Ontario's new education bill means less say, more red tape for parents, warn critics in Durham Region
CBC
An Ontario education bill will make it more challenging for parents to advocate for their children in elementary and high schools, critics in Durham Region say.
Bill 33 grants the education minister broad power to appoint a supervisor to take over school boards — a move that sidelines elected school board trustees. The province is currently controlling five school boards, citing financial mismanagement.
Mary Fowler is president of the Durham Region Labour Council, which represents over 50,000 workers across the region, including in the education sector, and is among those speaking out.
“We’re very concerned about what this is going to mean for our community and community members who are trying to advocate for their kids,” she said.
CBC News has reached out to the Ministry of Education for comment.
Critics say Bill 33 is a step towards eliminating school trustees altogether — something Education Minister Paul Calandra has said he will have a plan to possibly do by the end of the year.
The province has not taken over any school boards in Durham Region yet. But the labour council is hosting a hybrid town hall in Oshawa on Monday evening to discuss the impacts of Bill 33 and “how we can organize to fight back,” its website reads.
Calandra has said the province took over five school boards after financial investigations showed growing deficits and mismanagement. Examples of spending by two boards now under provincial control include a staff trip to Italy to buy art for new schools that cost over $100,000 and a nearly $40,000 staff retreat at a hotel inside the Rogers Center.
But critics say the bill goes beyond financial oversight by letting the province interfere in local democracy and decision-making.
The bill gives the education minister the power to take control of a school board, not only if he deems it to be in the public interest but for “any other circumstance that can be prescribed,” it reads.
Trustees are an accessible source of information for parents and also advocate for issues such as bussing routes or additional support for children, Fowler said.
School boards that have been taken over by the province “don’t have the same support in trying to navigate … what can sometimes be a very bureaucratic system,” she said.
Trustees also play a helpful role in bringing concerns to light, as some Ontario school boards have hundreds of thousands of students, said Sachin Maharaj, an assistant professor of educational leadership, policy and program evaluation at the University of Ottawa.
Because of their size, these school boards don’t always hear community concerns, said Maharaj, who lives in Pickering and is speaking at Monday’s town hall.
As his flight departed from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport en route to Kuwait via Istanbul, Canadian crypto fugitive Andean Medjedovic was unaware that his globe-trotting lifestyle would soon be halted.
One of the largest taxi companies in Toronto will be down to three wheelchair-accessible cabs by the end of March, as advocates and providers say the city is failing to support accessible taxi drivers.
As a deep freeze continues to envelop southwestern Ontario at the same time municipalities deal with a pressing shortage of road salt, there's a renewed focus on finding different ways to melt road ice.
Dave Lawson is a proud Canadian who has bumper stickers that say "Canada is not for sale." He's fed up with grocery products plastered with maple leaves and patriotic logos that turn out to be American imports.
The Town of Badger has issued an evacuation order for some residents as water levels on the Exploits River continue to rise.
The head of a national seniors' advocacy organization says protecting nursing home residents from sexual abuse is an important but challenging issue.
New data shows Winnipeg's fire-paramedic service fielded hundreds of reports involving the city's homeless population, but one advocate says she expects that number to go down in light of the city's limits on where encampments can be.
Former students of the Île-à-la-Crosse Boarding School have reached a settlement in their lawsuit against the federal government.
Missing baby presumed dead after father charged with killing mother in St. Albert, Alta., police say
A man is facing charges in the death of a young mother in the Edmonton area and the presumed death of their missing nine-month-old daughter.
A school trustee in Prince George, B.C., says she's shaken and scared after being surrounded by police with their guns drawn and then put in handcuffs, in what RCMP say was a case of mistaken identity.
Despite an eleventh hour attempt to secure at least a few more weeks of freedom, a Calgary dentist was handed a three-year prison sentence for a decade-long insurance billing fraud.
Canada Computers & Electronics says a data breach has leaked information about some of its customers, though several say they are unhappy with the scant details the retailer has provided — including how many of them were affected, and when the breach occurred.
The city of Toronto is shutting down a yacht club on the Humber River in Etobicoke that is accused of having negative impacts on the local ecosystem.