INTENDED
APPOINTMENTS
ANN VANSTONE
CONTENTS
Wednesday 12 February 1997
Intended appointments
Ms Ann Vanstone
Mr David Cooke
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair / Président: Mr Floyd Laughren (Nickel Belt ND)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt ND)
*Mr RickBartolucci (Sudbury L)
*Mr EdDoyle (Wentworth East / -Est PC)
Mr Douglas B. Ford (Etobicoke-Humber PC)
*Mr GaryFox (Prince Edward-Lennox-South Hastings /
Prince Edward-Lennox-Hastings-Sud PC)
Mr MichaelGravelle (Port Arthur L)
*Mr BertJohnson (Perth PC)
Mr PeterKormos (Welland-Thorold ND)
Mr FloydLaughren (Nickel Belt ND)
Mr Gary L. Leadston (Kitchener-Wilmot PC)
*Mr FrankMiclash (Kenora L)
Mr DanNewman (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Mr Peter L. Preston (Brant-Haldimand PC)
*Mr TonySilipo (Dovercourt ND)
*Mr BobWood (London South / -Sud PC)
*In attendance /présents
Substitutions present /Membres remplaçants présents:
Mr TobyBarrett (Norfolk PC) for Mr Ford
Mrs LynMcLeod (Fort William L) for Mr Gravelle
Mr BruceSmith (Middlesex PC) for Mr Leadston
Mrs BrendaElliott (Guelph PC) for Mr Newman
Clerk / Greffière: Ms Donna Bryce
Staff / Personnel: Mr David Pond, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1005 in room 228.
INTENDED APPOINTMENTS
ANN VANSTONE
Review of intended appointment, selected by official opposition party: Ann Vanstone, intended appointee as co-chair, Education Improvement Commission.
The Acting Chair (Mr Frank Miclash): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the standing committee on government agencies. I see our first witness has shown up. Ann, welcome. We'll be asking you for comments or an opening statement and then we'll be going to each of the parties for comments and questions, if you'd like to begin.
Mr Bob Wood (London South): Mr Chairman, on a point of order: I wonder if we might deal with item 1 on the agenda first.
The Acting Chair: The report of the subcommittee on committee business, dated Thursday, February 6.
Mr Bob Wood: I'd like to move adoption of the subcommittee report of February 6, 1997.
The Acting Chair: All those in favour? Carried. Thank you, Mr Wood. Sorry, Ann. Go ahead.
Ms Ann Vanstone: I'd like to say, first of all, thank you for asking us here. The last week or so that we have been engaged in trying to plan for the way this commission is going to work has been a very busy week. We spent a lot of time in briefings and things like that.
I'd like to just say why I believe I was asked to co-chair this commission. It is a commission with some very broad powers over an area of endeavour that has always caused a great deal of problems in the province, as you attempt to change local structures of any sort.
I have been a trustee in Metropolitan Toronto for 18 years, I think; chair of the Toronto board for a year in the mid-1980s; and for the last four years, chair of the Metropolitan Toronto School Board, and also chair of that for a couple of years in the 1980s. My experience, then, is broad.
I have also been on the provincial education finance reform committee, which met for about 18 months and looked at all issues around reform.
So I think I bring a good deal of experience and a good understanding of local school board operations, not only in Metropolitan Toronto but through my work with trustee associations across the province. I hope that experience will help assist the kind of transitions we're going to be going through in the province.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Ann. We'll turn, first of all, to the Liberals.
Mrs Lyn McLeod (Fort William): Ann, I appreciate your being before the committee. One of the reasons we are anxious to meet both with you and Mr Cooke is because we have some very real concerns about the commission, the powers of the commission and how the commission will work.
I want to make it very clear at the outset that we do not for a moment question the qualifications of either yourself or Mr Cooke to hold the positions on the commission. You're eminently well-qualified to bring a knowledgeable, experienced perspective to it, but we are deeply concerned about the powers of the commission and it's that area, the way in which the commission will work, that we want to explore with both you and Mr Cooke today.
The first question I have for you is just a confirmation question of the date you expect your appointments to take place and whether you can confirm the reported salaries for the position.
Ms Vanstone: The appointments, as commissioners themselves, will not take place until the legislation receives royal assent. At the moment we are acting as consultants to the Ministry of Education to plan how this commission is going to get up and running and how it's going to discharge its duties.
Mrs McLeod: Can you confirm salary levels for us?
Ms Vanstone: Yes, the salary level is $88,000.
Mrs McLeod: I know my colleague has some questions about the appointment of subcommittees and the total number of committees you expect to have operating and the total budget for this, but I'd like to focus a little bit more for a moment on the powers of the commission.
As a school trustee, I suspect you would have some concerns about powers being given to this commission retroactively that strip away the powers of existing boards. I would ask you to tell me how you understand the powers of the commission in terms of the approval of budgets. I understand that the commission will, of necessity, approve or have the power to amend any school board budget, that no school board can set a budget in the course of this year without the approval of the commission.
There are a lot of questions about hiring and firing of personnel in this interim period, and the way in which the commission will set guidelines and the restrictions there will be on hiring and firing. There are questions about capital contracts, the fact that boards can't enter into capital contracts, so new schools cannot be built without the express approval of the commission. Then there are some very real questions about how those powers of the commission overlap with the supposed collective bargaining responsibilities of school boards.
If you would like to just take a crack at that, I hope I've saved some time for my colleague's questions.
Ms Vanstone: Very broad issues, and they're issues we have been dealing with in the past week. Not all the things you've asked have had decisions or even discussions around them yet, but it would be my anticipation that we're going to be facing two approaches: One will be the approach between now and when the legislation receives royal assent, with consideration being given of course to the retroactivity of it, and then the decisions or the way we'll operate subsequent to royal assent.
It would be our interpretation that, yes, the commission will have the power to approve budgets and it will be retroactive to January 13. The best we'll be able to do between now and then is set out guidelines that boards may wish to follow.
It would be my anticipation, and Dave and I have discussed this a good deal, that the commission will be looking at budgets for just any very unusual moves that a board might make. We wouldn't anticipate there will be very much of that, but in these times of transition, when you're melding school boards and amalgamating things, there may be unusual things happening. We wouldn't anticipate very much of that.
On capital: Major, major problem between now and the time of royal assent because there will be school boards out there with capital projects and they need to get the shovel in the ground. We don't have the authority to say no or yes right now, but we will be developing guidelines on what things we should be looking for around the capital programs. We've had to deal with a few of those already.
The hiring and firing of personnel, mainly the hiring, is something we haven't had a lot of discussion about yet, but we do know that the human resources issues with amalgamation of school boards are going to be the most serious things we have to deal with, and it certainly would be our anticipation that would be one of the major subcommittees we would establish.
I'm sorry, Lyn, I don't know whether I've covered everything.
Mrs McLeod: Let me ask a basic question: Does it not trouble you, as a former trustee, to take those kinds of powers over from duly elected boards and carry out that role as an appointed body?
Ms Vanstone: I suppose, in a sense, it troubles me. At the same time I don't know what other way you can do it when assets of different communities are being amalgamated. I don't know any other way to do it and I think the challenge to us will be to do it as sensitively as we can and anticipate that all boards will act appropriately through this period.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Thank you very much for appearing before us. No one will ever question I think your competency and your qualifications or your dedication.
Being a teacher for 30 years, I guess I have some real concerns about inside and outside classroom expenditures, because they are a real concern. I see Bill 104 reads somewhat like a murder mystery, a whodunit. In this instance, I guess I'm concerned about who's going to be doing it, and if we look at the present structure now, we have the Ministry of Education and we have regional offices and then we have school boards.
The new order, the mystery: We'll still have the Ministry of Education, we'll still have the ministry offices, the regional offices, it'll still have school boards, although reduced in number, given that, but it'll also have the Education Improvement Commission and it'll also have the education improvement committees.
Am I missing something or have we just added two levels of out-of-classroom expenditures to the process?
Ms Vanstone: I think you've probably added one level.
Mr Bartolucci: One?
Ms Vanstone: The Education Improvement Commission. I would see the subcommittees of the commission as being part of it, so I would say one level. Costwise, we anticipate that we'll run a very lean operation. We have not formulated fully what the budget will be. We have discussed it to some extent.
We will be doing, ourselves, a good deal of what might usually have been given staff to do, but yes, there has been a level added. It is for a short time frame, however. It does have a birth and it does have a death. It wouldn't be my anticipation it would go on longer than it's scheduled to.
Mr Bartolucci: I think this is a fundamental question for you as well and for us to know. Clearly, we're adding one level, and I thank you for that honesty. Will we ever be taking away one level? Would that level ever be the regional school boards, as far as you're concerned?
Ms Vanstone: The regional school boards?
Mr Bartolucci: Yes, the new school boards.
Ms Vanstone: No, I don't believe a local control or a local supervision of education will disappear in this province, nor do I believe it should.
Mr Bartolucci: Does it concern you -- I'm sure it does but maybe you can expand. Are you concerned about the size of the boards, in particular some of those boards which are so gigantic that in our estimation they will almost be ineffective?
Ms Vanstone: You're going to have two kinds of giganticism, if you like: Areawise, with a lot of the boards in the north -- and we've been looking at those -- and populationwise. In Metropolitan Toronto, one board with 300,000 students provides a problem too.
It's possible that the one board with 300,000 students can be dealt with more easily than the ones that cover large areas. I'm not sure. I would anticipate that, for example, in Metro they will probably structure something that looks like regional offices, and that may be structured in the broad area boards as well.
There will have to be a good deal of consideration given for boards especially that cover broad geographic areas to getting technological assistance for meetings and things like that. That isn't going to be possible in some parts of this province, and we understand that, but it'll be something that will have to be looked at as we proceed through the next few years.
Mrs McLeod: One final question: Given what you've just said, Ann -- and that is a key concern that many of us have about the consequences of this legislation being introduced and implemented -- along with the loss of board power to have any fiscal accountability directly to the electorate, which is a companion piece to this, a lot of us believe that boards will effectively disappear. I know that would concern you.
If, as you look at this, you believe it is unworkable, given it's size, given any other factors you're considering, do you believe you have any capacity to change the nature of what's proposed. I understand you've publicly said that if you cannot bring about changes, you would resign. Is that a statement that's accurate? Would you comment on that.
Ms Vanstone: Really, when I think of change, I'm thinking of the perception of implementation and that some people have of this and the kinds of implementation that I think may be possible that would help the situation out there.
I would not anticipate that local control of education would disappear entirely from this province, and I would expect that the process we're going through would confirm that local control of education would remain in place. I believe there are also constitutional issues that would maintain that in Ontario at this point in time.
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Mrs McLeod: Nothing will make a board the size of France work, Ann.
The Acting Chair: Mr Silipo, please.
Mr Tony Silipo (Dovercourt): Ms Vanstone -- Ann. I've called you "Ann" and you've called me "Tony" too long for me to go to the formal. We worked together for a number of years on the school board in Toronto and I have to tell you that like Mrs McLeod and others, I think if I were looking at the question of qualifications, there aren't many other people I would think of who have the qualifications that you and Mr Cooke have to deal with this. But I have a fundamental question that continues to trouble me. You talked earlier about some of your background. I think everyone is more than aware of that, but I guess my basic question to you is, given everything that you have been fighting for as a school trustee, I am still very puzzled as to why you would take this position.
Ms Vanstone: I have been looking, Tony, for the last three or four years at what has been going on in provinces across the country and in other jurisdictions around the world as education is getting ready to move into the next millennium. It seems to me that in every jurisdiction I know of there has been change, and dramatic change, in educational governance.
I came to the conclusion some time ago that the status quo was not going to continue in Ontario, as it didn't continue and hasn't continued anywhere else in the country or in other countries. The weekend I actually was asked to accept this position, I was at a conference in Toronto of public school boards and there was a panel from all the provinces across the country that had been engaged in change. The trustees on that panel said: "Don't divorce yourself from the process. Where trustees stayed away from getting engaged in the process and simply fought it, they did not have a satisfactory solution, and we're still having a lot of problems as new systems are put in place."
It seemed to me that what I hope to do here is to go through the change and try to get it to work as well as possible and try to insulate the schools from uproar and upset as we go through this. That's why I did it.
Mr Silipo: I am not surprised that's the way you would view it, but in looking at the powers of the commission -- which I think are far, far more draconian than are required, even in a period of transition as significant as the one we're going through -- doesn't it trouble you that you are going to be in fact implementing changes that you would up to only a few weeks ago perhaps be advocating against?
I look at the question, for example, of the changes to the powers of the school boards. I know that you were one of the proponents of looking at a legal challenge to some of those suggested changes. I look at what's happening in Metro, which I'd like to talk a little more about in terms of one massive school board with 500 schools and 300,000 students.
Ms Vanstone: Five hundred and fifty-five.
Mr Silipo: Yes. You know better than I how those changes have come about in terms of improving the quality of education in Metropolitan Toronto and that when you move to a system with 22 trustees, paid $6,000, that's going to have a traumatic impact on the ability of trustees to do their job. We're not going to get the same kind of representation we've had so far. I could go on and on citing examples, but essentially I guess that's really what continues to puzzle me and trouble me, that you would put yourself in a position where you would be implementing on behalf of this government measures that you up until now have been opposed to.
Ms Vanstone: I recognize, Tony, that the government has the ability to legislate around educational matters, except for the issues that are constitutionally outside the powers of the Legislature. The government has legislated. It will be a very, very great difference from the kind of operation that you and I were involved in when we worked together on the Toronto board, but the government has legislated it and I think what we have to do is try to implement it as sensitively as possible, once again.
Mr Silipo: But what will you do when in a few weeks' time we get the new funding formula and it will show huge gobs of money coming out of Metropolitan Toronto?
Ms Vanstone: I am hoping to see the new funding formula within a few weeks' time because it does have to come forward if it's going to be used in 1998. It has been determined by the minister and the ministry that the new funding formula, since control of finance is being taken away from school boards, will be much more detailed and will now recognize the needs of large urban centres.
Clearly I am going to find that new funding formula very interesting, and so will all the other trustees in Metropolitan Toronto. It would be my judgement that the new funding formula will have to provide to education in Metropolitan Toronto very close to what it presently spends. We are talking about a new allocation formula and a new formula to recognize things that have never been recognized in a formula before now.
Just to give you a small example, in Metropolitan Toronto we operate the largest continuing ed program for credit in North America. If those students were counted as part of our enrolment, it would increase the enrolment in Metropolitan Toronto by about 25,000 full-time-equivalent students. The education finance reform task force recommended that those students now be counted. That reduces almost instantly the per pupil costs, which people like to look at and focus on, by about $800. That gets us right into the ballpark of the other per pupil costs across Ontario.
When those kinds of things are recognized for funding purposes, there will be differences. I don't anticipate, Tony -- let me be very clear -- that $500 million is going to go out of Metropolitan Toronto, not with the new funding formula.
Mr Silipo: I hope you're right, because if you're not, then again, besides all the problems the schools are going to have to deal with, it's going to put you in an incredible position to have to deal with, to the extent that you have some responsibility over those. I appreciate that you don't directly, but in terms of how to implement that and in terms of dealing with, among others, some former colleagues who might take a position which -- I don't know whether I can attribute these words to you, but which many a trustee in Metropolitan Toronto has taken over the year, which is, "You're going to take this money out of Metro over my dead body."
Ms Vanstone: That's right.
Mr Silipo: I remember saying that, I think along with you and others. It's going to happen and it's going to hurt schools in Metro Toronto, it's going to hurt right across the system, because the money isn't going to be put back into the system. I just continue to emphasize that as one of a number of things I could talk about which again, as I say, give me some trouble in terms of seeing you head this group.
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The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Silipo. We're going to have to move on.
Mr Bob Wood: As a member of the EIC, are you prepared to carry out government policy as set out in Bill 104?
Ms Vanstone: Yes, I am.
Mr Bob Wood: How would you promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services by district school boards?
Ms Vanstone: I don't know. This is something that we are to make recommendations on, and I certainly believe -- Dave and I have had some opportunity to discuss this -- that this will be one of the subcommittees we'll have to put in place. There are many ways to do outsourcing and there are many questions to ask around outsourcing. So no magic answers, but a lot of things to look at.
Mr Bob Wood: Who do you think should be appointed to education improvement committees?
Ms Vanstone: Do you mean to the commission or the committees?
Mr Bob Wood: The committees, not the commission.
Ms Vanstone: The subcommittees. Depending on what kind of subcommittees you have, if you have an outsourcing subcommittee, I would --
Mr Bob Wood: Excuse me. I think maybe you're referring to a different committee than I was. My understanding is there are going to be local education improvement committees.
Ms Vanstone: Oh, local education improvement committees. Yes, okay. Again, we'll be drawing up guidelines on this, but on local ones I would anticipate that you would have a politician, a trustee and a staff person, senior, from each board that's to be amalgamated and then you would have representatives of the employee groups and parents, that sort of thing. But certainly senior staff, politician, parents, probably someone from the community, depending on the community, and employee groups.
Mr Bob Wood: What guidelines, if any, should there be re such appointments?
Ms Vanstone: Well, that's what we'll be -- guidelines for the appointments?
Mr Bob Wood: Yes. Do you see conflict-of-interest guidelines or anything like that as being applicable?
Ms Vanstone: I would think so, yes, but I think that probably what the commission will do -- and understand that we're just discussing this now, so we haven't come to any firm conclusions between Dave and myself, and the other commissioners aren't yet appointed, so there's still that to look forward to. But it would be my anticipation that we would establish a framework that would set out guidelines for the local education improvement committees to work to and then have them come back to us with their recommendations for the local amalgamation.
Yes, there would have to be some legalistic stuff around it, like conflict of interest, but we haven't worked that out yet.
Mr Bob Wood: Those are my questions.
Mr Bruce Smith (Middlesex): Welcome this morning. Over the last couple of weeks school boards locally have been exploring with me what opportunities they might have for involvement in the process. I was wondering if you'd share with the committee this morning what public process of involvement you will be soliciting in terms of input from local school boards throughout this process.
Ms Vanstone: We are starting this afternoon meeting with the various school board associations: public, separate, two French associations. We'll move on from that later. We're going to be meeting, I believe it's next week, with school boards at a conference here. I expect that after meeting with the associations this afternoon, we will start to map out a process for meeting with people and talking to them, and when we see who the other commissioners are and where they're from and that sort of thing, if they're from other parts of the province, as we anticipate they may be, we will presumably have those commissioners do some consultations in the area they live in.
Mr Smith: Briefly, because I know my colleague Mrs Elliott has a question as well, I'd be interested to know your view about public accountability at the school board level.
Ms Vanstone: My view? I think public accountability at the school board level is excellent right now, and I expect it to continue to be excellent in the future. Certainly I have been chair of a school board that has a budget of $2.1 billion and we have public meetings, which are well attended by the public, to take the public through the budgets. That's at the umbrella board. At the local board we certainly have endless public meetings with our communities and others to explain what public money is being raised and what public money is being spent. I think there's a good deal of accountability on the financial side.
Perhaps between 1967 and 1993 there wasn't as much public accountability on the student side, as far as student performance goes, as there should have been. I believe that is being corrected now by the Education Quality and Accountability Office. This is happening. This is part of a worldwide phenomenon. Ontario is no different from other jurisdictions.
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph): Welcome, Mrs Vanstone. My question relates to the role of parents in the new restructuring. Two of the terms of reference, specifically (g) and (h), refer to "strengthening the role of school councils...increasing parental involvement in education governance." I just wondered what you think about the future role of parents in this new, restructured system.
Ms Vanstone: Parent councils in various parts of the world have taken various shapes. They go from full governance structures in New Zealand to governance structures for expenditure of federal funds in places like Chicago to home and school community councils in various parts of Ontario.
I believe that parent councils form a very positive and important role in education. In the community I've represented for 18 years, parent councils are extremely strong. The Board of Education for the City of Toronto probably has more structured parent involvement in its decision-making than any other board in the province. For example, there are parents from a given school who select the principal for the school, who determine how to deploy the staff in the school, those kinds of things.
Parent councils are part of the mandate of this commission. I wouldn't anticipate that we or the minister's office would require all schools and school boards across the province to have exactly the same kind of parent involvement that I have in my schools. I think it's terrific, but in a lot of communities they just wouldn't want that kind of parent involvement.
So I think this will probably be a situation, when we start working on this aspect, of setting up the kinds of guidelines that would lead to parent involvement and asking each school board and each community to design within that framework how they want to structure parent involvement in the schools in those communities. I think you'll see a lot of differences across the province but I think, provided the guidelines are strong enough and the framework is strong enough to ensure that you get that parent involvement, you'll get that.
The Acting Chair: Mrs Vanstone, we've run out of time. I'd just like to thank you for appearing before the committee. You left us with some very interesting information.
Ms Vanstone: Thank you very much.
DAVID COOKE
Review of intended appointment, selected by official opposition party: David Cooke, intended appointee as co-chair, Education Improvement Commission.
The Acting Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, the next person appearing before the committee is Mr David Cooke. Mr Cooke, if you wish to take a few minutes for an opening statement, and then we'll begin our questioning.
Mr David Cooke: Thank you, Mr Chair. Just very briefly, I was very pleased when I was given the opportunity to serve as a co-chair of this commission based on the fact that I have believed for a long time that there are dollars in the system that can be freed up by reorganizing it, by restructuring it. We studied that in detail when my party was in power and when I was Minister of Education. We asked Mr Sweeney to look at it. He recommended a 50% reduction in the number of school boards. The Catholic trustees just a little while ago came out with their study that said a 25% reduction in the number of school boards in their system alone could save $150 million.
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It's my belief that the focus of this has to be not on trustees but on kids and that the dollars have to be freed up to be put back into the classrooms. No matter which political party is in power, there are going to be limits on how much money can be spent. Therefore, if there are going to be limits on how much money can be spent, as many of those dollars as possible have to be spent in the classroom for the children in this province.
That was my belief when I was in government, that remained my belief when I went back into opposition and that's why I accepted the offer to co-chair this commission.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much, Mr Cooke. We'll begin with Mr Silipo for 10 minutes.
Mr Silipo: Dave, let me just pick up on that very last comment. As I said earlier with Ann, I don't think there's any doubt about your qualifications, as well as hers, to do this work. But notwithstanding what you've just said and notwithstanding what I know about your view on a number of these issues, I need to ask you why this position when, I think as you know, the changes that have been made by this government are not being made in a way to just streamline the system and make it more efficient but are being done as a way to take billions of dollars out of the school system.
Mr Cooke: No one is living under the illusion that the co-chairs have been given control over the fiscal policy of this government. That was not part of the deal. But I can also say that whether Ann and I were co-chairing or not, the policies were going ahead with the reduction in the number of school boards. I believe that both my co-chair and myself bring a sensitivity and an understanding of the system to these positions that will be important to the way the reduction in the number of school boards is implemented, so again we'll keep the focus on kids.
We'll have to live with whatever fiscal framework is given to us by the government, and that will make it either easier or more difficult, but it's still going to happen and we still bring something to this process that I think will make it work better than it might have otherwise.
Mr Silipo: So the rationale is, since it's going to happen, as you say, to try to make it happen in as painless a way as possible?
Mr Cooke: "Painless" is a judgemental word that I no longer use, now that I'm out of the Legislature. But yes, make it work for kids. Some things that are being done here are close to what we were going to do. Even some of the decisions that the government has had to make, that it will be making, in terms of the new financing of school boards and how the dollars will be distributed, those are things that no matter who would have been elected, there would have had to be some decisions on.
If there isn't a new way of distributing the dollars, then the Catholic system will take the Ministry of Education to court and the francophone community will take the Ministry of Education to court. Certainly the advice I received when I was minister was that the old financing and the way the dollars were distributed were in violation of the Constitution, so there had to be some change. I hope we'll have some input on that and that there will be something we can bring to that process.
Mr Silipo: Except, you know what's likely to happen is that there's going to be an attempt to equate by reducing expenditures in areas like Metropolitan Toronto, where there have been, in my view, justifiable reasons for spending the kinds of moneys that are being spent --
Mr Cooke: I think Ann spoke to that. I agree that there has to be a funding formula put in place that recognizes real costs, and there will be different expenditures in urban Ontario than there will be in rural; there will be some expenditures in northern Ontario; in areas where there are aboriginal students there'll be different expenditures as well. Whatever funding formula comes into place, there has to be some understanding of that, and we certainly will communicate that.
Mr Silipo: Doesn't it trouble you, Dave, that you're going to be implementing some changes which are not going to be particularly palatable, unless you agree with them, and I'm not sure that you do. I'm thinking particularly of one. One of your tasks is going to be to make recommendations to the minister on how to promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services.
Mr Cooke: I'd certainly hope that the process we will use, as we design the structure of the commission, is that others will be involved. I don't see any of this process excluding parents, trustees or representatives of trade unions. They've got to be part of the process.
There are some areas where there can be some outsourcing. My own view is that this is limited. We have to look at this as a school system. A caretaker in a school is part of that school community. I think the kinds of criteria we look at to study this issue aren't going to bring something different to that than somebody else would.
I would have great difficulty if there was a huge move to privatization or outsourcing. I think that would be very detrimental to public education in the province. I don't detect that's a desire. There's nothing in the legislation that changes the ground rules. I think we'll study it in partnership with boards and with labour unions and look at where it can work, where it can save money, but keeping in mind that the primary focus has to be on maintaining a good, quality school community.
Mr Silipo: You don't actually believe, do you, that 45% of the money is being spent outside of classroom?
Mr Cooke: I think the information that has been made available at this point varies and that more work needs to be done on what is spent directly into the classroom. It may be that 45% is spent directly into the classroom, and that would give some people the impression that 55% can somehow be cut. We know that schools still need to be cleaned. We know that schools still need broken windows replaced.
There are lots of expenditures that I don't think would be fair to put in the category all of us have some concerns about, and that's how much money is being spent on administrative costs and how those administrative costs can be brought down so that more money can go to serving our kids. That certainly will be a focus.
Mr Silipo: I don't agree with the commission, I don't agree with the intent behind it, but I wish you well.
Mr Bob Wood: As a member of the EIC, are you prepared to carry out government policy, as set out in Bill 104?
Mr Cooke: I looked at Bill 104 extensively before I agreed to serve on this commission and I believe it's workable. If I didn't agree to implement Bill 104, I wouldn't be co-chairing the commission.
Mr Bob Wood: I'm taking that as a "yes" answer.
Mr Cooke: That's exactly it, yes.
Mr Bob Wood: Do you have any ideas on how you would promote and facilitate the outsourcing of non-instructional services by district school boards?
Mr Cooke: I think the first thing, as I said before, that has to be done is some solid research to find out exactly what the range of outsourcing would be and what has worked and what has not worked. I also have some very strong views about being fair to workers that I think all the members of the committee would agree with.
I think all those criteria have to be examined. There are some areas where it will work and there are other areas where it would be simplistic to think that it would work. That's the purpose of the commission: to do some research, to have some consultations and to make recommendations where we think it would work appropriately and where it would serve the best interests of students.
Mr Bob Wood: Do you agree with the test of net benefit to the public with respect to outsourcing?
Mr Cooke: If you're just talking about net savings to the public, I think that's a criterion, but it's certainly not the only criterion.
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Mr Bob Wood: When I say "net benefit" I'm talking about overall benefit: better service, less cost.
Mr Cooke: There are other criteria as well: the impact on individuals, on human beings, and those are all things the commission will have to take a look at.
Mr Bob Wood: What other criteria do you see?
Mr Cooke: If I had all the answers, we wouldn't need to do any research. I think the commission has to consult, and we'll have to put together some terms of reference for that subcommittee to go out and do its research, and all of us will have to work on that. But as I said, I was told and I believe that everybody agrees this entire process has to be fair. That is certainly one of the criteria, whether it's looking at outsourcing or whether it's looking at the actual downsizing of the school boards. We've got to be fair to the people who work for the system because they've given a lot to the system.
Mr Bob Wood: Who do you think should be appointed to the local Education Improvement Committee?
Mr Cooke: There certainly have to be people from the school boards. There are going to be trustees. There's got to be administration. I also hope there would be a representative from the employers' groups, employees' groups involved and parents. I think it's got to be an inclusive process.
We will develop some guidelines and there'll probably be some variation from area to area. If you take a look at how we're going to construct the French-language school boards, in particular the public French-language school boards, and the size and starting from scratch, there may be some variations on the makeup of the EICs that are going to work in that area from an EIC in Metro Toronto.
Mr Bob Wood: What guidelines do you think there should be?
Mr Cooke: That's the purpose of the commission. Not all the members of the commission have been appointed yet, and we're not a commission yet. We've got the ministry working on some options for us and we're going to sit down and work that out.
I don't think it would be fair to come up with definitive guidelines today when I don't even know who the other commissioners are. They're going to bring something different to the commission from what I bring.
Mr Bob Wood: Those are my questions.
Mr Smith: Thank you very much and welcome this morning, Mr Cooke. Earlier I believe the official opposition raised some questions concerning financial supervision. I'd be interested to know whether or not it's your belief that financial supervision of school boards is needed during this process.
Mr Cooke: I find it absolutely essential. I don't see how, if you're going to reduce the number of school boards, you can possibly say that the school boards change their boundaries, are reduced as of January 1, 1998, and not have some controls on the school boards. The only way it works currently is through accountability. Accountability doesn't exist when, of the boards that are there now, many will not exist on January 1, 1998, and those trustees will not have to run for re-election because there won't be a board to run for a re-election to. So if there's not democratic accountability, then there has to be some imposed by the ministry.
However, I hasten to add that I do not believe that many school boards want to abuse the system. I don't think there are going to be a lot of issues for us to deal with, but there will be that step so that we are there to guarantee protection of the taxpayers.
Mr Smith: In response to a question from Mr Silipo, and please correct me if I misunderstood you, you indicated that the decisions this government is about to embark upon are close to what you were going to do while you were in government. Can you share with me why you appointed John Sweeney in the first place?
Mr Cooke: It was my strong belief, which was supported by the government at the time, that one of the problems we had was that there had been a substantial increase over the years in administrative expenditures in the boards. We looked through the Wells report down in the area I represented, and at the Brian Bowens report in Ottawa-Carleton, and whether or not there should be some amalgamations of school boards, and those reports have been quoted widely. But if you take a look at those reports they said a lot of money can be saved through cooperative services.
If you take a look at what has been done from the time of those reports till now, some of the boards have talked a good line about cooperative services but they haven't really delivered on them. Wells finished by basically saying that if there isn't a big move towards cooperative services, then amalgamation probably would be the next step that would have to be taken. I believe the only way to refocus those dollars towards kids is to have fewer bureaucratic structures. If you take a look, PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, BC -- every jurisdiction is going in this direction, and we were just doing exactly the same thing. Again, it's to break down bureaucracies, to refocus on the classroom.
Mrs Elliott: I'd like to ask you a similar question to that I asked of Mrs Vanstone. You obviously were interested in a renewed role for parents in the education system while you were the minister. I'd like your comments on how you see this evolving, coming out of the work from this commission, and also on the new role that trustees would be playing in the new board structure.
Mr Cooke: We legislated the Ontario Parent Council, and I think that has worked rather well; they're quite involved. But it was always envisioned that the next step -- a memorandum had gone out to boards saying that every school had to have a school council but that there would ultimately be legislation, because a memorandum doesn't really have the power to make sure it happens at the local level. It's the natural evolution of it.
I think we need to consult, because I agree with Ann that the type of school council you have in Metropolitan Toronto might be slightly different from that of a remote rural school, and there should be enough flexibility to allow parents, along with the trustees in that area, to determine where the needs are and what the emphasis should be.
Just to give one example, ultimately I would like to see parents have more power -- they already do in some schools -- to look at the school-based budget, say, not the entire budget for the board but a portion of the budget allocated to the school, so they could have some input on what the needs are of that particular school. That's already done in some areas.
In my view, the role of trustees now is going to be more in line with the type of role the royal commission was talking about when it reported; that is, a part-time role that will allow, where there is the flexibility -- and as I understand it, there will still be some flexibility -- in the curriculum to have a reflection of the local and regional needs in those schools that could not be given by the Ministry of Education.
Mrs McLeod: I begin the questions with very grave concerns about Bill 104 and where it's going to take public education in this province. That underlies some of the questions I'm going to be asking you, Dave.
I also have very grave concerns about the commission, the appointment of the commission and the powers being given the commission. I guess that leads me to some surprise at your heading it up, not because of your qualifications but because of the very nature of the commission. It was just a year ago that you were with us fighting Bill 26. We were fighting against the appointment of commissions under Bill 26 that would have sweeping powers to impose decisions on communities, yet you're about to co-chair a commission that has exactly those kinds of powers.
The thing we were fighting for was to at least allow for public input, public hearings. I simply don't understand how you can buy into the acceptance of a position and starting to implement legislation which is only now going out for public hearings.
To me, the way in which the government has rammed this through and gone ahead to name -- although proposed and not effective until the legislation has passed, clearly this government intends to ram this legislation through. It makes public hearings a sham. I guess my first question, David, is how can you buy into the very things you fought against in principle a year ago?
Mr Cooke: Actually, I don't see the same powers with this commission that the hospital restructuring commission has, not the same types of powers. In many respects, a lot of the powers of this commission reflect the same powers your government put in under the Planning and Implementation Commission for the implementation of Bill 30.
Mrs McLeod: After hearings.
Mr Cooke: There's a lot of that in it that needs to be in place, and then there's a lot of ability to make recommendations and a lot of consultation that will take place.
I think you understand the history my co-chair and I bring to this. We intend to involve people right along the way with consultation, on subcommittees, on the local EICs. All of that, I think we can follow.
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Mrs McLeod: The issue for me is, first of all, that the appointments are taking place before the legislation has even had public hearings, which implies to me an assumption, on the part of both the government and now the co-chairs, that the legislation will in fact be passed, regardless of --
Mr Cooke: No, but I would have been rather upset to be named a co-chair and not be in at the ground level, at the ministry, looking at and developing the structure and planning for it if and when the legislation passes. Actually, in a way, being brought in as consultants in the ministry to help look at how the structure should be set up is one of the only ways I would have accepted it. There's no way I was going to walk in to be co-chair with everything already decided.
Mrs McLeod: I will assume for the moment that you also accept the fact that the powers of the commission put them above the law because you can't be held liable. I want to ask you specifically about your approach, which you've just outlined, to taking on the responsibilities as co-chair of the commission.
I certainly know it was one of your beliefs that there should be a school board amalgamation to free up dollars. It's important that you know -- I'm sure you've seen it already -- that the study the ministry itself produced to talk about the savings from amalgamation show that at best they see $150 million of a $14-billion budget being saved through this. Even to find that $150 million, they've got to go directly to classroom supplies and equipment to get $9.9 million, they've got to take $21 million out of school busing -- not the administration of busing but actual school busing -- and they've got to take money away from paraprofessionals who provide support to kids in integrated classes.
I don't think we should defend what is about to happen in the name of governance savings when the sum total of $21 million is the saving from having fewer trustees.
I have two areas in which I want to ask you a question on this. First, the work you did as a minister, through the study you had commissioned, said that the optimal size for school boards was between 5,000 and 55,000 students. Clearly, these boards are gigantic. They go beyond anything that was ever envisaged in that respect. Some 300,000-plus students in a school board means there is no way the local trustee can be accessible to parents in that school system.
Geographically, you know this province well enough to know that if you've got school boards, as you have in northwestern Ontario, each larger than the country of France, you can't have local accountability and accessibility for trustees. I wonder how you can see those as being workable.
Second, you say you want to make this work for kids, and Ann said the same thing. How can this work for kids when the companion piece, as stated by the minister in his preface to introducing this legislation, is that the government is going to take control of educational finance? I'm not going to get into the whole debate about whether that benefited the property taxes, because we've been debating that in other forums, but this government will have total control over educational finance.
Ann talked about the potential benefits, or at least that it would be a break-even for Toronto students; that continuing education students would be granted under the funding formulae. You know very well that this government took adult education out of the regular funding formula and made them only available for grants under continuing education and that elder education outside Toronto has been devastated: 80% fewer people in adult education in many areas.
Junior kindergarten: The first action of this government was to cut the funding for junior kindergarten. Where will it fit under a formula?
How do you see, in your new advisory capacity to the ministry, making this work, either for accountability and accessibility or for kids in a classroom?
Mr Cooke: Obviously, I have a commitment to junior kindergarten. I don't want to be overly political, but I remember that when we brought in the legislation for mandatory JK you voted against it, as did the other opposition party at the time. So there is something we have to remember about history.
Mrs McLeod: And fully supported full funding for junior kindergarten as an encouragement to boards to provide it, David.
Mr Cooke: Everybody said they agreed with a province-wide curriculum with province-wide standards. I don't know what your belief is on financing, but I personally and my party had always believed that progressive taxes should pay for education. If you've got those, obviously you don't need as many trustees, because they're not doing as much. You know they're not doing as much.
You also know -- these are the arguments I used when I was minister -- that he turnout in municipal elections is 30%. The recognition of trustees is very low. The accountability for education should lie primarily with the level of government that has the constitutional responsibility for education, and that's the province.
Mrs McLeod: David, I assume from that that you see, unlike Ann perhaps, less and less of a role for local boards and potentially the demise of local boards. I take that from your statement, so I want to ask you about my third area.
Mr Cooke: I wouldn't put your spin on it, necessarily.
Mrs McLeod: You said "primarily," and I asked you about workability of boards. I don't think they're workable.
I want to ask you specifically about the aspect of collective bargaining and how that will take place. One of the areas the legislation sets out is that all the powers of the commission seem to be operative except as they relate to collective bargaining. Again, you're advisory to the ministry in a very tense transitional period, and I want to ask you where you think this is going to go. I don't know how locally elected boards can continue to carry out collective bargaining, even in this interim period, when they have no power to approve their own budgets and when they know that as of January 1 they will have no funding flexibility or direct accountability at all.
I don't know where collective bargaining goes subsequent to that, again when boards have no direct fiscal accountability. Is it your expectation that there is going to be a stalemate in all collective bargaining for the balance of the year? Or do you think there will be collective bargaining legislation which essentially makes that also a provincial responsibility before the year is out?
Mr Cooke: I can't answer the latter question. That's not something the commission is going to be deciding. There are other examples of bodies primarily funded by provincial dollars where there are not province-wide negotiations. I think of children's aid societies, of hospitals. There are lots of examples in those areas where they didn't resort to province-wide bargaining.
Mrs McLeod: Do you not see a tension in the next 12 months with the operation of the commission in total control over boards' budgets and the carrying out of collective bargaining?
Mr Cooke: Of course there's going to be tension. The most comfortable thing --
Mrs McLeod: How does the commission deal with that?
Mr Cooke: That's why we have a transition commission. That's why we have to sit down and deal with people. Whenever there's change, of course there's going to be tension. It's always more comfortable for all of us to live with things the way they are.
Mrs McLeod: So the commission will essentially be at bargaining tables across the province, directly or indirectly, over the next year?
Mr Cooke: No, I don't believe that's the case.
The Acting Chair: Mr Bartolucci for one minute.
Mr Bartolucci: Just a comment, David. I have to be perfectly honest. I enjoyed you more on this side of the table compared to now.
Mr Cooke: I wish you had come down to my riding in the last election, when I was running against the Liberals in a tough fight, and said the same thing.
Mr Bartolucci: I would say at the same time that I think it's going to be impossible for you to wear the hat you wore on this side there.
Mr Cooke: Of course.
Mr Bartolucci: Regardless of what you think, you're going --
Mr Cooke: I didn't expect that I was going to be going and working in the Ministry of Education and remaining an opposition member. I've taken on a new career.
Mr Bartolucci: Is there anything you disagree with in Bill 104?
Mr Cooke: In the bill itself, I think the bill is outlined in a way that is workable. I have concerns about the whole issue of contracting out. I think I made that fairly clear in my response to Mr Wood. I think we're going to have to work through that and we're going to have to consult with people.
But I don't think it would be possible for anybody, especially an opposition member, to come in and take co-chair of this commission or any other commission and not have some concerns. I didn't write the legislation, so it's not 100% the way I would do it, but generally I think it's workable, and I believe strongly in the need to reduce school boards to refocus on kids.
The Acting Chair: Thank you, Mr Cooke, for your contribution this morning.
Mr Wood, I understand you have a motion of concurrence.
Mr Bob Wood: I move concurrence in the intended appointment of Mrs Vanstone.
Mrs McLeod: Mr Chairman, may I just comment before voting on the motion? I just want to make a statement.
The Acting Chair: I'm sorry, the motion has been made.
Mrs McLeod: A motion is non-debatable?
The Acting Chair: There is debate. I'm sorry. The motion has been moved and now we're open for debate.
Mrs McLeod: I should preface my involvement in these votes by saying that I simply cannot support any appointments to this commission when I feel so strongly opposed both to the legislation and the commission being appointed to implement it. My vote is not based on qualifications of individuals but on my opposition to the commission itself.
Mr Silipo: I just want to say, in some ways, the flip side of that, which is that I will be supporting this appointment and the next, but supporting it on the very clear understanding that this committee's role is to deal with the qualifications people bring to the positions they are being recommended for.
I remain very strongly opposed, as do my party and my caucus, to the implementation commission and the whole process behind it; the fact that it's got nothing to do, in our view, with streamlining and making the system more efficient or more effective but has everything to do with taking billions of dollars out of the school system. But we will deal with that in another forum. Today we are here to deal with the appointment of these two individuals, and in terms of their qualifications, I have no reason to oppose their appointment to this body.
The Acting Chair: Any further debate? I'll call the question. All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.
Mr Bob Wood: Mr Chairman, I move concurrence in the intended appointment of Mr Cooke.
The Acting Chair: Mr Wood has moved concurrence on the appointment of Mr Cooke. Debate?
Mr Bartolucci: Mr Chair, I won't be supporting the recommendation. If you don't agree with the process, how can you support individuals who are going to be part of the process? Clearly, this is being done completely incorrectly and with no regard for democracy at all. I don't agree with the direction of this government when it comes to education, especially with this EIC and its mandate and its powers and the devastation it will have on classroom education.
It's interesting that these people only paid lip-service to the children and the classroom. If they had stood here today and answered questions, zeroing in on how it's going to benefit kids in the classroom, I might have another opinion and another way of voting.
The process is wrong. The direction is wrong. The committee is wrong. The commission is wrong. It doesn't make any difference how qualified the people are; the direction is wrong, and I can't support their appointment.
The Acting Chair: Any further debate? Seeing none, I'll call the question. All those in favour? Opposed? Carried.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we have no selections next week, the committee will not meet again until February 26. Any further business? I adjourn the committee.
The committee adjourned at 1112.