Rumours have begun to surface that Paul Calandra has plans to collapse Ontario’s 72 school boards into just four: English Public, English Catholic, French Public and French Catholic. Calandra, Education Minister in the Conservative Ontario Government, has already appointed supervisors to take over five school boards including the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Toronto Catholic District School Board (TDSB) and Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board (DPCDSB). The province said the takeovers were in response to financial mismanagement within the boards that supervisors will help to get back in order. However, Calandra told CBC news in August that he was considering eliminating school trustees altogether.
Ford’s attack on school boards
The opposition parties and teachers unions have rightfully criticized these moves as power grabs intent on destabilizing school boards in an attempt to dismantle public education in Ontario as we know it. In May, Doug Ford’s Conservatives introduced Bill 33 into the legislature. Cynically titled the Supporting Children and Students Act, the Bill would amend the Education Act to, among other things, give the Minister of Education power to more easily put school boards under supervision and require boards to put police officers in schools. Still making its way through the legislature after second reading, The bill has faced opposition from parent and educator groups and notably the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario has called these moves by the government “authoritarian,” and evidence of “creeping American-style privatization” in which long-term underfunding creates a crisis in which the government can take more control and potentially open up schools to private interests. This is a path we’ve seen Doug Ford and previous Conservative government’s take. Recently, Doug Ford’s government has spent $225 million in public funds to get Beer and Liquor into convenience stores. Doug Ford has moved to increase privatization in healthcare as well. He has not been shy about offering private solutions over public funding to fix problems in the public services.
The result is always less democracy, less accountability, less voice for public service users and worse public services for all. The move to sideline School Trustees will “suppress dissenting voices and tighten political control over a public education system this government has failed to adequately fund,” ETFO wrote in a public statement regarding Bill 33.
Underfunding education
Countering claims that these government take-overs are to curb financial mismanagement the CBC reported that a review into the Ottawa-Carleton District Schoolboard done by PriceWaterHouseCoopers “found ‘no examples of reckless or deliberate wrongdoing, lack of financial oversight or governance or actions resulting in potential reputational damage.’ But trustees in Ottawa had been struggling to avoid a fifth deficit, and have consistently said boards are underfunded, without enough money to cover special education, inflation, or to pay substitutes for staff on sick leave.” After making $18 million dollars in cuts to balance the budget in June, the OCDSB were still locked out of their accounts and placed under provincial supervision.
In the NDP’s response to the rumour, Shadow Education Minister Chandra Pasma put the blame back on the government’s long term underfunding, highlighting that decisions for the needs of diverse boards would be all up to one Education Minister in Toronto if boards were to be collapsed: “How can one province-wide school board for each system possibly make decisions for communities as diverse as Kenora, Cochrane, Gogama, Ottawa, Peterborough, Orillia, Amherstburg, and Toronto? Parents and communities deserve local, transparent, accountable representation through democratically elected trustees to ensure that the school bus shows up on time, that programs and hiring respond to community needs, that new schools are located where they are needed most, and repairs are prioritized and carried out quickly. Instead of attacking the right of parents to have a say in their children’s education, Doug Ford and Paul Calandra should focus on providing the necessary funding to ensure that every child’s needs can be met.”
According to the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives Ontario Ford has underfunded schools by $6.3 billion since 2018 and per-student funding remains below 2018-2019 levels. Forcing boards into untenable positions.
An attack on workers
Of course a soon-to-expire contract looms large in all this discussion. As the recent ETFO statement suggests: “The timing of this trial balloon is deliberate. As we head into central bargaining in 2026, the Ford government wants to undermine the collective voice of educators and weaken our ability to fight for smaller classes, improved supports, and safer schools. But that won’t happen. Reducing the number of boards would wipe out local bargaining, concentrating even more power in the government’s hands.”
The last round of bargaining experienced two year delays as public sector unions fought Ford in court over Bill 124 which capped their pay raises at 1 percent. Ultimately Bill 124 was smashed in the streets by the OSBCU (CUPE education workers) who demanded an 11.7 percent raise in their bargaining in the summer of 2022. They were extremely well organized and members voted in favour of a strike for better pay. The government introduced the harsh BIll 28 which outlawed their right to strike and basically forced them to accept the government’s contract offer. OSBCU workers defied the Bill and went on strike anyway, rallying the entire labour movement into a near general strike.
The government was forced to repeal Bill 28, altering the terrain on which OSBCU and all other education workers in the province were bargaining. Gains made by OSBCU and other unions such as ETFO, OECTA, OSSTF and others in the last round of bargaining have to be understood in the context of a government that was spooked by the reaction of OSBCU workers and the entire labour movement.
Gains this round will require a similar level of combativeness and cooperation between education unions. Efforts to unite the struggles and experience of different education unions for a common project will be important in facing a government that seems bent on flexing its muscles and exerting greater control in Public Education. The recent statement from Peel Education Workers United, representing 12 different unions in the Peel District School Board are a step in the right direction.
As the lessons of 2022 show us, having rank-and-file worker organizations that can connect workers outside of the official union structures to engage education workers in their schools and communities will be essential to defending public education in the province.
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