Advisory Council, Nancy McKeraghan.

Mrs Nancy McKeraghan: I'd like to introduce John Ryan, who is also a member of our council.

We are here to represent a group of 21 individuals. We are community members, administration, teaching and support staff, parents and students who have formed together in a positive supportive role at our school. We have been working for the past two years. Even though we weren't really legislated, we have been working together and as such our group has changed slightly from one year to the next. We are very concerned with Bill 104 and the implications it's going to have on Aurora High School in particular, on our board in general and on advisory councils.

Mr John Ryan: Just before we get into that, we want to look at where we are presently with our board. We have been involved with our board for many years, several of us on the committee. We've been involved in all kinds of processes. We've shared ideas and concerns, we've had exchanges with the board, they've made information available to us, and we think they've worked diligently to assist and deal with groups such as our own. Meetings are open, minutes are available, several of us have participated in board committees such as school user groups, transportation committees. We are happy with the situation we have with our existing board.

We elect our local trustees democratically, and we emphasize "local." We think they have been operating in a fiscally responsible manner, balancing the budget. Even though they receive a much reduced amount in grants -- I think they were reduced by something like $20 million last year -- our enrolments are still going up by approximately 2,500 per year. So we're already doing quite a bit more with less.

The communities in our region are very diverse, ranging from the really intense urban communities in the south boundary along Metro to small towns and medium-sized towns, to very large rural districts in the north. We think our trustees have a good feel for these communities. They know what is required in these communities. They work together with their professional staff. At each election a number of the incumbents are returned. With their professional staff, there is some continuity to the system as it now exists, and we think that level of continuity and stability is very important.

Now Nancy will look at the impact we think it will have on our board.

Mrs McKeraghan: Under Bill 104 the board will have greatly reduced powers, and that includes some things we feel they handle very well, such as staff hirings, promotions and so forth. They're going to have limited powers from the standpoint that they are not going to make long-term decisions or any decisions involving expenditures over $50,000. As an example of that, one of the things councils are very concerned about is some budgetary dollars to allow us to operate. It's impossible for our board to budget $250 per school right now because that exceeds the $50,000 limit. That lets you know what kind of minimal opportunities they are going to have to really be effective.

The Education Improvement Commission is government-appointed, and we have concerns about that.

The minister declared that he will "restore trustees to their traditional and effective role as guardians of local education." We'd like to know what that means. It's a very vague concept. We feel the bill should certainly state some very clearly defined rules as to what the new partnerships are going to be.

We want to know who will be responsible to ensure that there will be uniformity for students across the region and the province, who will ensure that curriculum standards are adhered to, who will ensure that the legislated programs for students with special needs are going to be preserved. Where does Bill 104 show that any proposed savings will go back into Ontario's classrooms? How is it possible to focus on student learning and public accountability when the new district boards won't be making any of those important decisions?

The feasibility of such a commission having the knowledge, understanding and commitment to act on our behalf, as our present board does, leaves us with questions. As a politically appointed group, it has no accountability and it has no liability. It's going to be allowed to make and/or interfere with decisions that our duly elected board members might be able to make on our behalf. We have concerns about the feasibility of communicating with an external group that's going to be operating at arm's length.

The Education Improvement Commission and the various committees which will act on its behalf -- again, they are not accountable and they have no liability in regard to their decisions -- we feel are not going to be as cost-effective as the current board structure is. We fail to see where any potential savings might occur with the proposed structure of appointed committees, and we ask where and how are the budgets for the commission and its committees being formulated and approved. Nor can we say that the proposed structures are going to improve the quality of education that our students at Aurora High School presently enjoy.

The commission, it indicates in the bill, may make decisions based on its "opinion." We would hope strongly that any changes to the educational excellence of our system would be based on more practical evidence than opinion, particularly non-elected and non-accountable opinion. How will appointments to the Education Improvement Commission and its committees be made and what criteria will be used?

Although it indicates that the commission is going to be there to handle the transition process, we see no evidence in the bill that the commission's authority will cease after that time.

Mr Ryan: As we look at the bill, particularly section 335, which speaks to the strengthening of the role of school councils, we certainly have some concerns as to what that might mean and what the impact would be. Before we look at that, let us look at what the existing situation is with school councils.

We have been quite fortunate in getting a good, positive group that have been able to work together, and I think we are able to do things which are positive and helpful to the school. But in our speaking with many of the other school councils in our area and elsewhere, it appears that they have quite a bit of difficulty actually getting school councils together.

Parents are concerned about the amount of time it takes; about making decisions when they aren't really elected, they just are in there by acclamation; the problem of getting adequate information to these councils, especially without budgets; getting appropriate information from community sources or from the ministry; the minimal number of people that come forward to participate; the lack of ways and means of communicating with people in the community. A simple mailing from our high school costs in excess of $600 just to mail something to every student in the school, to every family.

The material comes from a variety of sources. There's just a deluge of material coming from all kinds of sources. How do parent volunteers deal with that without professional help or professional support?

The number of meetings and expectations: Over the last two months we have had in excess of 25 meetings that we have been invited to attend or could attend. That's a lot of meetings in two and a half months.

Budgetary matters: How do we deal with them? What are the possible consequences for schools that cannot form councils, that don't get enough volunteers? The bill seems to indicate that you want to put this into law. How is it possible to mandate volunteers? We are volunteers; we're not elected people.

At Aurora High School we think we have a good, cohesive group. We're comfortable with our advisory role and our supportive role, but we are not administrators and we don't want to be administrators. We want to deal with individuals with backgrounds in education, such as principals, vice-principals, and not business managers. We want to consult with individuals who understand policy, curriculum and, most of all, children and students. We don't want to be dealing with somebody who solely understands finances.

We are not educators. We don't want to be. We're parents. We are content with using our skills and resources in our community to try to help our school. Even with the problems we have, we have covered a number of things, and we have listed something like 14 different items that we have been involved in already this year.

Our council is committed and united. We have to spend a lot of time ensuring that new members are brought up to date, but continuity is a real concern because parents, volunteers, may not be there for several years; they may only be there for a short period of time. There will be an impact on these councils from Bill 104.

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Mrs McKeraghan: We're going to skip through the rest of the part very quickly. We'd ask you to just follow along with us, if you would, because we would like to have some opportunity to answer some questions.

We're responsible to a community that did not come out in droves to elect us and we're concerned with the fact that we may be in a position of power. Part of that brings liability with it and I'm sure that we're going to shy away from making any kind of decisions that deal with employment standards and labour relations, health and safety, building, bylaw standards. We're just not equipped to do that.

We feel that the present school advisory council is a good one but it's going to require at least a minimum of five years to work out any bugs as it presently exists. When you download additional responsibilities, you're downloading liability and we have great concerns about the liability issue. We're going to be vulnerable to a wage range of aspects there and we're asking if true volunteers are going to be able to afford the risks.

Who is going to pick up the cost of any liability insurance? Are volunteers going to be able to make the insurance requirements? If paid members of the Education Improvement Commission and its agents are not subject to accountability and liability, should volunteer members of school councils expect to be considered otherwise?

There is potential abuse of power. When you have minimal people participating, you can certainly have a select group with a particular bias who might become involved. We want to know what are the ramifications for schools unable to form a council. It is difficult for some to form a group now when it's only advisory. What's going to happen when it becomes more powerful?

Mr Ryan: Just to close off, our last section we've titled Bill 104, An Incomplete Document. We think there are an awful lot of things that have not been dealt with that are very fuzzy in the bill that we just don't understand. We've read the bill. As stated, the purpose of this act is "to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system." How is it going to do that? Where in the bill is the evidence that the bill will do what it is proclaimed to do? We don't see at this point that there will be any obvious improvement to Ontario's educational system. We see the opportunity for further duplication of services with the Education Improvement Commission and the bureaucracy that's going to go with it. Five to seven people are not going to handle 66 school boards and the multitude of work, especially when it goes right down to hiring and firing.

We see additional costs. The power of local decisions is taken away. Our locally elected officials are placed in the hands of appointed commissions. We see reduced accountability; increased opportunity for non-professionals to be making important decisions in the educational field; things that are going to affect our kids for years.

We don't see any evidence that the bill will have a positive outcome on our educational system. There's no hard evidence that the cost savings are anything more than assumed. They assume savings, but are there really savings? We feel that the costs will simply be transferred from our boards to the Education Improvement Commission because they're going to have to have the professionals to look at things. This commission is not obligated to provide the public with any information, financial or otherwise; the commission must report solely to the minister of the day, whoever that minister may be.

We are concerned with the impact of the bill on our classrooms. Despite the government's promises that nothing will be taken out of the classrooms, we already see the impact in our classrooms.

You're asking us to make public decisions without sufficient time to gather appropriate data, to assess the data, to formulate responses. If Bill 104 is truly for the benefit of Ontario's students, a little more time to study it and all its implications is not too much to ask. If the minister has recognized the importance of allowing the Education Improvement Commission to "conduct research, facilitate discussion and make recommendations," as stated in section 335, with regard to the future of school advisory councils, then surely the minister can do no less than allow the province's general public to do the same thing with regard to this bill.

We already see excellence in our school, and I think in a lot of other schools. The proof is the students who come out of our school. We want you to show us how the system proposed under the bill guarantees that the excellence we already have will not be destroyed. It's the old idea, as my grandmother used to say, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater." We have a lot of good things now. Don't destroy them. Show us how governance of education in the province of Ontario under Bill 104 will be "simpler, smaller, less costly, more accountable, and lead to better service." We're just not sure how that's going to happen.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I'm afraid your time is up. We appreciate your taking time out. The students at Aurora High School and your board of education are very fortunate to have parents such as yourselves.

Ms Lankin, question to the parliamentary assistant.

Ms Lankin: There are a number of questions that have been raised by this presentation that I would like to put on the record and ask the ministry to respond to.

First of all, after Bill 104, who will be responsible to ensure that there will be uniformity for students across the region and province, who will ensure that curriculum standards are adhered to, who will ensure that the legislated programs for students with special needs are preserved?

Second, where does Bill 104 show that any of the proposed savings will go back into Ontario classrooms? I suspect the answer is that Bill 104 doesn't. Can the ministry provide us a guarantee that any savings as a result of Bill 104, if there are any, will be reinvested in the classroom and that there will not be reductions to the education budget?

Third, with respect to liability of volunteers on parent councils, what would be the liability in relation to decisions made in good faith by members of parent councils? Who would pick up the costs of any liability insurance?

Last, what are the ramifications for a school unable to form a parent council and where would the decisions normally made by that parent council revert to? To the level of the school board or to the ministry?

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Ms Lankin. Those questions will be noted and responded to by the ministry.

Mrs McLeod: I have a question about the questions, because some of the questions are new in terms of being placed on the record, some reiterate questions that already stand on the record. We're now into the eighth day of hearings. We have only two days left, and unless my probably futile motion has some future, we're going to be going into clause-by-clause amendments the day after we get back. I'm wondering when our questions are going to receive answers and whether the information will come before we have to deal with the bill.

The Vice-Chair: That's a very good question. Mr Skarica, would you like to respond to that?

Mr Skarica: Yes. We've been on the road, as you know, all week and we're going back to Toronto tomorrow. I would think no later than Monday.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Skarica, the questions that I provided in written form were outstanding questions that existed from the time of the Toronto hearings, which were prior to the March break.

The Vice-Chair: We have all this assistance here with cell phones and computer linkages to Toronto. I would expect a faster turnaround on those questions and I would think it would be in the interests of the entire committee and of public debate to have those responses in a quicker fashion.

1720

PETERBOROUGH COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Peterborough County Board of Education, Nancy Martin, past chair.

Mr McLean: While they're coming, Mr Chairman, I just might say that nothing has changed in 15 years. We still request and never get.

The Vice-Chair: Welcome, Ms Martin. You have 15 minutes. Please begin.

Ms Nancy Martin: Thank you. My name is Nancy Martin. I am chair of the education reform work group for the Peterborough County Board of Education, a group that has been put in place to monitor education reform proposals. We have distributed a brief to you which I will not be reading. I will be highlighting some of the points out of that. On the very last page of the brief is a fact sheet which has been distributed to our students, parents and ratepayers about the proposals that have come forward -- the highlights of Bill 104.

On behalf of the Peterborough county board, I'd like to thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to come and speak to you this afternoon. At the expense of making us sound very ordinary, we believe that we represent a very nice mix of the population of the province of Ontario. We're a mid-sized city, mixed with a rural, farming and cottage population. We're also a mid-sized board, about 17,000 students and about 1,600 employees. We have an equal number of trustees from the urban and the rural/cottage areas and a trustee who represents the first nations in our jurisdiction.

There are three areas of concern which the board draws to your attention. The first is the reduction in local representation on boards of education, the second is the transition time between the dissolution of the present boards and the formation of our new district school board 14, and the third is the power of the Education Improvement Commission.

The Fewer School Boards Act is designed to improve accountability, effectiveness and quality in our school system. We believe that an act that reduces public participation and truncates democratic representation will not improve accountability. School board trustees such as ours live and work in the communities they serve and have a very clear idea how to balance the community's needs and the community's resources.

We have reduced our budget over the past five years from $113 million to a projected budget of $105 million in 1997, while maintaining and even enhancing program. Our community chose, for example, to continue its junior kindergarten program, in spite of provincial disincentives, because that program was important to the citizens of Peterborough county. We believed that the education of young children was a wise social and economic investment in our community. We have an open budget process with extensive public consultation, and because of this we are able to discern the balance of needs and resources.

School board trustees in the Peterborough County Board of Education are very accountable to our constituents. Provincial control over education and the formation of boards with reduced representation will in fact make the public education system less accountable to our citizens.

Accountability is also measured in other ways. Our students and staff contribute in our community in a myriad of ways. We also have safe, clean schools, an efficient and safe transportation system for our children and a very high level of classroom volunteer participation, coupled with a strong school council organization. All of these are indications of the Peterborough County Board of Education's effectiveness and accountability for the investment our ratepayers have made in their schools and in their school systems.

A larger governance structure with fewer representatives will create a sense of alienation or, worse yet, splintering of the school communities. Peterborough County Board of Education is an ideal size to operate efficiently and with accountability. We reduced the number of trustees and have streamlined our decision-making process while continuing to cultivate community support.

Our first nations representation has enriched the students of Peterborough county schools, bringing with it an appreciation of and a respect for the culture, language, ceremony and arts of the native communities. This contribution is very much part of the character of the education we offer in our city and county schools.

Losing significant trustee representation from our community not only offends democratic principles but will have a significant effect, we believe, on student programs deemed important by the Peterborough community.

If Bill 104 proceeds, trustees have serious concerns regarding the transition time. There's no articulation of the transfer of responsibilities from one board to the next. We're apprehensive that this has not been clearly thought out. Newly elected trustees will lack information, background and the historical context to make decisions which are in the best interests of our students. Students must not be shortchanged in their education while there is confusion and disorganization at the governance and quite possibly at the financial level.

The short time frame for these massive changes is unrealistic to execute a smooth and well-considered transition. I also remind the committee that school boards in Ontario have been amalgamated before. We are concerned that as school boards bulk up yet again, staff and administrators will be expected to address the merger and not the students.

We are worried about education dollars being siphoned off to accomplish a political agenda at the expense of students. The lack of any smooth organizational transformation will create less, not more, accountability for the expenditure of educational dollars. A second amalgamation in less than 30 years is costly and there's little evidence to show that bigger is better. Some of our communities still resent the first amalgamation.

Our third area of concern is with the appointment and powers of the Education Improvement Commission. Our concerns are articulated in the brief before you and generally reflect, I am sure, many of those who have spoken to you. I do not wish to dwell on this since the Ontario Public School Boards' Association and other individuals and groups have noted with alarm the undemocratic appointment process coupled with unquestioned powers of decision-making.

If Bill 104 is designed to improve accountability for public education in Peterborough county, it will not accomplish this goal with the reduction in the representation of community members. If it's also designed to reduce costs, we do not believe this will be accomplished, as we are a board which is low-spending and cost-effective. We believe we offer a quality education to our students, and through system-wide testing, participation in provincial reviews and provincial testing, we constantly work to improve the quality of program for our students.

If governance must be changed, we see value in one publicly funded school system which respects constitutional and linguistic rights. We see this system accompanied by a realistic formula of provincial financial support augmented by the local ratepayer.

I'd be prepared to entertain some questions if there's time.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate you coming.

Your concern over accountability with regard to the Education Improvement Commission and its role and so on has been shared by many who have come before this committee. What I want to ask you is, who do you think will be interested in running to be a trustee after Bill 104 is passed, if it passes? Since the decision-making with regard to funding and expenditures and curriculum is going to be concentrated in the bureaucracy at Queen's Park, won't trustees just simply become sort of a complaint bureau?

Ms Martin: That's exactly the question that I as a trustee am asking myself. When trustees do not really have any say over what happens within the school system, I would agree with you that we will become a complaint bureau. This is a personal opinion, not a board opinion: I think it's just a way of sort of having us fade away into the night. I see that demise. I don't know who would run as a school board trustee under these kinds of circumstances. There will be people, but it would be a job that would be pretty futile.

Mr Grimmett: You mention in your brief that you and some of your constituents are concerned going back to the last amalgamation in the late 1960s. I wonder if it's possible that this concern is partly to do with a perceived lack of involvement by the community with an individual school and whether that might be addressed by the development of school councils, which is suggested in Bill 104.

Ms Martin: The Peterborough County Board of Education has had a very long, strong history of school councils. The current trend of having school councils is not new to our board at all. We didn't call them school councils; we called them community school associations. We've had a very long history of that not only with financial support, but all kinds of office support and communications support. That school council now exists, so that's not a difference.

One of the things we've been very careful of is that when election time comes around we always make sure there are equal numbers of trustees, that there's some way it's balanced out, how many representatives are from the county area and how many from the city in terms of population. The city frequently ends up with a trustee count higher than the rural count, but we always make sure that we change the count so there's a balance of eight trustees -- in this case now it's six -- from the rural area, six from the city, and our first nations representative as well.

There is still a sense in some of our communities that the big city of Peterborough -- it's perfectly understandable -- has a tendency to impose upon rural communities.

Mrs McLeod: I want to pick up on your response to Mr Wildman because, like you, I'm concerned that the combination of this legislation, which makes boards less effective because they're less accessible, and the taking away of any taxing rights of school boards and therefore any direct financial accountability, is going to render boards so almost irrelevant that they are going to fade away into the night as you've suggested. So I want to ask you the consequences of that.

If we should both be right in our fears, it leaves the local governance of education to school councils which to this point have universally said that's not something they want. If we combine that with what I believe will be underfunding, we have a situation where we have potentially, by default, 5,000 charter schools by any other name with serious funding problems. You've expressed a concern. I wonder if you'd like to --

Ms Martin: I think I mentioned in my brief the splintering, and that's what I was getting at. With the county system or a trustee or a board system, there's someone watching over the good of the whole rather than tiny little dribs and drabs of small school communities. It's more cohesive in the community, and we'll lose that.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I wish we had more time. We appreciate your coming down. Your comments are very well taken.

1730

MARY LOUISE WESSENGER

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Mary Louise Wessenger. Welcome.

Mrs Mary Louise Wessenger: My name is Mary Louise Wessenger. For the past 30 years I have been a secondary school teacher. I am a parent of three children. One of them has graduated from university and is now an elementary school teacher. I have two other students still in university. So I am extremely interested in the education system of Ontario.

I wanted to mention some of my concerns with this bill, which are as follows:

If Bill 104 passes, the provincial government will have complete control over the establishment of wards within a district school board. There is no requirement for representation by population. Thus we have an electoral process used which could be and probably would be unfair.

In addition, by reducing the number of boards so drastically, the resulting boards may cover an unreasonably large area, which will make communication with a trustee very limited. Fortunately, Simcoe county is not going to be greatly affected by the distribution, but I know of two proposed northern district boards which have an area equal to that of France. If a parent did manage to contact a trustee in such an area, the latter would probably no longer have power to help the parent. Almost every local issue would need to be referred to a larger bureaucracy.

I am concerned at the proposed salary cap of $5,000 for trustees. Such a token salary would only attract an individual who had a special axe to grind in the educational system or a person who was willing to spend only a minimum amount of time and effort because he or she already had a full-time job. There is also a possibility that corporations that wish to have an influence on education would be only too willing to float trustee candidates.

Of greatest concern is the complete takeover by the province of educational spending and taxation. This means that local district boards have only token power and will be unresponsive to local needs. A better solution, I believe, would be to maintain some local responsibility for education taxation, perhaps in the 10% to 20% range of total costs.

We live in a time of alienation of the public by the political process. The public does not believe that Big Brother is better than locally elected representatives. Big Brother is less accountable than local officials. Big Brother is less sensitive to local needs and does not really improve quality but seeks the lowest standard approach for all.

In an effort to cut educational costs I am concerned that the legislation will force school boards to contract out non-instructional services such as librarians, psychologists, guidance counsellors, secretarial staff, custodial and maintenance personnel. During my 30 years of teaching, I have become very aware of the extreme importance of the teamwork within our schools. Today's youth struggle with a myriad of personal problems and need the stability of a team of caring, familiar adults in various roles in our schools. Can you imagine how well your constituency office would operate using contracted-out services?

The emphasis by the Education Improvement Commission on the strengthening role of school councils and increased parental involvement in education governance hints at the government's hidden agenda: the establishment of charter schools. This would result in the death of any effective public education system.

Finally, I wonder what is happening to the democratic process in Ontario when a provincially appointed bureaucratic system beyond challenge in our courts will govern our children's education.

Mr Skarica: On pages 1 and 2 you make an interesting comment we haven't heard before and maybe we could explore it further. You say, "There is also a possibility that corporations that wish to have an influence in education would float trustee candidates." Perhaps you could give us some vision as to how that would occur, because I'm having difficulty envisioning why a corporation would want to do that and what they would seek to obtain by doing that.

Mrs Wessenger: I think they would have a hidden agenda. I'm wondering about what person would be willing to spend many, many hours as a trustee unless it was financially at least going to put them on an equilibrium, if they have to travel all over the country. I suppose I am concerned that maybe companies that want to further their own agenda -- maybe they have an interest in promoting cigarettes, in promoting their particular type of soft drink -- would be willing to say: "We feel we would be willing to sponsor you. Perhaps you could put a word in for us to make sure our product is sold at your track and field events. Perhaps you can make sure that the pop machines in the school carry only our product," and so forth. I think there would tend to be some political influence there.

Mrs McLeod: I was afraid, as you began to introduce yourself as both a teacher and a concerned parent, that you might have far too much background and concern for education to be considered a credible witness today, because we've been told that parents who have expressed concern about this are somehow the captives of teachers' unions and therefore are less than representative. I appreciate your being here and I appreciate the perspective you bring both as a teacher and as a parent.

I want to ask you about the hidden agenda aspect, because I think one of the main agendas is actually to make major cuts to education. If charter schools end up being the consequence, that for many people might be seen as a not unhappy resolution. But it's all based on being able to sell the system as broken, that the system needs sweeping change because it's broken. I ask you as a teacher and a parent, do you think the system's broken?

Mrs Wessenger: I think it is on the verge of being broken. We have seen a tremendous increase in class size. There is a tremendous increase in the number of problems students have. They need more assistance, as do the teachers, to help cope with all the psychological problems of the children. I have many students in my class who are under custodial care. To put them in a crowded group where the class size is increasing, to hint that there will be any career guidance, not done by people who are trained in dealing with teenagers, to indicate that possibly we don't need the extra assistance, don't need the psychologist working and hired by the board I think puts these students in jeopardy. There are many very disturbed kids who are not in jail but in our schools, and we need extra help. The school no longer is just the place for learning; it is also a home.

Ms Lankin: Thank you for your presentation. I wanted to ask you a question about your observation that taking away some of the responsibility of taxation from local school boards will mean that they have only token power and will be unresponsive to local needs. I have to admit to you that I have always myself favoured seeing education being funded off the provincial income tax base as opposed to the property tax base. My concern about the loss of powers of boards is that the legislation itself takes away authority in certain aspects of decision-making. If the bill didn't do that, is there a way in which you could have strong local boards making decisions with the money being funded from the provincial government, or do you see it as necessary that they have an independent ability to tax and set rates and spend discretionary budgets out of that?

Mrs Wessenger: I'm afraid that the money available from the province allocated to different areas may not suffice the needs in special areas, where you need more buses, where you need more psychological services for students and where perhaps you have more ethnic groups with a higher diversity of language problems. I think you should allow areas the ability to raise a little bit of extra money because of their own local problems, which no one else may know or care about, but they do. I'm sure parents would be willing to have a slight financial contribution from their taxes because of their own problems in that area.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I apologize that we have no more time.

1740

DURHAM BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is from the Durham Board of Education, Ruth Ann Schedlich, chairperson, Grant Yeo, director, and Bobbie Drew, vice-chair. Welcome. You have 15 minutes.

Mrs Ruth Ann Schedlich: We'd like to thank you for the time that was allocated to us. We're hoping that our director will be arriving presently. He's downtown at the ministry at a meeting today.

The Durham Board of Education came into existence in 1969 during the consolidation of school boards. From that time, student enrolment has increased from 45,468 to 60,842 students in 1997. The current growth rate is approximately 2% per year. The Durham board has provided quality programming for its students while being fiscally responsible. During this time period it has shown enormous change. The board continues to support changes that benefit students, community and ratepayers. Recently the Durham Board of Education received the 1996 Carl Bertelsmann Prize, awarded for exemplary approaches. The congratulatory letter from Dr Marga Prohl, head of division state and administration, Germany, indicated, "Your board is top of the list in an international comparison of school systems."

The Fewer School Boards Act is described as An Act to improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system.

Reinhard Mohn, chairman of the board of the Bertelsmann Foundation, stated that the Durham board "represents an ideal model for reforms which the German school system could institute.

"Your board has shown that a school board can function more effectively when it sees itself not as an authority issuing orders, but rather, when it works in close cooperation with individual schools, concentrating on decentralization and qualification. Your work in the field of professionalizing school management and pedagogical work through ongoing further education programs for principals and teachers -- taking place on weekends or during vacation time, in the development of curricula appropriate to the demands of the regional economy, in the encouragement of cooperation between parents and teachers, has thoroughly impressed not only the Bertelsmann Foundation but also the German Minister of Education, local administrators, principals and teachers."

The minister in his letter to the educational community dated January 24, 1997, which served as a prologue to statements on Bill 104, indicated that enrolment had increased by 16% between 1985-95, school board spending increased by 82%, property taxes shot up by 120%.

In Durham the enrolment increased by 22.17% in this period, while provincial operating grants to the Durham school board decreased by 20.7%. As well, property taxes increased in Durham by 85%, well below the provincial average over that same period. The Durham Board has consistently spent below the provincial average per student, and a recent study of school boards has shown Durham to be the largest school board spending the least over provincial ceilings. This spending level has occurred even with mandated programs by the various ministries that began with funds which later disappeared.

In respect to the cost of education, the Durham board's per pupil expenditure levels are the lowest of any large board in the province. To address the tremendous growth throughout the system, the board has in effect paid for the cost of one new school every year for the past several years from its operating grants. Provincial capital grants have not kept pace with this growth. Despite the board's efforts in this regard, 29% of its students are in portables. The 450 portables used daily would be the equivalent of 30 elementary schools. In addition, there is an aging infrastructure that is expensive to maintain; 60% of the schools in Durham are over 30 years of age.

The ability to access the local property tax base has allowed the public school system to be funded with respect to local circumstances and needs through the decisions of locally elected public school trustees. Bill 104 addresses "accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system." To address growth and accommodation, either the right of the public system to access the base should be retained or the new funding mechanism should provide provincial grants to recognize the challenges of accommodating growth while maintaining an aging infrastructure.

The province introduced the education Development Charges Act, which allowed school boards to effect a development levy on new construction to pay for the school board's share of the cost of new schools. The school board's share would otherwise have to be funded from the operating budget, namely the mill rate. The Durham board implemented education development charges. It is concerned that if boards are "out of the taxation business" and the province assumes the full funding of education, it is likely that the authority to levy EDCs will be removed from the education sector. The EDC funds are required to be raised in 1998 through 2013 to pay for schools constructed prior to 1998. Without these funds, the province of Ontario would force the Durham Board of Education to be exposed to an unfunded liability of approximately $27 million. Will EDC funds continue to be available to address new pupil places in growth boards?

The bill indicates trustee representation for district school boards to be between five and 12. Representation by trustees for such a large and diverse area as the Durham board should be at the high end of that scale to adequately reflect the distinctive character of urban and rural through seven municipalities. Small-town and rural Ontario should not bear the brunt of downsizing. Trustee voices are needed to ensure local autonomy and representativeness throughout the new Durham district.

The role of the trustee as a locally elected member of a community, addressing local issues through the ability to raise dollars when necessary, has existed as a fundamental part of our democratic tradition. To relegate the trustee to a position of making choices, not decisions, to allocating fewer dollars for education programs and services without the ability to address local issues financially, is to decrease significantly the trustees' historical role in representing their electors. In a letter from the members of the Cartwright High School Community Council to the minister dated January 31, 1997, the support for trustees was expressed in the following way:

"We value the services and accessibility of our local trustee. With bigger government comes more remoteness and the feeling of isolation at the local school level. Please consider the need to reduce the number of trustees and the need for such low remuneration. We want trustees to feel that they are valued and appreciated."

1750

The Durham board has been able to set aside modest reserves to address specific needs. The decision over the years to have reserves must not be eliminated through 100% funding by the government. These funds raised from Durham taxpayers must be used within Durham to the benefit of students.

The role of the Education Improvement Commission in the transition to the new district school boards is well defined. If we understand it correctly, an appointed group will require, supervise, monitor, decide on, approve on, set parameters for and make recommendations to an elected group of trustees across this province. They will do these things with a staff to be hired for a four-year period, with a budget allocated for this. Is there a projected budget cost for the services of the EIC and the implementation of this bill? Will these expenses add to the out-of-classroom category of expenses? Will the EIC become a permanent level of bureaucracy?

The EIC is a shift away from the role and responsibility of the trustees to function. The bill indicates that the EIC will bring forward recommendations on strengthening the role of school councils and the feasibility of increasing parent involvement in education governance. The Durham board traditionally has supported increased involvement by parents and the community in schools, and developed a school council structure prior to policy memorandum 122. School council chairs have indicated a concern that they would be expected to fulfil the responsibilities of trustees, to fill the vacuum, and to do this they do not have the time or desire to go beyond the advisory role. The EIC needs to listen carefully to the school council members and hear their comments on increased, centralized power by the Ministry of Education and Training within the appearance of more involvement at the local school level.

The district school boards, as created in 1998 under the act, will underrepresent their electorate and be toothless creatures, supplicants of the provincial treasury -- complaint bureaus unable to raise funds or decide on a budget.

I would like to conclude this presentation on behalf of the Durham Board of Education with these final comments. Change is inevitable; however, it should be planned, inclusive and focused on students.

Bill 104 speaks of accountability, effectiveness and quality but reduces the accountability of locally elected representatives. It neither suggests how quality will be measured nor indicates which instruments will be used to measure or evaluate the effectiveness of legislation. The fiscal destination has not been identified. We have not heard how much education should cost, just that it is too expensive. Will quality be measured against an unknown financial measure?

In education we expect the modelling of learning throughout the learning continuum. The role of an unfettered, unelected body, the EIC, making decisions for locally elected officials betrays our history. When did local democratic practices end?

If there are fewer dollars with more power centrally and less locally, will programs and services disappear? Will outsourcing and privatization result in a decrease in the standard of education? The classroom already has been affected; what will be the new standard? How will these changes improve student learning?

We recognize that Bill 104, the Fewer School Boards Act, is just one piece of restructuring of education. We are concerned about the funding of education and will apply to appear before you again on that topic when the legislation is available.

I thank you for your time. We've summarized the questions on the following page. Appendix A is an analysis of property tax increases. Appendix B is an analysis of the enrolment growth and per pupil grant decreases for the Durham board. Thank you.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you for being here and for using a good part of your brief to explode two of the myths that I think are driving these so-called reforms: one being that the system is broken, and your board's award is a clear counter to that; and the other that boards are out of control in terms of their funding. The blatant selective use and misuse of data by this minister to make that case is well refuted by the arguments and the reality you've presented in your brief.

You've raised a number of questions. I don't think there are answers to most of them. The development charges question we need to put on the record at the conclusion of this session. My question to you is just, do you see the role of school trustees even continuing given the fact that you'll become a complaints bureau and nothing more?

Mrs Schedlich: Yes, I do. I believe that will be a big part of it. The previous speaker talked about who would run as a trustee. I would question the quality of people who would be available to run.

Mr Wildman: If I could attempt to answer some of your questions, why not? On page 5 you ask, "Is there a projected budget cost for the services of the EIC and the implementation of this bill?" As far as we can tell, no. "Will these expenses add to the out-of-classroom category of expenses?" Yes. "Will the EIC become a permanent level of bureaucracy?" Maybe.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Mr Wildman. Perhaps you could respond to the other questions we haven't had back from the government yet.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you very much, Ruth Ann and Bobbie, for appearing and taking the time today to come. It shows the dedication of not only the Durham board but the trustees in our area. I have the greatest respect for them.

I'd like to compliment the Bertelsmann activity, and I'll put it in the form of a question. You've said that you're one of the lowest-spending, largest boards. I read your material and press stuff and I'm well familiar with that, and you're to be commended for that. I guess I would put it to you this way: Do you think the funding model should start where the Durham board is, take it as a model board, world-recognized, and say, "Here's a board that doesn't spend any more than what the province considers to be a ceiling, to some extent," and start there?

Mrs Schedlich: To respond to that, John, in the past five years we have cut $5 million each year from our budget. Last year we cut $15 million. We personally believe we cut far too deeply. I'm hopeful that we're going to see a raise, that our grant structure will go up since we are so low-spending. I would certainly hope so.

Mr O'Toole: But you are world-recognized.

Mrs Schedlich: Absolutely.

Mr O'Toole: There's not enough money, I agree with you there.

Mrs Schedlich: We have cut too deeply in staff.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much for your thoughtful presentation.

Mr Wildman: Just as a point, there is another bill. The development charges bill, as you know, is part of the restructuring, the mega-week announcements. I would really encourage your board to make these points before the committee that deals with that legislation.

The Vice-Chair: Perhaps, Mr Wildman, you could share that with the delegation outside.

Mrs McLeod: I will pursue the same issue and ask it as a question for the parliamentary assistant to respond to. It's the first question raised by the board, "Will EDC funds continue to be available to address new pupil places in growth boards?" I would add to that, will the development charges that are now being levied and are required until 1998 still be levied to pay for existing construction?

The Vice-Chair: The questions are duly noted.

1800

DAVE CHAMBERS
DON BEATTY

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is David Chambers. Welcome, Mr Chambers. You have 10 minutes.

Mr Dave Chambers: My name is Dave Chambers. I'm a recently retired secondary school principal. I held that position for 15 years at the same school. Prior to that I served as vice-principal in two counties, Peel and Simcoe, for a total of 10 years. I hold degrees from Laurier, McMaster and the University of Toronto. I'm the co-author of a text. In my community, I am a past president of Rotary and Huronia Red Cross. I care about education and my community.

With me is Don Beatty.

Mr Don Beatty: By way of background, I worked for Imperial Oil in Calgary; I played professional football in Calgary and Hamilton; I ran a dairy farm for seven years; I served on municipal council in Brampton for six years; I taught in Fergus, Brampton and Simcoe county as a teacher; I was a vice-principal, a principal for 11 years and a superintendent for eight years.

We support the concept of the Fewer School Boards Act. Indeed, we believe that school boards should be eliminated entirely. We would replace their powers and authority by empowering the local school community, the parents and the staffs of schools. The funds made available could then go to schools and classrooms, where education really takes place. It is truly sad to think of the dollars that have been spent on salaries of administration and trustees over the last 28 years that could have been spent in classrooms.

Mr Chambers: The educational market is students and their parents, and they need to be in partnership with teachers making decisions about their schools. Only with such partnerships can we hope to have schools that are different, schools that focus on learning, schools that prepare children for a global economic and learning society.

School boards of today have distanced themselves from parents and teachers; they are restrictive; they discourage risk-taking; they are self-serving, concerned mainly with who should have access to knowledge and influence on decisions, rather than the content and practice of teaching and learning.

This was not always so. When I started teaching, here in Barrie, the board was made up of volunteer trustees. The agendas for their meetings were made up in conjunction with the two secondary school principals, who attended meetings as active participants. I was privileged to attend two such meetings. I was impressed with the flow of information and the knowledge these trustees had of their schools. These volunteer trustees had ownership of their schools. The parent councils of tomorrow could have the same knowledge and the same ownership. That depends upon your recommendations.

Several years later the board hired a superintendent, a fine person. However, with his hiring, a gap between schools and trustees was opened. Principals now had to submit items for approval to have them on the agenda. With the advent of county boards in 1969, this gap became a chasm.

Mr Beatty: When the Simcoe County Board of Education was formed, it shared a building with the separate school board. The total staff for both boards was approximately 50 people. There are now about 180 telephone extensions in the huge building next door housing the public school board.

Mr Chambers: Remoteness caused by layers of bureaucracy has disfranchised parents, principals and teachers. Today, boards are administratively oversized and autocratic.

Mr Beatty: In order to justify its existence, it is important for senior administration to supply the board members with evidence of hard work. I have here a program of studies for all subjects for public and separate school boards issued by the Ministry of Education prior to the county boards. As well, I have here the curriculum for mathematics for only grade 3, as developed by the Simcoe county public board.

Every board is responsible for providing curriculum for each subject. To do this, for each subject a subject council is formed, a steering committee is formed, a curriculum development committee is formed, an implementation committee is formed and an orientation committee is formed by the teachers out of their classrooms. Can you imagine the hours stolen from classrooms? Then multiply the process by 169, the number of boards at present in this province. My point is, it is preferable for teachers to be in the classrooms, guiding the learning process, to being at a meeting during school hours.

Meetings: How can we expect principals and vice-principals to be facilitators of learning when they are summoned to so many meetings? A teacher recently told me that a principal of that school came into a grade 12 class to talk to the teacher. When the principal left, the student asked who the visitor had been. It gives you some idea of the amount of time senior administration takes a principal out of the school.

Mr Chambers: You will probably be told by board representatives that they have downsized. A recent piece of information points out that the 1997 complement of superintendents will be 45% of what it was in 1993. However, it is my understanding that this 45% will still be twice the number of superintendents the same board had in 1973. I ask you, has this 100% increase improved learning in the classroom? Has it really made classroom conditions better to have 180 phone extensions to reach fewer than 100 schools?

As the bureaucracy grew, it began to see itself as the source of all information and decision-making, rather than as facilitators of learning. A couple of examples of how today it does not work: A few years ago secondary principals, after consulting with parents and teachers, presented their plan for grade 9 programming. A single superintendent rejected the plan without explanation, other than a memo starting with "I believe therefore...." The message to parents, teachers and school administration from senior administration is your beliefs, your research and your feelings are not important.

More recently, I wanted to install an extra chalkboard at our alternative school some five blocks away from the main campus. Despite having available the chalkboard, a truck, the tools, a teacher carpenter and willing staff to carry and hold, board policy required approval. Two weeks later, after the appropriate paperwork was completed and permission was granted by the appropriate supervisory officer, two employees from Barrie came the 45 kilometres to Midland to install the chalkboard.

These two examples of ignoring parents and teachers and the bureaucratic delay is demoralizing and unacceptable, but all too common. This is at a time when all research states that in reality institutions can no longer survive using the patriarchal, high-control systems of the past; instead, a redistribution of power and control must occur.

It is on this basis that we make the following recommendations to the government.

Mr Beatty: Eliminate boards and establish guidelines for site-based management of schools; direct per-pupil allocation of funds directly to individual schools; establish provincial curriculum, with the local schools responsible for delivery and structure; utilize the ministry's regional area offices to handle long-range planning for such things as the building of new schools.

Mr Chambers: You will be told there are insufficient parents willing to give the time and accept the responsibility of an empowered parent council. Nonsense. There are lots. They just don't wish to be used as fund-raisers. In Edmonton, the government made parents true partners in their children's education by empowering parent councils. They have no problems finding extra volunteers.

The Vice-Chair: You have slightly less than two minutes.

Mr Beatty: Reflecting on my career, I would have better served education and my students if, as a principal, I had always been available in the classroom and if, as a superintendent, my salary had been spent in the classroom. Voluntary school councils, in cooperation with principals, can provide the educational leadership needed in a community. It was done prior to 1969; it can be done again.

The Protestant separate school board in Penetanguishene has operated on this format since before Confederation. The same board had the lowest per-pupil cost in the province. I was at the Protestant separate school this week, a school of 250 students. They are in the process of renovating the board office to provide a room for their very first superintendent, whom they have just hired. No doubt they will another phone line.

They are also in the process of dropping junior kindergarten. You can imagine what that will do for education and what it will do for per-pupil cost. In Wales, where big school boards have been eliminated, a secondary school of 1,100 students was assigned 19 extra staff.

Mr Chambers: Gerald Caplan has said democracy cannot be served by enlarging boards and entrusting parents, yet can any of you tell me what could be more democratic than parents elected by their peers to deal directly with the staff and issues of their school?

Phones: Reference has been made to them several times. What should have been a single call took six weeks of paper chase to obtain the appropriate supervisory officer's approval to put a phone extension into the classroom of a handicapped teacher.

The Vice-Chair: Mr Chambers, please wrap up. You're past your time.

Mr Chambers: The present bureaucratic system is not working. We ask you to provide parents with the opportunity to be shareholders of their child's learning.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, gentlemen. The clock has run out.

Applause.

The Vice-Chair: I remind the audience that there are no demonstrations of affection or otherwise permitted at committee hearings. There's no time left for questions.

1810

CLIFF MORRIS

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Mr Cliff Morris. Welcome.

Mr Cliff Morris: Mr Chairman, members of the committee, I'm glad to have this opportunity to express in a fairly general way concerns about what is taking place in the move towards the Fewer School Boards Act. The designation of the act itself is an indication to me of the kind of abusive language that is occurring.

I note a number of other things about the use of language in education as it's being presented to us by the minister and the ministry. In this morning's Globe, for example, there's a reference to Ontario's -- listen to it -- Education Quality and Accountability Office. What a name for an office that has to do with the teaching of children at their very youngest ages. This was in reference, of course, to the testing and evaluation of grade 3 students in reading, writing and mathematics. Joan Green is described as the chief executive officer -- note the business language that is coming into education -- of the accountability office.

Rather than repeat some of the things that have been said in the last half-hour as I've been listening, I'd like to turn to a column by Michael Valpy of the Globe on January 17, where he refers to the presentation by John Kenneth Galbraith of the first annual Senator Keith Davey lecture at the University of Toronto. He says:

"Mr Galbraith spoke for the better part of an hour about the socially concerned people and others, a magnificent address given against the backdrop of Mike Harris's destruction of Red Tory Ontario. As the 88-year-old Mr Galbraith moved to his majestic climax, he spoke of the socially concerned people who began building the welfare state at the turn of the last century as a necessary response to urbanization, with its severing of family ties and secure employment.

"`History dictated then that the welfare state be built,' he said. `History today, recording the social and economic turmoil at the turn of this century, dictates that the welfare state be maintained. Those who would destroy it,' he said, `are acting against history.' He finished; he slammed shut what appeared to be a very expensive leather binder on his text. his voice had tired noticeably in his last few words. He had to be assisted from the stage. His audience, hushed for a moment, swelled to their feet and applauded and applauded and applauded."

We have been looking at what has happened in the name of the deficit against the smash-and-rip policies that rent the safety net beneath society's most vulnerable people, against the dismantling of environmental and other protective regulations, against the destruction of quality-of-life services and national social policy standards and against the retreat of the state from issues such as early childhood education and regulated child care. I note that the proposed length of education has squeezed on both ends: We'll do away with the OAC possibilities, the 13th year, and we'll rule out early childhood education.

Governments and editorial writers have suddenly discovered child poverty, after years of campaigning by children's advocacy groups such as Campaign 2000 and other measures. I feel some concerns about what is developing, going back to the passing of the omnibus bill, Bill 104, the establishment of an Education Improvement Commission -- these Orwellian names, these lofty names -- to oversee the enormously complex job of cutting in half the number of province's school boards. I regret the authoritarian aspects of the bill in the powers of the EIC.

I am looking now at Gerald Caplan's editorial of February 14 in the Toronto Star: "In a real sense, existing school boards in Ontario have been put in receivership, with the role of democratically elected trustees summarily superseded by the unelected commission and its sweeping mandate." It goes on to describe the fine way of improving learning in Ontario that has been set out in Bill 104.

I recall Mr Snobelen's reference to manufacturing a crisis, inventing a crisis, and at the time he said that, he said, "Inventing crises is something we're not intuitively good at."

"So how do you make `enormous change' happen? `It's very brave work, you have to have an enormous amount of courage...you have to go through all kinds of false starts, mess, morass, nastiness...it's ugly. The only thing uglier...is living in a survival mode.'"

Then Caplan says: "Now it finally fits together. The `enormous change' needed is that Snobelen must wring an extra billion dollars from the education system to help pay for...tax cuts to the wealthy."

The Vice-Chair: Mr Morris, you have under two minutes to complete.

Mr Morris: Thank you. In looking back over a heap of press clippings that I have kept over the last two years, I'm heartened by the efforts that are being made at local levels to coalesce in opposition to what is developing. I'll stop there, Mr Chairman.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much, sir. We have really only one minute left, so rather than questions or comments, we'll just move on to the next delegation. Thank you for your time and for attending today.

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ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES UNION, LOCAL 330

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, Board of Education, Local 330, Michael Forgie, president.

Mr Michael Forgie: I'd like to begin by thanking the committee for hearing our submission. My name is Michael Forgie and I am president of Local 330 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. With me in the background are several members of my local who are seated in the audience.

Our local represents approximately 700 OPSEU members who work for the Simcoe County Board of Education. These members are all non-teaching personnel under the classification of support staff and include educational assistants, elementary and secondary office staff, technicians and board staff. Most of these members are also parents and have a twofold interest in what this bill can mean to them. Our board was fortunate, with the exception of our French-language board, that we were not amalgamated with another school board.

This presentation focuses on the issues in Bill 104 that most directly affect the lives of the 3,500 OPSEU members who work in Ontario's education system. These members are deeply concerned about the process being put in place for mergers and amalgamations and the attack on our public education system. As time does not permit us to give a presentation on all of these issues we would like to address, we urge the government to take into account the concerns of the practitioners in the field represented by the other unions, federations and groups like the Ontario Education Alliance.

Our two major concerns with Bill 104 are with outsourcing and successor rights. We are also concerned with the overall provisions of this bill.

Section 335(3)(f) of Bill 104 provides that the Education Improvement Commission shall "consider, conduct research, facilitate discussion and make recommendations to the minister on how to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services to district school boards." We are particularly concerned with the provision of Bill 104 which mandates outsourcing or contracting out of non-instructional positions, non-instructional jobs. This is the beginning of privatization of our school system. It really does discount the importance of support staff in our education system and the role they play in assisting teachers, principals and vice-principals in providing a good school atmosphere for our students.

What about the quality of non-instructional services? Does it matter if a contract agency handles our special education students as is currently done by our educational assistants? Does it matter if a contract agency handles student reports and staffs school and board offices? Yes, it does. Ontario's students deserve the best possible environment in which to learn. They deserve reliable, well-trained, well-treated staff in schools.

The problems associated with outsourcing in education, health care and other sectors show that service invariably suffers. Lower-paid and insecure staff have a high turnover rate, which can be detrimental when dealing with students.

If private companies take over non-instructional services, the companies' need to make a profit will dictate that there will be fewer jobs provided. They will pay less and they will not provide the benefits and fair working conditions that inspire loyalty and consistency in staff.

In the Common Sense Revolution, the government boasted that it would create 725,000 jobs during its term in office. This would mean 145,000 jobs for each year over the five-year term. In 1995, only 71,000 jobs were created. In 1996, it would appear that 80,000 jobs were created, and of these 45,000 were part-time. Just how will outsourcing help the employment picture when one of the first things a private contractor will do is cut jobs? This doesn't make sense.

There is a very serious question around the safety of kids if we have people who work on short-term contracts in a school and we don't know who they might be. We must remember that this government is closing psychiatric hospitals on a grand scale, and it is possible for a psychotic person to get work at some agency that didn't screen its workforce. That agency could in turn obtain a contract to service a school. This is a very serious concern and I think we must look at it very carefully.

The health and safety factor, which parents are very concerned with, will be threatened by the fact that strangers will be in and out of the school, and cleaning materials that are absolutely hazardous to the health of children will be used by an untrained workforce.

Support staff are often the first people students see when they arrive at school. They are often the first person to spot an intruder in a school. All support staff are known and respected members of the school staff and add a certain degree of security to a school because they know who should or should not be there. Temporary or transitory contract workers would not know who should or shouldn't be allowed in a school. In addition, teaching staff would not know if a person was a contract employee or was someone who just happened to be walking in from the street.

We must emphasize that by seeking to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services, this government will be risking the very safety of our children in Ontario schools. Parents and communities want support staff in their schools that they know. They do not, for instance, want unknown people from a private, for-profit cleaning company to have contact with students.

"Outsourcing," the new term for contracting out, will not solve the problems associated with the cuts to education imposed by the province and the reluctance of trustees to raise the necessary funds to maintain quality education. The belief that contracting out such services as office and clerical, educational assistants and technicians will provide the same range and quality of services at a lower cost is strictly that: a belief. Private companies promise quality service at bargain rates but the service will never live up to the previous standards set by board employees.

Private companies generally low-ball on their bid in the first year. Often private companies will require the contractee to replace older equipment, with substantially higher costs, and possibly force the board to fund training for employees. Eventually the board will end up with inferior service at a similar or higher cost. The community will suffer because private corporations will attempt to provide the minimum standard of service in the cheapest way, usually with fewer workers. The local community will lose out because of the lower salaries and benefits for workers in the area. The lower the wage, the lower the spending. Such an economic strategy is simply unacceptable, especially in a province where the real unemployment rate stands at 14.2% if you take into account the discouraged worker data.

Private employers will try to shave costs by cutting back service, and everyone -- teachers, students, support staff and administrators -- will have to pick up the slack. More time will be spent on picking up that slack than learning. Public sector employees are often able to achieve a higher standard of service. They are more responsive and flexible to changing circumstances. Private contractors will stick to their contracts and only go beyond if paid extra.

Labour relations will deteriorate because private contractors are not party to the collective agreements that cover the employees that the private contractor has been hired to manage. Employees are often treated like cogs in a contracting-out machine rather than valuable workers.

Plain and simple, everyone loses but the contractor. By giving up day-to-day operations, a school board will give up much of the control over the quality of services. Private firms are accountable only to their shareholders and the bottom line is their chief concern.

OPSEU believes that the process underlying Bill 104 and the education finance reforms will undermine school board bargaining with educational workers. How will the hundreds of collective agreements between school boards and employees be dealt with? Who will represent the newly merged employees who are currently represented by different bargaining agents? These are questions that should have been considered before embarking on this bill.

The hardship that may result: This committee must consider the many issues which can arise out of the various mergers and then bring down recommendations. To facilitate this process will require a separate set of hearings to analyse what can possibly occur. To do otherwise would do a great disservice to the staff, students and the community.

If a dispute arises, OPSEU believes that it would have to be settled using procedures outlined in the Ontario Labour Relations Act and by practices established by the Canadian Labour Congress.

We maintain that there must be provisions to ensure that staff are guaranteed the retention of all rights and entitlements held under existing collective agreements. This committee should include as part of its recommendations that there be full and timely disclosure of all relevant information by government and school boards to employee bargaining units; that there be an active role for bargaining units equal to that of school boards in all discussions with respect to employment or other matters related to school board reduction/amalgamation; that current employees be guaranteed job protection; that there be full recognition of accrued seniority; that employees be entitled to the form of contract to which they would have been entitled if there had been no school board reduction or amalgamation; that there be full recognition of category placement and experience; that there be full recognition of vested benefits, ie, sick leave credits and service gratuities; that there be protection regarding maximum distance for involuntary transfer.

OPSEU believes that all affected staff should be treated fairly and equitably. It is our position that prior to the establishment of any board amalgamation which may result in new bargaining units, employees should be guaranteed specific protection.

1830

When Egerton Ryerson founded our school system in the 1840s, Ontario's provincial government recognized that local schools would be the foundation of our province's social, economic and political development. To help them meet their mandate, the province shared its constitutional responsibility for education with locally elected and accountable school boards. To ensure stability of funding, boards were given the unique power to set a local mill rate for educational purposes. This power was independent of that of other local governing bodies. Municipal councils were obligated by law to pass on unaltered the mill rate struck by the local board of education. In these ways, the province ensured that the interests of the province's children were respected and protected.

The real purpose of privatization and outsourcing is to enable governments and school boards to cut salaries, eliminate benefits and break unions. It is a means of imposing losses on public employees. Privatization and outsourcing will enable the government to cut back services and allow privateers to skim off the best clients. The real message and design is to break public sector unions and employees and to cut back services.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union is deeply concerned that Bill 104 is, in reality, a vehicle that allows total provincial control of local education for purposes of spending reductions. To any measures that lead in that direction, OPSEU is firmly opposed.

Bill 104 represents a serious threat to our children, to our schools, to our communities and therefore to our future as a democratic society. This bill is so fundamentally flawed in so many areas that it must be withdrawn in its entirety. We will not be satisfied by minor tinkering or amendments. We want it to be withdrawn completely.

In closing, I would like you to remember back to the days when you were in public school. I am sure you recall the custodian. I am sure you recall the secretary in the front office and the things she did over and beyond typing. These support personnel provided you with a security and a sense of stability that eased your learning process. Please consider this short submission along with the hundreds of others which say, "The system isn't broken, so don't break it."

Please don't sacrifice the future of our children in Ontario because you've made a horrible mistake on Bill 104 and you don't know how to amend it. We can give you lots of suggestions on what to do, the simplest of which of course is to withdraw the bill completely. All of this is respectfully submitted.

Ms Lankin: We're pleased to have you here and very pleased to have the presentation. The section of the legislation that you refer to with respect to contracting out was one that surprised me, because it says that the Education Improvement Commission shall "consider, conduct research, facilitate discussion and make recommendations to the minister on how to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services." There's no discretion there, there's no examination and there's no research to find out whether or not it is advisable or more cost-effective. You referred to many studies, and I'm aware of a lot of these, that have shown that in fact it isn't more cost-effective and it isn't better in terms of quality of work. Could you share your sense of some of that with the committee?

Mr Forgie: One of the things that comes to mind that I didn't mention, which is in this report, is Servicemaster. Servicemaster is on record currently right now as being one of the companies that has coercively made their employees perform work prior to their actual time of going on work. Just let me find the section. They have also made their employees pick up more work than they had previously done. So that's one of the bases of the contracting out.

Mr Froese: Thank you for your presentation. I met with a number of your colleagues in my riding, CUPE in particular, and we had a good conversation. There wasn't the normal rhetoric that is done by so many CUPE locals, probably because we knew each other fairly well, and we discussed this issue at length.

I have some sympathy with respect to the outsourcing, and like I said before, we discussed it at length. When we do look at that, and we are, according to the bill -- and there's latitude for the Education Improvement Commission to look at that -- in my opinion there are some things that can be outsourced and there are probably some things that can't be, but would you agree with the statement, "The best possible service for the best possible price for the best deal to the taxpayer"?

Mr Forgie: Not necessarily, because what you're looking at there is the monetary aspect and not necessarily the aspect of the student. I think the biggest problem with outsourcing, and I stated it already, is that the lower-paid worker is not going to be as consistent as -- and I'm definitely not saying we're higher-paid workers, because we're not, but at least there is consistency with us because we are earning a wage that matches what we want to earn. When you start bringing the monetary aspect into it, you're not looking at the student's concern, and that is our concern.

Mrs McLeod: I appreciate the comprehensiveness of your brief. You've dealt with a lot of issues. I too am going to come back to an item at least related to outsourcing. I appreciate the emphasis that you and others who have presented have placed on how important it is to have that continuity of personnel who understand the school setting; how important that is to students.

I think the outsourcing issue may be even superseded by what we read in the Globe and Mail or in the Star today, that we've been concerned about for some time, which is that the government may be negotiating a turnover of all school capital construction, school maintenance, perhaps secretarial staff and school busing to the municipalities themselves. I would just ask you to comment on what guarantees there would be that there would be any continuity of personnel, let alone the dollars that are now going into support being maintained.

Mr Forgie: I would say once again, you do run into that problem of continuity. At least when you have one employer, you generally have one wage and that wage promotes the continuity of a person staying at their job.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We appreciate your being here this evening.

GREATER BARRIE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Oh, I apologize. I looked at the wrong one. It's the Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce, David Wismer, second vice-president. I apologize for calling that out of order. Sorry about that. CUPE, you're up next. Run me out of town.

Mr David Wismer: I'm not sure that the chamber of commerce wants to be -- we have a different philosophy than CUPE, I think.

The Vice-Chair: Welcome, Mr Wismer. I apologize. I was reading the wrong name on the list. It's been a long day. You have 15 minutes, sir. You can use the entire time or you can leave time for questions from the three caucuses. Please begin.

Mr Wismer: I'll be quick for whatever questions. As you've just received our deputation, I'll read it into the record.

My name is David E. Wismer. I am the chair of our governmental affairs committee and the second vice-president of the chamber. On behalf of the Greater Barrie Chamber of Commerce, I would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak on this very important bill.

Since we are a business-related organization, we feel strongly that governments need traditional fiscal values and responsibilities in producing bottom-line results. It is our opinion that this bill goes a long way in achieving those objectives. The reduction of school boards across the province will provide significant savings at little social cost in the classroom. Also, combining the various French-language boards, sections and advisory committees into 11 boards should give that part of our provincial population a better governance system.

The Education Improvement Commission will have its work cut out for it. It would appear that the time factor will work against them in organizing the new boards etc to meet the January 1, 1998, deadline. However, it is our view that that deadline should be kept. The ministry in the past has given indications that it was going to proceed in a certain direction and then changed its mind. An example of this would be the deliberations around the so-called toolkit.

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There are several specific sections of the legislation which we draw your attention to. Section 341 restricts the powers of existing boards. This is obviously a good requirement, but in a fast-growing community like Barrie it may cause some problems if the commission is not flexible in its thinking. Also, section 342, subsection (8), seems a little draconian. It would appear that 14 days is not sufficient time to complete any meaningful report; perhaps by the end of the month would be more appropriate.

In the preamble to the bill, the words "accountability," "effectiveness" and "quality" are used. It is our suggestion that benchmarks be placed in the bill to give meaning to these words. As an example, an annual report to the Legislature by the Minister of Education should be mandated on the state of education in the province. This would be similar in stature to the budget speech. This would allow the public to have a dialogue on the matters at hand and give the government a more focused direction to the objectives that were stated by the minister.

In conclusion, we believe the bill to be an excellent start in reforming the educational system. There are still a number of items on the administrative and operational side, such as pupil-teacher ratios, change of school year, designated management and union membership, curriculum etc that have to be reviewed so that the province remains competitive in the world marketplace.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Mr Tascona: I'll take up part of the time perhaps. It's good to see you here, Mr Wismer. You have a little bit of political experience, having been on Barrie council, and perhaps you can share with us. As you know, Barrie is a fast-growing community, and you said it may cause some problems if the commission is not flexible. Do you want to just elaborate on what those problems might be?

Mr Wismer: As we understood the bill, the commission obviously has to direct the affairs in the transitional period of the existing boards to the new boards. In section 341 it goes through a lot of things that existing boards should not do after their budgets are processed for this coming year. I think there was one example that nothing could be changed in expense items over $50,000. It may come to pass that there's some land to be bought or opportunities that present themselves, and with the appeal process the board has to go back to the commission in order to make a difference on this $50,000 requirement, then the commission has to act fairly quickly if they want the best bang for the dollar. It's not necessarily going to be a big problem, because most of those types of development things are done, obviously, over longer time periods, but there may be some decisions that come up that were not able to be fully explained in the 1997 budget that wouldn't get decided on under the present arrangement.

Mr Tascona: With respect to outsourcing, and you may have heard the previous presentation, as a principle the chamber obviously believes that if it's appropriate, outsourcing should be considered in non-instructional areas. Do you share that belief?

Mr Wismer: Oh, yes. I think your colleague expressed it earlier on, that we're all trying to get the best bang for the dollar.

Mr McLean: I have a question for you, Mr Wismer, and it concerns the number of board members we have. In six other provinces, they've reduced their school boards by an average of 61%, including every Liberal government. In Newfoundland, they've gone from 27 to 10; in PEI, from five to three; in Nova Scotia, from 22 to seven; New Brunswick has gone from 42 to zero; in Alberta, from 181 to 57; the proposal in Quebec is 158 to 70. What would your reaction be to what they've done in other provinces and what they're doing here in Ontario?

Mr Wismer: It's our view that the children in the other provinces appear to be getting as good an education as we have in Ontario with a smaller number of boards. I don't know why Ontario children would be any different than anybody in Newfoundland or any of the other provinces.

Mrs McLeod: Before getting into the area I wanted to chat with you about, I should note for the record that while public boards and separate boards are indeed being amalgamated and reduced in number, there's actually an expansion of French-language boards from, I think, the existing four to 11.

Mr Wismer: That's correct, yes.

Mrs McLeod: The area I want to ask you about is the companion piece to Bill 104, and I raise it because it was part of what the minister spoke of when he introduced Bill 104 to the Legislature. It's his intention to take education off the residential property tax and to pay 100% of the cost of education. In my home community, the chamber of commerce has expressed a great deal of concern about what that will do to business taxes locally and particularly to small business, because they continue to pay the commercial tax and it will be levied in some way by the Ministry of Education, which is the first time that we'll have direct provincial taxation of local properties. Of course the businesses will also have to pay their normal share of the costs that have been offloaded as a result of the transfer, the price that's paid for taking the tax off the residential property. Is that a concern for the local chamber as well, the effect of that increased business tax on local businesses?

Mr Wismer: Not per se. I think our constituents or membership will only get concerned if the actual value is more than what they're paying now. Obviously, if a business is paying X number of dollars and all of a sudden that's going to go up by 20%, then sure, there's going to be some squawking about that. But it's not our understanding that that's the theory behind it. In other words, everything is supposed to stay level.

Mrs McLeod: The government believes the overall may stay level, although I would be prepared to debate that, but with businesses there's no question the business continues to pay the $2 billion-plus.

Mr Wismer: But they're paying that now, aren't they?

Mrs McLeod: Yes, but on top of that the businesses in each community then have to take that community's share of the increased costs. It's to be a revenue-neutral shift, supposedly, but the part that gets shifted back to the municipalities gets spread between the business base and the residential base. It's possible -- I doubt it -- that taxes would go down for residences, but for businesses they can't do anything but go up unless there's a massive reduction in the services, in the housing costs, long-term care, all of the services that are being shifted. Otherwise, it's virtually inevitable that business taxes would go up.

Mr Wismer: That may come to pass. At least here in Barrie, we're waiting to see how bad it's going to be, if it is going to be bad. Where we're coming from is that, as we mentioned in our opening statement, we have to try to be fiscally responsible, so we have to give the government a crack at it. Like any set of constituents, if they haven't got it right, then obviously things are going to go for the high jump, aren't they? But until they do, I'm not sure we're going to worry about it.

1850

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. At the outset you say that the reduction of school boards across the province will provide significant savings at little social cost in the classroom. I guess you mean in terms of the education of the kids.

These are government figures, Mr Snobelen's figures. The total expenditure on education per annum in Ontario is $13.5 billion, approximately. Mr Snobelen also says that the savings accruing from the passage of Bill 104 will be $150 million, which is a lot of money but works out to a little over 1%. So it won't be that much going back into the classroom, even if it all goes back into the classroom. The other concern is that he has also indicated that he wishes to take more money out of education, so the question is whether or not it will go into the classroom.

Mr McLean mentioned other jurisdictions, and I would point out just in passing that there are fewer students in all of New Brunswick than there are in the city of Toronto. But in other jurisdictions where amalgamations have taken place, and where studies in Ontario have been done about amalgamations, they've indicated that the actual cost of bureaucratic operations goes up, not down, in bigger organizations. I'm wondering about that. What you were just saying to my colleague from Fort William was that we should see what happens, and if it doesn't work out, then we'll have to fix it after.

Mr Wismer: From a business point of view, the way we look at it is that if there's a problem -- and I think the problem here is balancing the budget -- what do we do to solve that problem? One of the areas of solving that problem is doing something with the education and doing the downloading and all that neat stuff. It's analogous to a company that finds itself in the same position, where the revenue is not equalling the outgo and so you've got to try something. It may or may not work. Look at Eaton's. They're trying something.

Mrs McLeod: That's a bit of a scary analogy.

Mr Wismer: They may come out of it, but the latest thing on those guys is that they're going to sell the place, they're going to sell the stores. Maybe that's not the greatest analogy, but my point is that you've got to try something. The problem and the debate that goes around it at this table is that we're all debating whether something is correct, and to some extent none of us around here really knows for sure. But the reality of it is that the government has the ability at this stage of the game to give something a whirl.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I'm sorry to cut you off, but we've used up our time.

CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, LOCAL 1310

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is CUPE, represented by President Stan Janes and past president of Local 1310, Jackie Pitocco.

Mr Stan Janes: My name is Stan Janes. I am president of CUPE Local 1310. With me is Jackie Pitocco. She is the past president of CUPE Local 1310, and she is now our public relations officer. She'll be sharing some of our time with you. I'd like to thank you for hearing our presentation on Bill 104.

CUPE Local 1310 represents approximately 400 maintenance and custodial employees in the Simcoe County Board of Education. Our maintenance employees are licensed personnel, trained in confined space, WHMIS, health and safety, and fire and tornado procedures. We also assist in fire drills and are on 24-hour call to the security service that monitors the school buildings.

Our custodial employees are the first to arrive at the schools in the mornings and they're among the last to leave in the evenings. We strive to maintain a clean, healthy and safe environment for the students and teachers in our schools. Our duties include, but are not limited to, changing fluorescent lights, checking the water supply and fixing flush valves, fixing broken desks and equipment to save the school money, painting, washing furniture, cleaning walls, washing and waxing areas to make them safe for everyone and meeting the needs of community groups using the school premises.

Many of us have worked in the schools for several years. The children know us and feel safe at school with us there. In short, we are an integral component of the school community. Our members are very much a part of the communities they live in, as well as members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1310.

In July 1995, John Snobelen publicly stated his intention to invent a crisis in Ontario's education system, a crisis that would justify the kind of radical reforms his government wanted to make. Not surprisingly, our schools have come under a constant barrage of criticism ever since the charges were made. Each one of them is disputable: Education spending is out of control; too much money is being spent outside the classrooms; our students are graduating without a good education; teachers are overpaid and have too much control over education. I wish they could see the teachers, the secretaries and the custodial services that I see; they might change their minds on that.

Bill 104 is nothing more than the predictable outcome of this propaganda campaign. If Bill 104 is passed, the government will begin to exert a new control over Ontario's education system, starting with the establishment of the undemocratic Education Improvement Commission.

Bill 104 is the government's first big step down the road of privatizing Ontario's schools. First, non-instructional services will be outsourced. Next, no doubt, will come the handing over of construction and maintenance of schools to the private sector, then charter schools and, finally, privatization of curriculum and even teaching, as exists south of the border.

CUPE Local 1310 does not believe that our public education system is broken. At least, it's not broken yet; it will be if this government gets its way. In fact, we wonder if that might just be the agenda: Break the system, then use the public dissatisfaction that is created to build public support for a private system.

This presentation will focus on the issues in Bill 104 that most directly touch the lives of the 400 CUPE Local 1310 members who work for the Simcoe County Board of Education. This is not to say that CUPE Local 1310 is not deeply concerned about the process being put in place for mergers and amalgamation, the government's intention to control and reform curriculum or the government's attack on the province's teachers. But time does not permit us to give a presentation on all the issues we would like to address, and we urge the government to take into account the concerns of the teacher unions and other employee groups, as well as our own.

1900

Bill 104 is an attack on jobs. Bill 104 is an attack on jobs in every community across the province. The Education Improvement Commission will be mandated to recommend to the government how to -- not whether or not to, but how to -- outsource all non-instructional services in the system.

It would appear that the privatization of tens of thousands of decent jobs is based on the government's constant contention that too much money is being spent outside the classroom on services like caretaking, maintenance and the school administrative services. It sounds like this government would like to return to the time of the one-room school house when students walked all those miles through minus 40 degree weather to get to school, the teacher swept the classroom, lit the wood stove in the winter, and the nice neighbours would shovel the snow, repair the roof and do any painting that was necessary. Students would never be bothered by intrusive school psychologists, speech therapists, guidance counsellors or special education assistants. And of course there were no phones and no photocopiers, so there was no need for expensive school secretaries. In fact, in those good old days, the system was probably run pretty cheaply.

Are the many services available in today's system worth the extra costs? Of course they are. We have a world-class education system, as was attested to when the Durham Board of Education and Sinclair Secondary School were awarded the prestigious Bertelsmann Prize for excellence in education last fall. These are not the only world-class boards or schools in the province. Our system is world-class because it is public and it has developed good processes of governance and accountability.

If the government is not suggesting that we can do without these important services in our schools, then what they must be saying is that employees should do these jobs for lower wages and in worse working conditions. This is an unacceptable job strategy by anyone's standards. The average CUPE Local 1310 member supports a family on less than $24,000 a year. CUPE Local 1310 members believe our education system and their jobs are worth defending.

Bill 104 is an attack on services. What about the quality of non-instructional services? Does it matter if private companies clean the school, maintain and repair the plumbing and the boilers? In CUPE Local 1310's and the Simcoe County Board of Education's experience, it very much does.

We can cite two examples in the Simcoe County Board of Education -- Birchview Dunes and the schools in Base Borden -- where the maintenance and custodial services were contracted out and subsequently brought back in-house, as a comparative study demonstrated that our members could provide higher quality service in a more efficient manner. We feel the Simcoe county board proved what we were worth.

Ontario's students deserve the best possible environment in which to learn. In fact, studies have shown that students do better in clean and comfortable learning environments. They also deserve reliable, well-trained and well-treated staff in their schools.

CUPE's experience with privatization in the education, health care and municipal sectors shows that service invariably suffers. Buildings are not as clean. Lower-paid and insecure staff have a higher turnover. Sometimes contractors go out of business, leaving the public to pick up the tab. Ironically, it can often cost more, not less, to contract out public services. Time and again we have seen that privatization is done only for ideological reasons, not because it provides better service and not because it costs less.

I'm going to turn the rest of this presentation over to Jackie Pitocco.

Ms Jackie Pitocco: When the Harris government attacks jobs, it attacks communities too. Yes, there will be private sector jobs in the schools if private companies take over non-instructional services, but the need to make a profit will dictate that there will be fewer jobs provided, they will pay less and they will not provide the benefits and fair working conditions that inspire loyalty and consistency in staff.

Taking money out of the pockets of workers takes money out of local economies around the province. Consumer confidence is already low. If Bill 104 is passed, landlords will find usually reliable tenants suddenly not able to pay their rent, banks will have former school board employees defaulting on mortgages and local retailers will see business fall. Such an economic strategy is simply unacceptable, especially in a province where the real unemployment rate stands at 14.2%.

Privatization will not only take money out of Ontario's local economies. Currently, large, American-based companies are best positioned to profit from the sudden and massive privatization of non-instructional services in Ontario's schools. Contracts with these companies will siphon taxpayers' money out of the local economy, the region and even the country.

Bill 104: the attack on democratic institutions. CUPE Local 1310 is very concerned about the establishment of the Education Improvement Commission. It seems that the government is unwilling to take full responsibility for the changes it is about to unleash on our schools. Instead, an unelected and unaccountable body will take over what should be the responsibility of elected politicians at both the provincial and local levels.

The North American free trade agreement and current negotiations on the agreement on internal trade also present serious considerations that must be taken into account. Provisions in NAFTA make it virtually impossible for services that have been privatized to be taken back into the public service, whether or not privatization works out. Once the AIT is expanded to include local government sectors, there is reason to believe that these provisions will also apply to school boards. If total privatization of non-instructional services were not to work out, boards could only take this work back in-house if the companies involved were financially compensated for all lost business now and in the future. Obviously the cost of taking the work back into the public sector would be prohibitive.

Conclusion and recommendations: Will Bill 104 "improve the accountability, effectiveness and quality of Ontario's school system," as it promises? No, nor is that the government's obvious intent. Bill 104 is designed to start privatizing large portions of the education system while giving the provincial government the control it needs to continue on that path, whether through charter school legislation, sale of schools to the private sector etc.

CUPE Local 1310 members will not stand by while their jobs are being eliminated. We will fight to maintain the high-quality services we provide and to defend the wellbeing of the communities we live in.

Our recommendations:

Reaffirm the need for the public delivery of education, acknowledging that a public system is more efficient and more equitable.

Defeat Bill 104 and engage in true consultation with stakeholders.

If meaningful consultation with stakeholders still results in school board amalgamation, establish a process that protects jobs, put fair workforce adjustment programs in place and protect the public delivery of all aspects of the system.

Return accountability to the hands of elected representatives -- MPPs and trustees -- not the unelected and unaccountable Education Improvement Commission and education improvement committees.

Ensure that elected boards of education are stronger, not weaker, and more accountable, not less.

Invest more, not less, in our public education system.

Finally, we would like to know where our local elected politicians stand on outsourcing services and just how it would improve our education system. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. You've used up the entire time allocated.

1910

SIMCOE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Simcoe County Board of Education, Lynda Murtha, chair. Welcome.

Mrs Lynda Murtha: Thank you, Mr Chair. As you have already mentioned, I am Lynda Murtha, the chair of the Simcoe County Board of Education. I'm also the trustee for Essa township. With me is trustee Gwen-Anne Walker who serves the Midland area. Our presentation will be brief because we would like to allow you the majority of our time to ask questions and hopefully we'll have all the right answers.

I will ask you to disregard the opening statement in our written presentation as we were not on the original agenda, so therefore prepared a written presentation, but after a few conversations with the clerk we did manage to get a space, so thank you.

Actually Trustee Walker has, on behalf of the board, compiled our presentation tonight. She has coordinated it, she's talked with individual trustees, and hopefully has represented a wide variety of opinions. As you heard from our first speaker of the day today, we do not feel unanimously in our board towards our presentation, but certainly an overwhelming majority of the board, by motion, has passed this presentation. So at this point I'll turn it over to Gwen-Anne Walker and hopefully have lots of time for questions.

Mrs Gwen-Anne Walker: I'm a single parent of two daughters, both of whom were educated in this county and both of whom are university graduates. I am a retired secondary school teacher. I served two terms on the municipal council in Midland, and I am now of course a trustee for the Simcoe County board. I think this perception and perspective entitles me not to be called a whiner. I realize it is a perception and perspective not necessarily shared by the perpetrators of the bill, but I do feel strongly.

On the political front, accepted opinions are not only inhibiting to the mind, they contain the very source of error. When a political ideology is universally accepted by the élite, it is high time free men were fighting it.

We are questioning certain elements of Bill 104 at this point because we feel that accepted opinions -- the waste, the overspending, the deterioration of the educational system -- are in error. That is not to say there is no room for improvement. We all agree that some change is necessary and/or good, including a reasonable reduction in the number of trustees and boards. But as trustees elected by the people, we are questioning the lack of planning, vision and time presently available to make these changes tenable. We also strongly oppose the concept and mandate of the Education Improvement Commission.

We refer to a lack of planning because no details have been forthcoming: number of trustees per board, salaries of staff and committees to serve the EIC, future funding models. There is the feeling that there is no real comprehension of the magnitude of these changes, and the limbo month of December 1997 is but one example. Strategic planning must include real consultation which is an absolute basis for effective change. For example, we in Simcoe county provided a massive consultative process which resulted in the acceptance of year-round education pilot schools, yet the ministry shies away from a comprehensive consultative process, which admittedly does take time, with the very people who are on the front lines. Has anyone really researched the outsourcing of services with regard to the real results in our schools? One solution may not be practicable for all boards. We, for instance, have found already that it does not work.

It is also difficult to accept the vision of someone who seemed to project a negative attitude from the beginning. The vision includes -- no details are given -- further empowering of school councils. From the feedback given to us, most parents are besieged enough with volunteer, family and personal commitments that they do not want further demands on their time and energy. There seems to be no recognition of the fact that the world has changed since Leave It To Beaver, when simplicity was attainable and everybody volunteered. Because of the increased workload, geographical territory and decrease in honorarium, the position of trustee will look much less attractive to the beleaguered public. It might have been better to point out the many exemplary practices of school boards in this province, and encourage others to adopt these in order to effect the positive changes that are necessary.

This government has formed an extraordinary commission which has a limitless budget by virtue of its limitless power to hire services and appoint committees. It supplants the very bureaucracy already expert and, although decimated, already in place, which it seems determined to eliminate. It is appointed, not elected, its power absolute and it is above the law. For much authority is the end of freedom.

Other trustee opinions include -- and these are our trustees -- the often-repeated belief that one publicly funded school system with allowances for special requirements would have really been beneficial in terms of governance change. Another is a reluctance to see our French-language section separated from us at a time when Canada is so desperately trying to reconcile its two identities. One trustee suggested that Simcoe county is a microcosm of Canada; fortunately a microcosm where French and English work together.

Another generally held opinion is that as well as local representation being eroded, a strong feature of our system, local control, will cease to exist because of lack of financial control under the new funding model. He who pays the piper calls the tune. There is a real fear in the community that educational equity is at stake. Although all boards will hopefully receive sufficient grants to maintain equity, the amounts may not be sufficient to provide the standard expected, and equity in education will therefore depend on the local community's ability to fund-raise.

The oldest problem of political philosophy is to justify authority without destroying the independence of human beings in the process. The theory of checks and balances translates into practical terms the concept of equilibrium that is inseparable from freedom in the realm of ideas. This presentation is an attempt to create a counterbalance to legislation which seems to ignore appropriate checks and balances and a true sense of accountability.

On behalf of the Simcoe County Board of Education, I would leave you with one further thought: While social transactions form the real picture of any civilized society, education is singular, irreplaceable and not to be matched by any other social transaction.

The Vice-Chair: We have approximately two minutes per caucus.

Mrs McLeod: Even leaving us time for questions, there's still not enough. I'm going to try to ask you three fairly straightforward questions as quickly as I can. You noted the concerns about the EIC, which we all have in terms of their power being above the law. You're not being amalgamated. Why do you think the EIC has to be given control over you as locally elected trustees when there are essentially no amalgamations taking place?

Mrs Murtha: Mrs McLeod, that's our question. However, they certainly do have the powers. We are currently in the middle of our budget process, which is why I've been coming in and out today and will be leaving directly from here, because we are having a budget meeting next door. The simple fact that we find ourselves quite frankly in a very difficult position this year -- we are now at the point of a $23-million shortfall -- the fact that that will have to be approved and may be amended and may not be approved, that to us alone; the fact that we are a very rapidly growing board here in Simcoe county and have several capital projects on the go, and now they are in some stage of limbo in that we are receiving very contradictory information as to whether or not we'll go ahead with those. So you're absolutely right, we have the same kinds of questions, that we are not being amalgamated but in actual fact we are having some restrictions.

I must say we are grateful that we are not being amalgamated. We have certainly heard from our neighbouring boards that are of the difficulties and of the extreme financial burden this will be on them. So we are truly grateful that we are not.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. Could I ask, in regard to your comments about consultation -- and you ask why the ministry shies away from it -- do you have any ideas about what is the rush? Why does this have to be done in eight months? Other jurisdictions have in fact amalgamated school boards: British Columbia, Alberta and so on. British Columbia took three years to do it, not eight months. Do you have any idea why there's such a rush here?

Mrs Murtha: Thank you, Mr Wildman, for the question. I honestly don't know. Certainly we can speculate and we can crystal-ball, and certainly the prospect of a provincial election in the not-too-distant future perhaps may be -- but I don't have the answer to that question either. We have far more questions than we have answers, there's no question about that. So I honestly don't know. I don't know why the rush.

We have already said, and many boards across this province have said, that we don't object to the change, and we would like to be a part of that. We would like to be consulted. We'd like to work with the government. So far we have not been given the opportunity. If perhaps there was a little more time to get through this transition process, it would be done correctly.

1920

Mr Wildman: Would it make sense to have the funding formula first?

Mrs Murtha: Absolutely.

Mr Tascona: I'd like to thank you for your presentation. I've got a couple of questions and perhaps you can just respond to them. We had a previous presentation from CUPE citing two examples of outsourcing and then that they were brought back. Was there any study conducted before it was outsourced or was the study conducted after the outsourcing occurred?

Mrs Murtha: When our board received by divestment from CFB Borden five years ago the students from CFB Borden, it came with contracts of outsourced custodial cleaner service. We simply finished out that contract, which gave us some experience with it. We certainly did a study before the end of that contract, and simply from a financial point of view decided that perhaps we might renew that. Also with a new school that we built in the Wasaga Beach area, we decided to go with a custodian-cleaner combination.

Having watched those two very, very carefully over the next year or so, we did another study and decided that, quite frankly, it just didn't work. It simply did not. To have cleaners come in just was not the same as having our own employees do it, both in quality and for many other reasons as well. It certainly did not work, and we studied it from two different perspectives.

Mr Tascona: Any studies you'd want to share with the committee?

The Vice-Chair: Mr Tascona, your time is up. I apologize.

Mr Tascona: I was just asking --

The Vice-Chair: Your time is up, Mr Tascona. There were two minutes allowed to each caucus.

Mr Tascona: On a point of order, Mr Chairman: I'm just asking if there are copies of the study they would wish to share with this committee, because it's an important issue.

The Vice-Chair: You may want to ask them. I'll remind you that it was the government that insisted on the time limitations on delegations, and your time is up.

Mr Tascona: I was asking for a point of order to ask that.

The Vice-Chair: It's been asked. If you would like to provide those to the committee, we'd be happy to receive them.

Mrs Murtha: We have always provided Mr Tascona with any information he wished to have. It's certainly public information.

The Vice-Chair: Mrs McLeod, you had a question for the ministry?

Mrs McLeod: Yes, a request for information. It follows on the apparent confirmation that there is serious consideration being given to transferring a number of the responsibilities for school maintenance, construction, secretarial staff and busing to the municipal level. I would like to have the knowledge of exactly what figures are being used in considering that transfer of funds. It's directly relevant to the whole question of the maintenance of funding for education. I would assume the Ministry of Education has already provided that material, board by board, to the municipal table that's considering this shift in funding and I would ask that it be tabled for our committee.

The Vice-Chair: That question will be duly noted and hopefully responded to.

Mr Skarica: If it's available, I'll table it.

Mrs McLeod: If it's not available, there is a major problem in considering shifting the cost to the municipalities.

Mr O'Toole: Mr Chair, on a point of order with respect to the Chair clarifying Mr Tascona's request that all members of this committee should get a copy of the studies, I'll tell you very frankly, I have a private member's resolution dealing with the issue of outsourcing, so it's important for me, where the experience is documented, to have access to that.

The Vice-Chair: Certainly. I understand that and perhaps next time you could ask the ministry, in order to extend the time. The problem I have is we have limited time. We still have a number of delegations to hear and everybody's been very understanding and cooperative staying within those time limits. Perhaps next time, in that sort of environment, you could pose the question to the ministry the way the opposition has been, to provide that information.

Mr Tascona: You cut me off too soon.

The Vice-Chair: No, I didn't.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chairman, could I make it clear in my question that I want five-year capital forecasts of each board.

Mr Wildman: Mr Chairman, just to be helpful, all the members could just accept what CUPE has told them and then they would know --

The Vice-Chair: Mr Wildman, please. Now you're being provocative unnecessarily.

Laughter.

The Vice-Chair: To the audience, I've asked today a number of times, no demonstrations.

ONTARIO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, SIMCOE DISTRICT
SIMCOE COUNTY WOMEN TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Ontario Public School Teachers' Federation, Simcoe district, Douglas Bailey, president; and Linda Sugars, president, Simcoe County Women Teachers' Association. Welcome.

Mr Douglas Bailey: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for affording us the opportunity to provide you with the grass-roots input that is so essential to the democratic process. We speak on behalf of public school teachers in Simcoe county.

Bill 104 is the first major school board overhaul since the amalgamation of school boards in 1969, when the present structure was created. That's about three decades ago. Despite what the government will try to have us believe, our system has served the taxpayer well. Without debating statistics, the product speaks for itself. We have produced and continue to produce outstanding graduates who have gone through our system and graduated to become citizens who make worthwhile contributions in Ontario, across the nation and around the world. Other countries that have seen our product are so impressed that they send their promising students as visa students in order to benefit from our OAC and university programs. Despite Mr Snobelen's beliefs, the system is not broken and gives good value to the taxpayers for the money expended. Nevertheless, Bill 104 is here and you are seeking advice.

Teachers are planners. Good teaching requires good planning. If you are fully convinced that change is necessary, make sure you know where you are going before you proceed. If we've waited this long to change, let's get it right. As we see it now, the left hand does not seem to know what the right hand is doing. The changes being suggested are massive, yet any planning done so far does not seem to reflect any evidence that any impact studies have been conducted before proceeding. Every morning my radio goes off at 6 o'clock and I, along with backbenchers, members of the opposition, the cabinet and the citizens of Ontario, listen to Metro Morning as we hear what new and undeveloped idea Mr Snobelen has launched on the Ontario school system.

Just the other day I received this pamphlet informing me of yet another new curriculum which will replace the Common Curriculum, which is not yet fully implemented in Simcoe county. He mentions a new report card. Will this replace the new report card that is just being field tested in Simcoe county this year? Let's hope so, because each set takes 80 hours to complete.

We've streamed, destreamed, specialized, employed phonics and used the developmental language approach. No wonder teachers get confused. Let's take our time. It seems to us that a well-planned initiative, thought out over time, will ultimately be cheaper and more successful than one rushed into place to satisfy some political initiative implemented as a smokescreen to hide the cost-cutting that is part of this bill. This educational reform is going too far too fast. Don't repeat the Bill 103 fiasco that you're going to be involved in tomorrow and today. Sound governance requires sound planning.

Trustees, as elected officials, are directly accountable to their electorate. Reduction of their numbers in already large geographic areas such as ours and creation of new large areas represented by a relatively small number of trustees will make it exceedingly difficult to ensure adequate representation.

There is a false assumption that parent councils are able and wish to take on the role of trustees in individual schools. A recent Toronto Star article indicates that the majority of parent council members neither want to run the school nor want to make decisions about which they know nothing. Parents want to be heard; they don't want to make the decision, but rather to influence the decision.

Leaving trustees with no ability to tax residential property will generate a greater reduction of existing services, for many boards such as ours have been paring and fine-tuning their operation over the last few years and they will experience even more erosion. While our board has tried to be fiscally responsible, we now have a huge deficit and we have eliminated vital programs, staff and support services as a result of the reduced grants. In fact, the mill rate in our county has been suppressed in comparison to other boards and the proposed provincial recommendations. As a growing board, our needs are more specific and demanding. We do more with less, yet it appears we will receive even less with our new structure, and statistics indicate that we will continue to grow.

1930

Ms Linda Sugars: The transfer of financing is a potentially dangerous concept. First, we believe municipalities will be blindsided once they get their first welfare bill. They will be clamouring to reassume the task of collecting education taxes on the property tax bill as they are doing at present.

Second, if you are convinced that the province should assume the financing, then fold down school boards entirely and be on with it by shifting to a provincial board of education. With no ability to raise local taxes, boards of education will become absolutely powerless.

The concept of an elected trustee is still an important one in democratic Ontario. Being citizens of Ontario, we have become accustomed to democracy and access to the courts when we believe a law has been broken or the rights of our citizens violated. The establishment of the Education Improvement Commission and its attendant committees is frightening. The powers afforded the committees to make decisions without appeal flies in the face of our democratic traditions. Why do they need such unfettered, draconian powers? If a decision is made, it must be able to withstand a challenge in the courts or else we will have turned over decision-making to an unelected and unchallengeable body in charge of the hearts and minds of our youth. The last time a country did that in this century, the results were devastating. That price is too high to pay, all in the name of some doubtful efficiencies we may attain.

Further analysis of Bill 104, with its emphasis on the EIC and its mandate, indicates that this small group of five to seven will have to contract the services of more experienced personnel if they are to make decisions on an ongoing basis, especially within tight time lines. It appears that the cost savings from reducing boards and trustees will be used to finance the salaries and contracts of appointed members who in turn may acquire their status as a gesture of tokenism. How can you justify this new system of governance when the members are appointed? How will the needs of diverse and unique regions be considered if all of the appointed members could come from urban centres? How quickly will they be able to make decisions if they must travel long distances to meet? It seems inevitable that these individuals will be earning large salaries and that they will have expenses incurred to get the job done. Where are the savings you are proposing?

This plan appears to be a sample of the proverbial shell game where things are moved around to confuse the general public with a shift in the decision-making base. In all likelihood there will be no ultimate dollar savings at all, and certainly no accountability, since the decisions of this group are deemed final and will not be subject to appeal or review. This impinges upon a fair and democratic process and this is certainly not what the taxpayers are expecting. For seven members to oversee the distribution of assets and liabilities of the existing boards and the transfer of staff seems incomprehensible, especially when they will have little working knowledge of the individual boards. The EIC will be a powerful decision-making group, and the membership base should be based on an electoral process rather than one of appointments. Certainly the elected trustees should have some say in recommending candidates for these positions.

If there is to be excellence in education, it will take a specific amount of money to educate a young child and to nurture them to be a lifelong learner. If you fail to do this, it will take much more financial support to help the older student who is experiencing difficulty. The proposals presented in Bill 104 strike a similar chord. Instead of nurturing and replenishing the work of school boards, you will be continuously striving to hold a barebones system together. This proposal is a gross injustice to the democratic process which will leave taxpayers with a limited voice in their children's education. The government should be focusing and directing its energy on a vision of the future of education which will provide strong support for classroom programs to ensure success for students as lifelong learners.

As teachers, we are also concerned about collective bargaining and seniority procedures. Bill 100 has served us well. Its record of success since inception is enviable.

Excellence in education, which you describe in your 1997 document, will only become a reality if you build upon a strong base of collegial consultation. We implore you to pursue this route and to acknowledge the strength that already exists in our education system with parents, teachers, administrators and trustees. The resources are there and we are partners in education. Let's work together.

The Vice-Chair: We have approximately four minutes in total left; that's a minute and a third for each caucus.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much for your presentation. As this bill is entitled, it says it's going to improve accountability and quality. Do you see anything in this legislation that will improve the accountability of the system or the quality of education for students in Ontario?

Mr Bailey: That's hard to tell because we don't know where we're going or what we're doing yet. In terms of helping parents to become more involved in the process, I don't believe that at all. On one hand we've got school councils, but I think the faith in school councils is misplaced. In the first few years, in the rush to get involved in it, sure, it's great, it's exciting, it's new. But as most school board trustees know, running school systems is really a lot of drudgery and hard work.

Mr Froese: In your report on page 1 you indicate that "our system has served the taxpayer well." On page 3 you say, "There's a false assumption that parent councils are able and wish to take on the role of trustees" and that "the majority of parent council members neither want to run the school nor want to make decisions about which they know nothing."

We had a presentation earlier today from Mr Chambers and Mr Beatty. I'll just quote some of the stuff, and this is what I'm hearing from by far the majority of parents and teachers of your association in my riding: "School boards of today have distanced themselves from parents and teachers; they are restrictive; they discourage risk-taking" -- and I'll condense it here for the sake of time -- "They are concerned mainly with who should have access to knowledge and influence on decisions." They talk about a simple thing like getting an extra chalk board when they have all the stuff readily available there and they take two weeks to process paperwork and get approval to do such things. They say that we, this committee, "will be told that there are insufficient parents willing to give the time and accept the responsibility of an empowered parents council. Nonsense. There are lots." Who's right here?

The Vice-Chair: I'm afraid there won't be time to answer that. Perhaps -- Ms McLeod, you have a minute and a third.

Mrs McLeod: I thought you were going to say perhaps I would answer Mr Froese's question.

We've heard from the representatives of literally hundreds of parent councils over the course of these committee hearings, and if there's one good thing to take from what's been happening, it's the way in which parents have said how much they value their relationship with their local school trustees. We've heard that over and over again.

The companion piece to this is educational funding. The minister entitles it "meeting the needs of students." Do you see anything in what's happening right now that will better meet the needs of the students in your classrooms in Simcoe county?

Mr Bailey: Under the shell game that's going on right now, no, I can't. Mind you, I know even in talking with government MPPs, the path of the Ministry of Education certainly isn't clear right now. I wasn't being facetious when I say we turn on the radio to find out what's coming next. I was talking to one of the Conservatives the other day and he said, "I have no idea where we're going."

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. We're out of time.

1940

PAUL FLEMING

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is Paul Fleming. Mr Fleming, welcome.

Dr Paul Fleming: Thanks very much for giving me this opportunity. I want to direct most of my remarks towards the Education Improvement Commission. If you've got my submission in front of you, you'll see on the front that I've listed some of my credentials. I'm a school psychologist, and have been for 23 years. Before that time I was a teacher. Currently I'm also a municipal councillor in Springwater township. You are in Springwater township now. I'm also director at the Royal Victoria Hospital. Those experiences also impinge on some of my comments.

I've entitled this Fiscal versus Cultural Restructuring. I'm a little surprised that we haven't had more of an academic flavour to the presentations. The Education Improvement Commission is supposed to be restructuring education in the province. There is quite an academic literature on which to base some judgements.

If you look on the yellow sheet -- I wish you wouldn't take too much time right now, but eventually -- this is probably the best summary of what the academic literature says about restructuring. Your research officer will probably supply you with more; at least I would hope so.

I had some thoughts about making this kind of a group projective, but by this time of the night I'm sure you're ready for something a little different, so I've given you some graphics rather than the usual print material. I almost wish you'd look at this thing for a second and find out, what is this guy really trying to say?

The front picture is really my interpretation of what Bill 104 is saying, as well as some of the pronouncements that the minister has said. Clearly the target is cost savings. The restructuring arrow has a lot to do with centralized curriculum, centralized assessment, reduction in bureaucracy and so on. That thinking has a lot of merit in the short term. If you flip over to the back side, you'll see an interpretation of what the academic literature says about restructuring, which is I believe more of a long-term issue. In the centre of the target we have students. I think that's much different than the fiscal issues, and it's really regrettable that the bill doesn't talk about students. It talks more about economics than anything else.

What we really want are students for the 21st century, students who will work in a competitive climate, people who are creative, lifelong learners, who participate in society, and quite a few of the other things that most of the members are familiar with. The way you get there is through this arrow. I've listed eight of the major themes in the academic literature: quality of learning experiences, integrated curricula, collaborative leadership and management -- these are givens. This is what the research is telling us will work in the long term. Again, there are a lot of short-term answers that have been suggested, but long-term, this is what we need to be looking at.

Of my own select four themes, the first one is CQI. A lot of you I'm sure would be familiar with continuous quality improvement. This is a management technique that hospitals are using to accomplish much better financial responsibility, much more accountability. I believe it's the way of the 1990s and the year 2000 and beyond. I think the prescriptive, autocratic, controlled ways of dealing with spending are ways of the 1950s. I would really like to see schools get more into CQI-type things, and I would hope the commission would look at in-service initiatives and getting people to work more as a collaborative team, establishing their own standards as much as possible.

The next section is taxation and local governance. I guess as a municipal councillor I am pleased to see the removal of education taxes from our responsibility. I'd really like to see, though, a 10% local levy continued. I took my master's degree in England and I saw what an education system looks like when you go to a totally site-based management. You do need some degree of local central control to provide leadership. I found that the teaching varied tremendously from school to school. I saw some of the worst teaching in the world; I saw some of the best teaching in the world. But you need to have trustees, I'm afraid. I think we need trustees paid to the tune of about $10,000 to administer a 10% levy and provide direction and a local identity.

Another issue is teacher morale. Last year I carried out a study in our own system looking at how you improve self-esteem in kids. Clearly, if teachers have high self-esteem, principals have high self-esteem and they're counted, and it's not an autocratic process, it's more of a CQI or true restructuring process, they will have high morale because they're part of the process. I think that's how you get to that target of competitive workers of the 21st century.

The last section is the contribution of parents. Again, I believe strongly in the need for school councils and parent contributions. I wouldn't be a very good psychologist if I didn't. But what I've seen so far in school councils are the beginnings of getting things to work. Right now I think schools are having some real problems trying to figure how to work with parents who have not worked in school systems before, who don't know a lot of the procedures. Likewise, the parents often come in with their own agendas. God bless them, I think they're trying very hard, but there's a lot of learning. So please don't assume that site-based management is going to be an easy process for school councils. We're going to need at least three or four years and a lot of work by EIC.

I hope I've given myself some time for questions. I'd really like to engage your thinking on this one because there is a quantum leap from what I think the bill is all about.

The Vice-Chair: We have four minutes left for questions, approximately a minute and a third per caucus.

Mr O'Toole: Thank you very much, Paul. Actually, I find your presentation very exciting as we've listened to some 80 over the last -- perhaps 100 now, this week. There's some commonality to that, but I compliment you on the creative nature of your presentation or challenge to us.

I just want to pick up, not in confrontation but as a sort of dialogue, intellectually kind of looking at things -- I respect that. I am a futurist myself in my own baggage. I think to the challenge of all educators and parents and indeed the entire community. Today when I look at the recent publication of David Foot's book Boom, Bust and Echo, and Nuala Beck's book on the end of work, looking at 21st century technology and change, I put to you that there would be no greater need for change, or at least evidence to examine change, before each one of us and all of the participants should be involved.

We may disagree with process, but don't you agree that there should be a significant swing here, as most of the work won't be factory work? You know that; I know that.

Dr Fleming: Absolutely.

Mr O'Toole: The world of work is profoundly, forever changed, not because of any government.

Dr Fleming: Mr O'Toole, I agree with you entirely. I think we are really at a great need for change. Again, I see the EIC as fostering that, but I just hope they look at some of the literature and again more of the collaborative stuff rather than the things that seem to be coming from an autocratic standpoint.

Mr O'Toole: I have two more little points, if I may.

The Vice-Chair: Very quickly, Mr O'Toole.

Mr O'Toole: The CQI approach I completely agree with. As you re-examine the organization and the organization's ability to measure itself, the expected goals, there have to be some measurable outcomes.

Dr Fleming: You've got it.

Mr O'Toole: If there aren't, it's a futile process. It's hypothetical.

The third thing is, the most responsible participant, whatever their academic background, has to be the parent. They are with them --

The Vice-Chair: Mr O'Toole, we're out of time. You have to pass it on to the opposition.

Interjection.

The Vice-Chair: You may want to have a chat afterwards. Very fascinating discussion. Mrs McLeod.

1950

Mrs McLeod: Certainly the parent councils that have come before us have all agreed with you that it's too soon to ask them to take on more responsibility; they're in a very definite learning curve. They've also said that even if they are ready at some point to take on more responsibility, they still want to keep boards of trustees. They feel that's important.

I agree with you, and I appreciate your bringing the British perspective, that if you don't keep some taxation base at a local level, the chances of holding on to boards are not great.

Let me put those points of agreement to one side for a moment, because the problem is that the minister is planning to control 100% of the funding of education. Noting that you're a school psychologist, that puts you in the group of people who are outside the classroom and part of the $6 billion in supposedly expendable expenditures of school boards. So I guess my question, and it's a very serious one because I don't believe there is a real appreciation of the support role that is absolutely critical if kids are to learn: Are you going to survive? If you don't, what does that mean to kids?

The Vice-Chair: Very briefly, please.

Dr Fleming: I wish I had an hour.

The Vice-Chair: You don't.

Dr Fleming: I really see us as part of the infrastructure. I wish I could take you through my day-to-day work where teachers are under enormous stress. I see myself as almost part of the CQI process in fostering people's thinking and helping them overcome a lot of hurdles that would really sludge up the system a little bit. I really wish I had a lot longer for that one, but thank you.

Mr Wildman: I found your presentation interesting and stimulating. One has to look at it in the context of a commitment to take another $1 billion out of the system, starting in 1998, from the provincial government.

I found your comments about the United Kingdom of particular interest. Site-based administration of schools appears to me to be a step towards charter schools, which in my view are simply private schools at public expense, a two-tiered system. Could you comment on that, considering your experience in Great Britain?

Dr Fleming: It really scares me. I think charter schools and so on are really overrated. I'm repeating myself to some degree, but you cannot understand how important local leadership is in the curriculum area, the consultative area and so on. Local schools can develop, but what they wind up doing is becoming very patchy in terms of they become very strong in certain areas.

Mr Wildman: The upper-middle-class ones largely.

Dr Fleming: Yes. And you get a moderating, I guess, thrust from the so-called central control, say in Simcoe county. Boy, there's a lot more I'd love to comment on in that one.

The Vice-Chair: I apologize, but the time just will not allow it. Thank you very much for your thoughtful presentation. I am sure other members may want to question you outside the chamber afterwards.

YORK REGION BOARD OF EDUCATION

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the York Region Board of Education, Dr Glaze and Bill Crothers. Good evening.

Mr Bill Crothers: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight.

The Vice-Chair: You have 15 minutes. You can use it all if you choose or save some for those long, rambling, minute-and-a-third questions by the three caucuses.

Mr Crothers: We'll try to save some time. First of all, my name is Bill Crothers and I am the chair of the York Region Board of Education. York Region is immediately north of Metropolitan Toronto. It's roughly 640 square miles, which is about 1,600 square kilometres. The current population is about 600,000, which is slightly more than double what it was 15 years ago, and in the next 20 years it is expected to grow to about 1.1 million. We currently serve about 80,000 students, which is expected to grow to about 140,000 in that same 20-year period.

With me is Dr Avis Glaze, who is the associate director of the York Region Board of Education. Avis has been a supervisory officer for about 12 years. She has served in four school boards, three of them as a supervisory officer. She's familiar to several of you, if not all of you, as one of the five commissioners on the Royal Commission on Learning. She has also just returned from being part of a ministry delegation which spent two weeks advising and providing support to the government of South Africa.

You have copies of our brief. I don't propose to read that to you, but there are a couple of areas we are going to highlight.

In our view, Bill 104 lays the framework for many profound changes to education in this province, but the most consequential changes are those which have yet to be introduced, specifically the new funding formula for education and changes to Bill 100. The minister has indicated that his new funding formula will be based upon the needs of students. If that is in fact the case, our board applauds that decision. The minister has also suggested there will be changes to the way teacher contracts in the province will be negotiated. Again, if that is the case, our board applauds the minister. But it's in that context that we want to make our comments on Bill 104.

We generally support both the intent and the content of Bill 104 but we have some suggestions that we would make to you. My comments specifically will deal with the issue of outsourcing, and I'll come at it from two perspectives. The first one is that we applaud the minister for advocating more outsourcing or consortium arrangements with neighbouring or coterminous boards and with municipalities. In our brief, specifically on pages 4, 5 and 6, we identify many areas where we have done just that, and we would recommend that the EIC examine the kinds of partnerships that are already developing in many areas of the province and provide incentives for boards to follow these examples.

We disagree with the notion of outsourcing school secretarial services, and if the ministry is contemplating advocating the outsourcing of custodial services in schools, we would recommend that as a first step the ministry, through pilot projects, develop unit costs for these services, build those unit costs into the funding formula, and then allow boards, in this as in other areas, to determine their own priorities.

The second area that concerns us is the directions being considered with respect to the downloading of costs to municipalities to compensate for the removal of education funding from the residential property tax. We did not agree with the decision to remove education from the property tax for two fundamental reasons. One was the difficulty of offsetting in an equitable manner the provincial expenditures equivalent to the amount of the education levy. That has been demonstrated by the difficulties that have arisen when the decision was announced, including the reaction to the downloading of welfare costs to municipalities.

The second reason was that in our view it was not necessary for the government to remove education from the property tax in order to control completely the amount of money spent by school boards. We accept that the government has a right to determine how much money school boards spend, and as I've mentioned already, we applaud the government if they produce an equitable funding formula which is truly based upon the needs of children because that, unfortunately, is not the case with the funding formula we have today.

The issue that concerns us most is the suggestion that the government is contemplating making municipalities responsible for school transportation and school properties. In our view, it's a myth that municipalities are better custodians of municipal dollars than are school boards. In York region, by example, expenditures by our nine municipalities over the past 17 years have increased at a greater rate than the expenditures in the York Region Board of Education.

The municipalities have been able to keep their mill rate increases below those of the school board because their grants have not been subject to the standardized mill rate factor which school boards have, and secondly, because they've been able to raise their revenues significantly by levying higher user fees. Our school board operates several times as many buildings as do the municipalities, with far higher daily use. Our current contracted transportation costs per rider and per vehicle, and our employees per vehicle, are far lower than any of the transportation services that are supplied within York region. We also serve the rural areas, yet our level of service is superior to that of the municipality.

If the government is determined to remove school board operating expenditures from the residential property tax, and if the government is considering downloading the costs of providing school transportation, new pupil places and the maintenance of school properties and buildings, we would recommend three things: (1) that school boards be given the responsibility for providing those services; (2) that school boards be permitted to levy property taxes to raise those funds; (3) that school boards, and in particular growing school boards, lead the discussions determining the criteria that would be required for implementing (1) and (2).

Avis has some comments that she would like to make as well.

Dr Avis Glaze: I would like to comment on three areas, and I'll do that very briefly: the issue of partnerships and cooperatives with neighbouring boards; the issue of the powers of the Education Improvement Commission and school councils; and the role of trustees. Let me say, though, that as a board we welcome reform. Although we have had excellent reviews from parents, in some instances a 93% satisfaction with our system, we still think there's room for improvement within the spirit of continuous improvement, so we welcome educational reform.

We ask, however, that there be a clearly articulated vision for education. Within York region that vision, for us, includes new accountabilities for staff, for parents and for the communities in which schools are imbedded.

2000

On the issue of partnerships and cooperative services, I am delighted to say that the York Region Board of Education is indeed a leader in this area. From as early as the 1980s, when these partnerships were not even contemplated by many, the York Region Board of Education has had a very strong relationship with the separate school board. They have shared services in a number of areas, and we have listed so many of those on pages 4 and 5 of our brief.

We also have partnerships with municipalities, with colleges and universities. In our board we have been focusing a lot on leadership development and we have universities, Nipissing, University of Toronto, OISE, and so on, all offering post-graduate courses within our school board. We value those partnerships and indeed we would want to ensure that school boards are encouraged to continue those partnerships.

In terms of the powers of the Education Improvement Commission, their powers are immense, they will have a dramatic impact on school systems, and we believe they should not be immune to the scrutiny of the courts. Therefore, we recommend that there be no impediments to seeking the scrutiny of the courts in relation to decisions made by the EIC.

In the area of school councils, we value school councils and we believe in parental participation in education, but we hasten to say that many of the parents from whom we have heard, and indeed from my experience going across the province, want involvement that has a direct impact on their children's achievement. They do not want to govern schools.

In that regard, we are recommending that the commission consider fully some of the experiences in other jurisdictions, such as Britain, New Zealand, Chicago, to name a few, when you contemplate the duties and powers that are best suited to school councils, in order to ensure maximum effectiveness. We know what's happening in some of those countries; let us bear that in mind. Let us give school councils time to work through their current mandate before augmenting their current responsibilities. Indeed, we would be advised to do some studies before we make some of the mistakes that have been made in other jurisdictions.

The role of the trustees: This is probably not a very popular topic, but I felt very strongly about this and wanted to say something about it. We believe the roles should be streamlined and in our board we will manage very well the reduction in the numbers from 19 to 11 or 12, but we do not support the remuneration that has been proposed for trustees. You may remember that both the Sweeney report and the report of the Royal Commission on Learning recommended figures of $15,000 and $20,000, respectively. I personally think that is very fair.

We're sending a message here that education is not important. Would we attract directors on boards of major corporations by offering similar stipends? We do know there will be restrictions as well in terms of the individuals who will seek these positions. Whereas our trustees are not in it for the money -- in fact, for many years they have been very responsible and they have not awarded themselves any raises -- we believe that if we value education and the work involved, the work of the trustees, this area of the remuneration should be reconsidered.

In summary, as a board we will live with many of the changes, but as we have recommended in our brief, there are some which need rethinking. In fact, we believe our board can be used as a model for areas such as interboard cooperation because we have had such a long history of cooperative services, of outsourcing and of working very closely with a coterminous separate school board.

We ask you and encourage you to build upon the goodwill that exists across the province and ensure that none of the cherished principles and values which we have will be abrogated as we chart a new course for education. Thank you.

Mrs McLeod: I'm curious. As a board not directly affected by amalgamation, so you don't have the transitional issues of amalgamation, and you're obviously a board that's proud of its fiscal accountability, why would you think the EIC needs to have anything to do with you in terms of controlling your operations for the next year?

Mr Crothers: There are probably a couple of responses to that. It may be not accurate to say we're not going to be affected by the changes. Geographically, we're not affected in that we're not merged, but Bill 104 provides a framework for some very significant changes to education in the province. We will be less impacted than many other boards in that respect. We're saying we don't have any particular difficulty subjecting ourselves to the scrutiny of the EIC, particularly if you put the restrictions on them that they're still subject to the courts, to the normal legal review or appeal procedures.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much. Whenever I meet you two individuals I'm impressed by your comprehensive and reasonable, knowledgeable approach.

I'll ask two very quick questions. First, your presentation seems to be premised on an "if": if the government provides a funding formula that meets the needs of students. Considering that there have been statements made by the minister that he expects to take another $1 billion out of education, that certainly is a big if. What kind of consultation have you had around the funding formula, and if the government is taking over complete control of expenditures and funding as well as curriculum, what is the role of the trustee?

Mr Crothers: There are two parts to that. Number one is that somebody's going to make that determination, and it's a big if. We've lived with the first round of reductions. We can manage and we can handle those, though they create difficulties.

What is the role of the trustee? People are making the assumption that because trustees won't have the right to levy taxes or set the mill rate, they'll lose their responsibility. The only thing they will lose is that final determination about whether to raise more money beyond what is contemplated through the normal funding mechanism or zero-based budgeting. Decisions will still have to be made on the priorities. That will not change. The only change will be the degree. In our particular case -- our budget is $512 million -- we'll lose the determination over that last $5 million or $6 million. But it just gets moved down the ladder. You still have to establish the priorities and you still have to make those decisions. That doesn't change.

Mr Skarica: I really enjoyed your presentation. I've met with officials of your board a number of times and I find you to be a most innovative board, and when you do criticize the government you do it in a positive and constructive fashion, and I personally appreciate that.

I want to talk to you about the outsourcing, your recommendation 1. We've heard that in parts of Ontario it's already being done. In Ottawa the francophone boards have had substantial savings and used that to better the education of their students. On the other hand, in northern Ontario I see other situations where it's not going to work at all, where you have perhaps one caretaker in an isolate board and he's part of the community. The private sector is just not an alternative. How would you see that working, your recommendation 1?

Mr Crothers: We don't have difficulty with the outsourcing provided that it's not mandated exactly how you do it. Our emphasis has been more on cooperative ventures. We already outsource our new school construction, our transportation services, a lot of our service contracts. For these things we're already doing outsourcing. In addition to that we're doing cooperative ventures, not only with our coterminous board but with our area municipalities as well. That's the kind of thing we think the government should encourage, and it should be the local decision as to the most effective way, whether it's outsourcing or cooperative ventures.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you very much. I wish we had more time to discuss these things with you.

2010

ONTARIO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS' FEDERATION, DISTRICT 27, SIMCOE

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, Simcoe, Donna Kenwell, provincial councillor, and Keith Speers, district president. Welcome.

Mr Keith Speers: I'd like to begin by thanking OSSTF District 10 Peel for offering us their time slot to present this evening. Our executive would like to know the criteria used to select presenters to such a committee hearing and we look forward to a response to our question.

Donna and I represent approximately 1,100-plus secondary school teachers employed by the Simcoe County Board of Education, which encompasses 14 high schools and five adult learning centres.

Let me start on a positive note. From a geographic perspective, we are pleased that the proposed legislation does not reduce or enlarge the area administered by our board. We have one of the largest boards in the province right now, except of course for northern Ontario. This does not, however, mean that our education system will not be significantly affected.

Although many Ontarians may seem to agree with Bill 104, assuming that amalgamating school boards, reducing the number of trustees and capping trustee honoraria will be beneficial to taxpayers, such approval may be short-lived as theory becomes reality. Even if only the financial ramifications of this bill are considered, there is no guarantee that less money will be needed from taxation for education, although it may be assessed by both provincial and municipal governments.

As teachers as well as taxpayers, OSSTF members are more concerned about how the Fewer School Boards Act will affect our classrooms and our students. This, we admit, is difficult to predict. Bill 104 is full of smoke and mirrors. Despite careful study and analysis of this legislation by OSSTF, more questions are raised than answered. As citizens with special responsibilities regarding the next generation, we are appalled by the anti-democratic nature of decisions made by Ontario's Conservative majority government, which exemplify irresponsible and unaccountable governance. Such misuse of power is a poor lesson indeed for our students and one which is difficult to explain and impossible to justify.

OSSTF Simcoe will address four major objections to the Fewer School Boards Act.

(1) I think you've heard this complaint before: the Education Improvement Commission. The Education Improvement Commission will have unprecedented powers despite the fact that its members are not elected and are apparently answerable to no one. Section 344 provides that the decisions of the EIC "are final and shall not be reviewed or questioned by a court." We fail to understand how any government body can have carte blanche authority to act outside the law, most particularly in a venue and with a mandate which will affect the entire population of this province.

What is the government telling the people of Ontario? Is it saying that democracy, fair play and equity no longer exist in Ontario? Why hasn't the present government proposed legislation which would provide for a clear and rational transition in the amalgamation of school boards? This was done in 1968. Why can it not be done in 1997?

We fear that despite public hearings such as this, decisions dictating fundamental and sweeping changes to public education have already been made, based primarily on cost-cutting rather than on quality or equal availability of service. Our scepticism has grown as we have watched the Health Services Restructuring Commission at work.

(2) School governance: The proposed transfer of responsibility for educational funding from school districts to the provincial government effectively silences the voices of those most directly involved with our schools. The right and the responsibility of locally elected representatives to set tax rates which respond to local needs has been removed, which is not to suggest that OSSTF has always agreed with our trustees' decisions in this regard. The Minister of Education and Training has promised that the province will distribute funding equitably and with due regard for special needs, but no formula has yet appeared. How is it possible to plan or to administer an educational program when future budget figures are a mystery and when spending will be overseen by the spectre of the EIC?

Governance of schools will also undergo a radical transformation under this legislation. Some authority will shift from trustees and senior administrators, if any remain, to school councils, which may make decisions regarding curriculum, discipline and even hiring of principals. OSSTF strongly objects to the devaluation of professional expertise clearly implied here.

We are also concerned by the possibility of biased or exclusionary school councils, which might readily assume power to pursue their own agendas. The current parent councils, particularly in the secondary panel, have relatively few members, and the majority of those members have been acclaimed and surely do not represent the full range of students. A version of this system was tried in Chicago a number of years ago and, with few exceptions, was notably unsuccessful.

To ad lib for a minute, I think you could compare parent councils to minor hockey, which I was familiar with a few years ago. You are involved until your child is finished with it and then you're out of there. I fail to see that there will be any continuity with parent councils whatsoever.

This concept adds another layer of bureaucracy to education, as did the government-imposed establishment of the College of Teachers, which was neither wanted nor needed, yet this government claims to be streamlining education.

Ms Donna Kenwell: (3) Staffing: OSSTF believes that every educational worker, like every student, is important. Non-instructional services provided by custodians and secretarial staff are essential to the day-to-day operation of the school, the wellbeing of students and teachers and the maintenance of a safe and healthy learning environment. Cuts in these areas are already all too apparent. Outsourcing or privatizing these jobs to save money is likely to result in poor service as well as being unfair to dedicated, long-term employees.

Mr Snobelen's promise that cuts will not affect the classroom might seem to have merit, but only until his classroom is defined. It includes only teachers, educational assistants and supplies. Glaringly absent are principals, vice-principals, guidance counsellors, teacher-librarians, speech, hearing and language specialists, special needs teachers, and heat, light and transportation. Nor is adequate attention given to capital expenses. Simcoe county is a growing board that serves an ever-increasing student population. Where will school additions or new schools come from, and who will pay for them? We strongly object to the suggestion that any of our members who are not classroom teachers can be replaced by unqualified employees.

(4) Collective bargaining: OSSTF is a large, effective union representing 50,000 dedicated professionals. In protecting the interests of our members, we also work to improve public education. During the past 78 years, teachers have become more qualified and better educated, with continuing professional development advocated for and provided by OSSTF. We have negotiated legally for smaller class sizes, special education for students with special needs, preparation time and the fair employment practices and compensation necessary to attract excellent candidates to the profession. We believe that despite some trials and tribulations, collective bargaining works to the benefit of the educational system. I believe that studies have shown that 97% of the collective bargaining that has occurred since the introduction of Bill 100 has been solved without the trials and tribulations of a sanction.

Ontario and Canada have been praised internationally for their fair and equitable labour practices and for the respect and dignity accorded to workers in all fields. Collective bargaining, which maintains these values in the workplace, is threatened by the current government. In this area too Bill 104 hints at, but does not definitely state, major changes to current practice. Will OSSTF continue to negotiate with what remains of our local board or will provincial bargaining be imposed? Will the EIC's overriding control of budgets make the entire process an exercise in futility? Will teacher unions even be recognized as bargaining agents in the future?

The uncertainty of our members' individual and collective future in Ontario adds to the high levels of stress already felt as the result of crowded classrooms and schools, shortages of supplies and provincial educational policy which replaces one program with another before curricula for the first is even in place. This is no way to run a school system.

2020

Mr Speers: In conclusion, we wish to emphasize that our members are not convinced that the sweeping changes proposed by Bill 104 will make the reality of education in Ontario more accountable, more efficient or better. The major thrust of this proposed legislation is cost savings. We can find little of proven pedagogical value in Bill 104. If the minister is serious about improving the quality of education in this province, why does he not consult relevant research before rushing to change what is already a fine system? Why is he unwilling to listen to professional educators who possess the expertise, experience and commitment required for this task?

Vital questions are not answered in this proposed legislation. We ask that the government withdraw Bill 104 and direct its efforts towards developing well-thought-out, carefully researched and adequately funded policies with the genuine and legitimate goal of improving public education in Ontario. Thank you.

Mr Wildman: Thank you very much. We understand that the government is moving forward with changes to Bill 104. Also, we've been told that the new funding formula will be available in April, after the government intends this bill to be passed.

Having said that, is there anything in this legislation, Bill 104, that you can identify that would, in your opinion as professional teachers, improve the education of the students in your classes?

Mr Speers: Off the cuff, I can see no pedagogical value to Bill 104 whatsoever. Our members are convinced that the reason for Bill 104 emerging is purely cost-saving. It's simply part of the money grab to extract another $1 billion out of the education sector to give people an income tax rebate, particularly the rich.

Mr Skarica: You referred to the Chicago experience. If I could refer you to an experience I've been reading about recently, it's Marva Collins's school in Chicago. Are you familiar with it?

Mr Speers: No, I'm not.

Mr Skarica: She was a teacher and she became disgruntled with the Chicago system. She set up her own school and took inner-city kids that the public system didn't or couldn't teach and had tremendous success with them, and hired non-unionized teachers and that type of thing. I guess I know the answer I'm going to get, but how would the OSSTF react to a school like that being set up in the inner city?

Mr Speers: We would be totally opposed to it. Did you get your right answer, Toni?

Mrs McLeod: I'm a little tempted to bend on the question I was going to ask and ask you to expand on the why, because I think it might be relevant.

You note that only teachers, educational assistants and supplies are protected under the minister's definition of classroom which is not to be cut, which is one of the reasons I was a little surprised to see that in the ministry's own estimates of the cost savings from amalgamation, they take some $9.9 million directly out of classroom supplies and another $1.3 million directly out of educational assistance. So it appears we are left exclusively with teachers in terms of the definition of a classroom that can't be cut. With the collective bargaining at hand and the concern about harmonization of costs, one wonders whether there is anything related to classroom education which is not going to be subject to cuts.

You've also asked the question, where will new schools be built, and by whom? As of today it appears highly likely that this will be a question for municipalities to address. If the plan is to shift to municipalities the cost of school construction and responsibility for maintenance, secretarial staff and busing, what does that do to your school?

Ms Kenwell: The concern I have is, as well as being a "lap-dog educrat" -- I believe I was called that earlier today -- is this is my 23rd year as a teacher-librarian and I find it repugnant that this legislation does not regard me as a teacher and essential to the classroom. The only other consolation I could offer anybody here is that I'm also a Liberal Party hack and will be working very diligently to make sure that this is a one-term-wonder government.

The Vice-Chair: I apologize, your time is up.

ASSOCIATION DES ENSEIGNANTES ET DES ENSEIGNANTS FRANCO-ONTARIENS

The Vice-Chair: The next group is the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, René Lachapelle. Bienvenue, Monsieur Lachapelle. Ce matin j'ai expliqué qu'aujourd'hui nous n'avons pas notre service de traduction parce que le comté de Simcoe n'est pas une région franco-ontarienne sous la Loi 8. Si vous préférez, vous pouvez donner votre présentation en français, mais la plupart des députés ici ne peuvent pas parler français, alors il va être très difficile pour eux de comprendre votre présentation. Mais nous pouvons avoir une traduction pour les députés dans l'avenir.

I just explained that we do not have our translation services here today because this area is not a designated area for French-language services. If you prefer to speak French, obviously you can, but the majority of our members do not speak French and may not understand what you have to say. However, we will make translation available to them next week if you choose to speak French. This is consistent with hearing policies in the past.

Mr Wildman: Just for the record, I would like to register my objection to the process. It seems to me that anyone should be able, as you've indicated, to make a presentation in either of the official languages, and process should be available to ensure that all members can understand.

M. René Lachapelle : Je peux parler français très lentement. La plupart d'entre vous avez un livre. On peut suivre ensemble. Ça peut être une leçon de français, cours 101. J'enseigne le français aux adultes aussi.

M^me McLeod : Plus lentement.

M. Lachapelle : Mais, vous parlez très bien, Madame McLeod. Allons-y à la page un.

Le Regroupement Simcoe catholique de l'Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens, ce qu'on appelle AEF0, remercie les membres du comité permanent de la Législature sur le développement social qui étudie le projet de loi 104 de lui donner l'occasion de présenter quelques réflexions pendant ses consultations sur le projet de l'amalgamation et la création des conseils scolaires.

Ce regroupement de l'AEFO représente les 92 enseignantes et enseignants oeuvrant dans les écoles catholiques élémentaires et secondaires du comté de Simcoe. Il y a beaucoup plus d'enseignants francophones que ça dans le comté de Simcoe. Il y en a avec le conseil public. Alors, moi je représente les enseignants catholiques -- jeune, peut-être, mais merci quand même.

L'approche de l'AEFO, ce n'est pas de mettre des barreaux dans les rues, mais vous remarquez que, venant d'une communauté francophone, on voit comment ça peut être très bien reçu pour les élèves des écoles françaises et pour la communauté francophone.

(1) Création des conseils scolaires de langue française. Premier paragraphe : Vous avez remarqué, comme c'est indiqué, que les francophones appuient le projet de loi 104. C'est comme on dit, «Enfin, finalement, félicitations» ; c'est comme, «Merci beaucoup.» Mais il y a quand même des changements qu'on doit faire -- qu'on doit faire ? Qu'on peut suggérer.

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Deuxième paragraphe : L'association et la communauté réclament la gestion scolaire depuis plus de 25 ans, et enfin on dit, «C'est arrivé.»

Troisième paragraphe : L'AEFO entend donc participer pleinement à la mise en oeuvre des conseils scolaires de langue française en collaboration avec le ministère et les organismes en éducation. Alors, j'espère que vous retenez le mot «partenariat.»

(2) Page 2 : Protection des enseignantes et des enseignants :

Il n'y a aucune garantie pour les enseignants, et c'est ce qu'on souhaite recevoir : qu'est-ce qu'il va y avoir comme garantie contractuelle ?

On espère qu'aucun enseignant ne perdra son poste ;

Je saute : que toutes les enseignantes et tous les enseignants aient droit à la pleine reconnaissance de leur ancienneté ;

Reconnaissance des congés de maladie accumulés et crédits de service accumulés pour fin de gratification ;

Et je saute au sixième point : Qu'on ne subisse aucune perte de salaire ;

Que les conventions collectives actuelles soient en vigueur jusqu'à la signature de la première convention ;

Le dernier point sur cette phrase : que les enseignantes et les enseignants soient protégés contre toute mutation obligatoire à l'extérieur de leur conseil d'origine jusqu'à la signature de la première convention.

À la page 3, financement des conseils scolaires : On souhaite que le gouvernement puisse pomper ou ajouter ou inclure un financement adéquat, parce qu'on ne peut pas voir comment on pourrait survivre ou même partir ou commencer sans avoir une certaine somme d'argent. C'est bien beau et je respecte, jusqu'à un certain point, les coupures du gouvernement conservateur, mais si on veut mettre un projet sur pieds, il fait de l'argent, certain. Ce n'est pas de nos poches, c'est de l'argent pour que le système fonctionne.

Deuxième paragraphe : L'AEFO demande que le projet de loi 104 soit modifié pour inclure des nouvelles modalités de financement de l'éducation qui assureront aux conseils de langue française un financement équitable et juste.

Fonds de transition, et c'est là où on parle de l'argent, des fonds de démarrage :

On ne peut pas se fier aux ressources des conseils scolaires actuels.

Le projet de loi 104 doit donc exiger que le ministre mette des fonds de démarrage à la disposition des nouveaux conseils scolaires.

Je vous laisserai lire le restant du document. Je peux passer tout de suite à la conclusion à la page 6.

L'AEFO appuie le projet de loi 104 dans la mesure où il accorde enfin à la communauté francophone la gestion de ses écoles. Elle sera heureuse de collaborer à la mise en oeuvre des nouveaux conseils scolaires de langue française.

Par contre, l'AEFO est inquiète que le projet de loi ne prévoit rien au plan de la protection des droit contractuels du personnel enseignant.

Enfin, l'association considère que le projet de loi pourrait être amélioré sensiblement en reconnaissant davantage les différences importantes qui existent entre la situation des anglophones et celle des francophones dans le contexte de la réorganisation des conseils scolaires.

Le regroupement de l'AEFO et moi-même, René Lachapelle, vous remercions, membres dévoués de ce comité permanent de la Législature sur le développement social, de lui avoir donné la possibilité de soumettre son point de vue.

Le Vice-Président : Merci beaucoup. On a neuf minutes en total, trois minutes par parti. Thank you very much. We have nine minutes left, three minutes per party.

M. O'Toole : Excusez-moi, Monsieur, je ne parle pas français. I will ask you a question as I could understand what you were saying very well. Thank you.

On page 3, under financing of the school councils, you talk about the system being equitable and just. That's paragraph 2, last sentence. It's a new system being created. Would you think that each student is entitled to the same funding?

M. Lachapelle : On voit ici une différence, nécessairement, entre les octrois et les fonds que peuvent recevoir un conseil public et un conseil catholique. l'AEFO représente les deux, mais on voit où il y a quand même des injustices et là où on habite ici en Ontario avec les impôts fonciers, les impôts commerciaux et les impôts résidentiels, et qu'il y a justement une certaine équité à ces niveaux-là.

Mr O'Toole: I'm not certain I completely understand. The funding: même chose pour les systèmes ? The same dollars for each system?

M. Lachapelle : Il est sûr selon les nombres et les besoins, mais je ne vois pas où on devrait avoir de grandes injustices. «Grandes injustices ? Non, merci.» Vous comprenez ?

Mr O'Toole: You're not interested in big injustice.

M. Lachapelle : Je vais parler comme un enseignant. Pour que les enseignants puissent permettre aux enfants -- peu importe où dans la province ce l'Ontario -- d'avoir une éducation de qualité.

M^me McLeod : Vous avez dit que vous déplorez le fait que le projet de loi ne prévoit aucune garantie contractuelle pour le personnel enseignant, et c'est vrai. Je sais qu'une telle garantie est partie intégrante de la Loi 30. Mais je ne comprends pas exactement pourquoi c'est un problème pour les enseignants et les enseignantes franco-ontariens en ce cas.

M. Lachapelle : Ça peut être vu comme très général au point de vue de l'ensemble des enseignants de l'AEFO. Tout simplement, c'est une approche de grande famille ; on inclut tout le monde. Ce n'est pas seulement une approche pro-francophone, c'est aussi pro-enseignant, pro-système d'éducation.

M^me McLeod : Je dois poser cette question en anglais, si vous permettez, parce que c'est une question complexe.

M. Lachapelle : Ça va. Allez-y, Madame McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: Help me to understand. This is a situation which -- French school boards are expanding; there should be new job opportunities. What exact guarantees are needed? Is it a guarantee of not being moved from one region to another?

M. Lachapelle : C'est un point de vue -- on appelle ça «mutation» -- de changer d'un endroit à un autre. Avec certaines coupures on peut agrandir les salles de classes ; c'est là qu'on pourrait perdre des enseignants. On l'appelle «licenciement», ou «billet rose». Vous comprenez ?

M^me McLeod : Oui.

M. Lachapelle : Ce n'est pas ce qu'on souhaite. J'essaie d'élaborer plus à votre question. C'est que les francophones n'ont pas beaucoup de conseils scolaires. On en a quelques-uns. On a des sections de langue française, comme ici à Simcoe, comme à plusieurs places en Ontario. Il y a quelques conseils scolaires, mais de nombreuses sections de langue française, tandis que du côté anglophone ce n'est pas vraiment une création de conseils scolaires, c'est une amalgamation : on les met ensemble. Il sont déjà organisés. Ils existent. Nous comme conseils scolaires francophones -- il n'y en a pas beaucoup -- mais des sections de langue française, c'est ce qu'on va mettre ensemble, c'est ce qu'on appelle «création», ce qui n'a pas de grande structure. Ils ne sont pas nombreux : Toronto, Ottawa, vous comprenez ?

Mrs McLeod: Perhaps the commission will solve it all.

M. Lachapelle : J'espère.

M. Wildman : Merci beaucoup. À la page 3, une phrase : «L'AEFO a toujours maintenu que la création des conseils scolaires de langue française allait de pair avec un financement adéquat.» Following from Mr O'Toole's question, if I could pose a question in English, what is «un financement adéquat»?

Surely we know from studies that francophone students have not achieved as well as anglophone students, on average, across Ontario, and particularly in comparison with Quebec. If we were to go with what I think Mr O'Toole was suggesting, similar funding for all students, surely in your view, and certainly in mine, that would not be «un financement adéquat.»

M. Lachapelle : Je n'ai pas compris le dernier bout de la phrase.

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Mr Wildman: If we had similar funding for all students in Ontario, with some flexibility, I understand -- we don't have the funding formula yet, so I'm speculating, but Mr O'Toole was talking about similar funding for students across Ontario. If francophone students are funded at the same level as anglophone students, surely that is not adequate funding to deal with the special needs of the francophone community.

M. Lachapelle : C'est un fait réel que, étant minoritaire, la même somme d'argent, ce n'est pas pareil, et je comprends maintenant la question de M. O'Toole.

C'est vrai, parce qu'on le voit dans les systèmes où ça coûte beaucoup plus cher pour un service d'éducation pour les francophones. On se demande pourquoi, mais c'est minoritaire : moins de ressources, c'est plus difficile d'aller chercher les renseignements qui nous coûtent plus cher. C'est un fait avec lequel je vis, moi, personnellement.

Mr Wildman: If one is to compare Ontario with Quebec and the funding that is provided for anglophone students in Quebec, considering that they are indeed in a minority situation in Quebec --

M. Lachapelle : Je comprends très bien votre point. Je ne veux pas faire une guerre politique ici. Je ne viens pas du Québec. Je viens de Sudbury. Et vous comprenez que oui, ça coûte plus cher, aller chercher des services, même sans aller au Québec acheter nos livres ou aller acheter des services. Puis même encore, vous comparez les anglophones du Québec avec les francophones d'ici.

Interjection : Oui, je pense qu'ils sont mieux desservis, eux.

Le Vice-Président : Nous avons utilisé tous le temps maintenant. Merci beaucoup. We've used all our time. Thank you very much.

ST MONICA'S SCHOOL

The Vice-Chair: The next delegation is the Simcoe County Catholic Principals' Association, St Monica's School, Mary Lynne Barker, principal. Ms Barker, welcome.

Ms Mary Lynne Barker: Thank you very much. I'm absolutely amazed and would like to congratulate you on your commitment and endurance. I sat through some of the afternoon and I am very impressed by how much time you've taken with the hearings.

Just as a complete counterpoint to the previous presentation, I would like to do take a page out of Agatha Christie, and rather than Miss Marple and St Mary Mead, I'd like to present a thumbnail sketch of St Monica's School for you to extrapolate our parent council experiences to the rest of the principals in Simcoe county. We share many common experiences, and as you know, I'm here also as chair of the Simcoe County Catholic Principals' Association.

St Monica's School has 700 students. We have a large catchment area, all of downtown Barrie as well as the rural area to the north. As such we have a huge demographic, socioeconomic difference from the very poor, marginalized people in our society to the prosperous, well-educated professionals in our community.

St Monica'a has also had a long history of parent involvement, long before I came, with annual elections, the president chairing the public meetings, posted agendas, those kinds of traditions, so PPM 122 was not greeted with great enthusiasm. In fact, it was viewed rather as a GTA imposition, something that wasn't particularly appropriate to our needs. But we engaged in the process, and of the 455 families in the school, eight people came forward and were acclaimed, an experience of over 90% of the schools in this area. I'm sure you've heard that before.

St Monica's School council is absolutely the dream council. There's no Mrs Windbag or Mr Nosy Parker or the one-horse wonder. These are honourable, well-intentioned, dedicated people working for the good of the whole school community. They are honestly overwhelmed by the scope of what they are expected to do and have clearly stated that they do not want to take on more. They already feel they're floundering, and of course you've heard that kind of information time and time again. I would really like to present to you very strongly that it is unrealistic to impose increased government expectations. I would ask you to please go slow or at least make it optional, not make it the law, like 122 was, so that the community can respond to where it feels it is.

Our educational system has been based on a series of checks and balances between individualism and collectivism. Time and time again you've heard how much local people value their trustees and their access to that level of accountability, that they have local access and they feel input. I don't think devolving it to a council that does not feel ready to undertake that kind of jurisdiction is a reasonable expectation. What Bill 104 proposes seriously erodes the checks and balances between local jurisdiction and provincial power. Obviously, if Bill 104 goes through as proposed, the power will swing significantly into the provincial quarter. The concern my colleagues and I share is that we will not be able to impact on that in any significant way that reflects our needs. I would ask you also that you please reconsider that.

The last round of cuts had terrible impacts at St Monica's. Fortunately, we were one of the few boards in the province that lived up to our commitments to early childhood education, but every school, every staff has paid for that. We have fewer custodians, so that means the portables are cleaned one night, the school's cleaned the other night and the teachers sweep their own classrooms. It means that every classroom has more children. For a school of 700 students -- fully integrated inclusion: Down syndrome, blind, deaf, wheelchairs -- there's one EA for the whole school. That's it. It's a cut, but that's what we're left with. All the noonhour programs are gone -- rainbows, house leagues, that kind of thing -- because the noonhour supervisors were cut to pay for the cost of keeping junior kindergarten.

What I'm saying to you is please listen to what it means in the school to the people who are taking the direct impact of the kind of cuts that have already happened. Our fear is that with the swing to power in the provincial quarter, there is the distinct potential for more money being extracted out of education. The vested powers proposed for the EIC would make that entirely possible.

It is certainly laudable for a government to want the very best possible education for its citizens and its future. Our education is certainly our cornerstone. It's the cornerstone of our society. It has built the society we have and it's our hope for the future, but I would beg you not to turn back the clock with the draconian measures proposed in Bill 104 regarding the trustees and the EIC. Thank you.

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The Acting Chair (Mr Bruce Smith): Thank you very much for your presentation. We have about two and a half minutes per caucus for questions, starting with the official opposition.

Mrs McLeod: Thank you very much. There are some, probably many, within the separate school system who would welcome the minister's statements that we are on the eve of equitable funding for students across the province. I'm very conscious of the impact of cuts you've just described. You did it in a very graphic way. Is it your concern that equitable funding may prove to be equitable funding at a level so low that it's actually going to mean even more disastrous cuts in your classrooms?

Ms Barker: It's pretty hard to be lower than the second-lowest-spending county in the province. You've heard some of what it really looks like in the classroom. Classrooms of 33 and 34 are the norm. Every classroom has gone up four or five over the past year or two. I sincerely hope that's not the case, but it is entirely conceivable.

Mrs McLeod: You've spoken about the school councils and the fact that they are overwhelmed already with what they have been asked to do and would not want to take on additional responsibilities. Many of us are concerned that by default we may lose our school boards and that school councils will have to take on that role. I don't know if you want to answer this question, but I'm concerned about whether within the separate school system there's a sense that -- obviously, there's constitutional protection of the right to governance, but is there a concern that school councils might be seen as sufficient to meet that constitutional right to governance? Would you think that's a possible interpretation?

Ms Barker: I think that is a very serious concern. There were references earlier to constitutional guarantees because of the fear of eroding the constitutional rights, and also very recent precedents in other provinces that have caused some serious concerns here that we might be next.

Mr Wildman: That's a very important issue. I want to deal, though, with what you had to say about what's happened at St Monica's. As you know, the Conservative Party was elected on a commitment to guarantee classroom expenditures. Obviously, despite what Mr Snobelen has said, there have been very serious effects on the kids in your classes at St Monica's. Do you think it's a fair statement that has been made in other contexts by Mr Snobelen that it was a choice made by your board and/or by the teachers in their collective agreements, that they chose, in your case, to preserve junior kindergarten and therefore that adversely affected the other classes? How would you respond to that kind of interpretation?

Ms Barker: I guess there's some truth in that. One could use that information in that way. Teachers want to see that their colleagues are not cut out of jobs and are willing to make sacrifices, and in fact did make sacrifices to that effect.

But also there is a matter of doing what is morally right and correct, and we know that the absolutely best way to provide a level playing field for a young child from a very disadvantaged situation is early intervention, and junior kindergarten is the ticket. We have little kids in our school who come from very deprived environments who really should be coming to school every day. They need the stimulation and structure that a literacy-based program offers them that they don't receive otherwise in their lives. They don't have trips to the pumpkin patch or maple syrup or the zoo. That's not part of their lives at home.

Mr Wildman: Would that the government hadn't made junior kindergarten optional.

Ms Barker: Indeed. And there's the daily traffic snarl and danger because of the busing cuts, the traffic outside of the school. I do daily yard duty. I'm a traffic cop outside the school so children aren't hit.

Mr Skarica: I want to talk to you about another alternative that, quite frankly, is one that probably is going to cause concern among the teaching community. Right now in Ottawa they are experimenting with a junior kindergarten program with early childhood educators as opposed to full-fledged teachers, and the preliminary results are that the level of education is about the same. I find somewhat disturbing -- I'll just read it to you. Alia Kent, president of the Women Teachers' Association of Ottawa, has indicated that if the Ottawa board can't provide a junior kindergarten program with unionized teachers, it shouldn't provide any program at all. It appears that by using early childhood educators, the cost of the program is cut in half. I'd like your comment on whether using early childhood educators would help you, and if the Ottawa program finds that the level of education is about the same, on whether you think that would benefit those kids.

Ms Barker: This has been an ongoing and contentious issue. First of all, in an early childhood program generally the ratio of adult to student is about one to six or eight, whereas in the kindergarten classes at St Monica's it's one to 24. Immediately there is a staffing issue in terms of the cost tripling if you are going to provide the ECE ratios in terms of staffing.

The other thing is that there is a really significant difference in the whole basis and philosophy of the program. If you speak to any parent who has a child in day care on one day versus in a kindergarten program on the other day, they engage in significantly different programs. A program in a classroom is a literacy-based program that is specifically geared to lay down the foundations for future reading and writing, and an early childhood education program is not focused and designed on that basis whatsoever. They have two very different functions.

If you want an ECE program, there are ECE programs available, but if you ask parents what their preference is, they want their children in a literacy-based program, in a junior kindergarten program.

The Acting Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation before this committee.

Ms Barker: Thank you for the opportunity. You are in the ninth-inning stretch.

The Acting Chair: I call on Mr Terry Kelly of the Unemployed Workers' Council. Is Mr Kelly present?

There are some motions the committee has to deal with. I'm waiting for the return of the Chair so the motions can be properly dealt with, so I hope I can have the committee's patience for a moment.

Interjections.

The Acting Chair: Is there a consensus? Do you want to defer dealing with these motions or is it your preference to deal with them this evening?

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Mr O'Toole: I don't think we'll be giving them fair treatment at this late hour.

Mr Wildman: We're going to have the same problem on Monday. We'll have presentations all day Monday.

The Vice-Chair: What is the committee's pleasure? Do you want to deal with them now?

Mr Skarica: I can deal with it now. Do you want to deal with it now, Mr Wildman? It won't take long.

The Vice-Chair: Do we have unanimous agreement to deal with it now?

Mrs McLeod: Is there a chance that the government might support it if we defer it?

Mr Skarica: No. I'm proposing a motion myself.

Mr Wildman: Perhaps we can deal with mine first.

Mr Skarica: We'll deal with yours first. We've got some more information on the Hornepayne situation. Apparently they've eliminated their shop programs and have also eliminated all their technology courses, so there's a real possibility that they may benefit from being in that larger board. What I'm going to do is propose another motion. I'll just read it to you:

That the standing committee on social development urge the minister to advise the Education Improvement Commission to review the submissions this committee has received regarding proposed district school board boundaries in northern Ontario, particularly regarding the challenges of distance and technology infrastructure.

The Vice-Chair: We must first deal with Mr Wildman's motion. You can either withdraw it, Mr Wildman, or we can have a vote on the motion itself.

Mr Wildman: I don't intend to withdraw it. I understand the parliamentary assistant's position. I don't want to prolong this; it's a late hour. I just want to point out that in saying he anticipates that the Hornepayne board may benefit from being included in a larger entity, essentially he's saying that perhaps those students will have to go somewhere else anyway at some point, to another centre to study, that they'll have to be boarded out or whatever.

I've had discussions with ministry staff regarding the Hornepayne secondary school education situation and their proposal has been distance education, that is, satellite technology or boarding the kids out in another area. Frankly, a number of students go outside of Hornepayne now for the courses they can't get in Hornepayne and the board pays tuition to other boards for that. The ones who are attending now are attending because they want to get an education in their own communities and they want to be in their own homes.

I understand the position that the ministry and the parliamentary assistant are taking, but I stand by the motion and I would like my motion to stand. I don't think we need to prolong the debate. We had the presentation from Ms Beatty representing the board and the community yesterday and I think everyone understands it. I appreciate the fact that all members have taken an interest in this very unusual and unique situation.

Mrs McLeod: Well, I am now prepared to extend the debate. I am more than a little astounded at the response that was just given to the motion. We have spent two days going across northern Ontario hearing concerns of boards about the nature of the amalgamation that's about to be imposed on them. We had a board that came to us and said very clearly why this amalgamation was wrong for it in a way that was persuasive for members of the committee as recently as yesterday.

To the parliamentary assistant, I assume this is the response of the Ministry of Education, that because they have cut their technical education it might be good for Hornepayne to be in an amalgamated board.

The reason I'm distressed is, first of all, because that's in direct opposition to what the Hornepayne board told us and, second, because I find it incredible if that is the Ministry of Education's explanation of why Hornepayne is included in a larger amalgamated board. If that is the insubstantial and almost ludicrous reason that underlies any other amalgamations, I would really want to demand some further answers from the Ministry of Education about what the reasoning is underlying every one of these amalgamations.

Mr Skarica: I'm not saying that Hornepayne cannot be on its own, as has been indicated. We're saying that we would like the Education Improvement Commission to look into it. If that's the best thing for the students, to be on its own, the ministry's position is that that's what should happen; if it's not in the best interests of the students, it shouldn't. All I'm saying is that the Education Improvement Commission should look into it and have all the information before it.

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chair, I understand that is Mr Skarica's motion, but I also understood Mr Skarica to offer a reason why it might be good for Hornepayne to be in the amalgamated board, and the amalgamation of boards is the substance of this committee's deliberations. I would like to know whether that is the ministry's response to Hornepayne.

Mr Skarica: No, I just used that as an example of one of the considerations the Education Improvement Commission could look at. I don't know all the details. I couldn't and I don't think anybody could, unless you went there and looked at it in some detail, and we haven't done that.

Mrs McLeod: I sort of thought we had heard.

Mr Wildman: I understand the positions taken by my colleagues. I would just reiterate that I would prefer this committee to take a position with regard to the very cogent submission made by the Hornepayne Board of Education that they should not be included in a larger board, that they should be treated in the same way as the coterminous, isolate Hornepayne Roman Catholic Separate School Board, which is going to be designated, I understand, as a school authority. I would stand by that. I understand the government's position, as articulated by Mr Skarica, that perhaps the commission should look at this. I would like our committee to take a position. The commission is going to have to look at this anyway.

The Vice-Chair: Any further discussion? I remind you we're voting on Mr Wildman's motion, which was deferred from yesterday.

Mr O'Toole: Could you read the motion again, please?

Mr Wildman: I move that the standing committee on social development express the view that the Ministry of Education and Training should designate the Hornepayne Board of Education as a school authority, as the ministry has stated it intends to designate the coterminous isolate Hornepayne Roman Catholic Separate School Board, and that the Hornepayne Board of Education should not be amalgamated with the other boards to form the proposed district school board number 1.

The Vice-Chair: All those in favour of the motion? Those opposed? The motion is lost.

Did you wish to place a motion, Mr Skarica?

Mr Skarica: Yes, in light of the evidence that we heard over the last few days, I'm moving a motion as follows:

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The Vice-Chair: Is there any discussion on the motion that's been put by Mr Skarica?

Mr O'Toole: With all respect to Mr Wildman's motion which was just defeated, I believe this allows a lot more consideration and thoroughness instead of a one-off for Hornepayne. We did very clearly hear a lot about distance, sizing, resources, highways, a lot of different things in northern Ontario. This sends a signal, I think we can agree, that it needs to be treated very specially. I'd like to be on record as recognizing not just Hornepayne, but that some of the suggestions we heard were of value.

Mrs McLeod: I want to add for the record, for the Education Improvement Commission, that the Hornepayne board is the only one that made representation to the committee asking to be designated as a school authority. There is only one other situation in Ontario in which the separate school is designated a school authority while there is a public board, and that's in Atikokan.

The Atikokan board presented to us, and it indicated that it could be comfortable with an amalgamation if there was a change -- you'll remember it was the Highway 11-Highway 17 issue -- if it was only with the Highway 11 boards. Therefore, it is not a comparable situation.

The Hornepayne one truly is unique. If it's a matter of cost, the Ministry of Education pays the full cost of school authority schools, but Hornepayne is going to pay 100% of the cost under their scenario in any event. If it's a matter of getting students access to technical education, it's too far for the Hornepayne students to travel to any of the boards they're to be amalgamated with to get the technical education there.

Mr Wildman: I won't prolong the discussion on the previous motion other than to say that the Education Improvement Commission is going to have to look at the Hornepayne situation as well as a number of other situations. If this commission is to be established, I would say it's going to have to have the ability, under the guidelines provided by the minister, to suggest an increase in the total number of boards in the province. If that's the import of this motion, I applaud it, because up to now the minister has said there could be changes in the boundaries but that there could not be an increase in the total number of boards over 66. If that's the proposal here, I would applaud it, and I would hope it would accommodate the desires of the people of Hornepayne to have their particular situation dealt with somewhat differently.

The Vice-Chair: Any further discussion? There being no further discussion, I'll call the question. Those in favour of the motion?

Interjection: Recorded vote.

The Vice-Chair: It's unanimous. You don't even need a recorded vote. It's a unanimous vote.

We also have a motion deferred from yesterday from Mrs McLeod.

Mrs McLeod: It's in a state of permanent deferral unless there is some further advice from the House leaders. Mr Wildman indicated that he was contacting the House leaders.

Mr Wildman: I was informed today that there has been informal discussion among staff members of our three offices. The Liberal and New Democrat position is that they would be willing to accommodate an unofficial meeting of the committee, if the committee wished to do that, and it would not be seen as a violation of the time allocation motion. Our understanding from Louise in Mr Johnson's office was that she or someone from Mr Johnson's office was going to be contacting the Conservative members on the committee to confirm their view of this. That's all I know. She was going to talk to you fellows to get some further input before she got back to my office.

The Vice-Chair: Just one other note. I've been advised by the clerk that in the event that it's an unofficial meeting, there would be no Hansard, no broadcasting and no clerk or researcher available to the committee if it chose to meet. Given the information you've provided, Mr Wildman, I'm looking at the Conservative members of the committee, and I don't believe you've been contacted by your House leader's office yet. I'll consider the motion deferred until Monday.

That being said, is there any further business?

Mrs McLeod: Mr Chair, I appreciate the fact that there may be no way we can carry out the clause-by-clause amendment process with an informal agreement. My sole concern, and I would just ask the Conservative members to note it, is that I don't think the House leaders had any idea that we would be arriving back in Toronto at about 11 o'clock at night and that the amendments would be due at 9 o'clock the next morning. We will meet those time lines, but it certainly doesn't provide an opportunity to do justice to what we heard during the last day or two days.

The Vice-Chair: Duly noted.

I'd like to thank the people of Simcoe county and Barrie for their hospitality, even though members of my political stripe have not always found a lot of welcome in this part of the province. That being said, we'll adjourn this committee meeting till Monday at 12 o'clock in Windsor.

The committee adjourned at 2116.