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Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
6.05.2014
Fairness and Savings in Ontario’s Education System
With regard to:
Could Greens save $1 billion merging school boards?
Fairness and Savings in Ontario’s Education System
Reporter Donovan Vincent’s recent article (Could Greens save $1 billion…?”, June 4) “testing the claim” of the Green Party of Ontario to over $1 billion in annual savings by merging Ontario’s overlapping public and Catholic school systems was incomplete in that it did not really delve into arguments supporting the claim.
The “last massive amalgamation effort” that People for Education’s Annie Kidder spoke of in the article involved the 1998 merger of adjacent school boards, not overlapping ones. According to the report of the School Board Reduction Task Force that advised that exercise, nearly all of the 1296 responses to their interim report disagreed with the Task Force's mandate forbidding them from even considering the merger of overlapping public and Catholic school boards. Everyone without a vested interest in the status quo knew that this was where the most significant savings were to be found and the Task Force believed the sentiment was so strong it warranted special mention.
For clear evidence of the savings possible by merging the public and Catholic school systems, one need only look at the significant disparity in funding between school boards serving the same area.
In Ontario, almost without exception, smaller school boards with more geographically dispersed schools and students receive significantly higher funding on a per pupil basis (total funding divided by total enrolment) than their larger counterparts in the same area. This is not favoritism. This is the Ministry of Education recognizing that Ontario’s smaller school boards cannot realize the same economies and efficiencies as their larger counterparts and therefore need higher funding to offer a comparable quality of education.
In Green Party leader Mike Schreiner’s Guelph area riding, for example, the English Catholic, French Catholic, and French public school boards receive 6%, 35%, and 50% higher funding on a per pupil basis than the English public school board.
In education, costs are not solely determined by the number of students, but by the manner in which we chose to serve them. In Ontario, we chose a very costly way.
Would we tolerate two fire stations in every community – one to serve two of three houses on each street and the other to serve the remainder? Or two gas utilities with separate infrastructures? Of course not – yet we tolerate exactly this type of costly duplication and overlap in education every day.
Ontario school boards currently bus hundreds of thousands of children past their nearest publicly funded school each day to attend another one farther away – often in another community. Many children have never attended a school in their own community – even though their community may have a perfectly good publicly funded school. Who can deny that is costly? Who can deny that affects student quality of life and the environment?
With declining enrolment, surplus pupil places (empty seats) have ballooned from 120,000 in 2002-03, just before the Liberals took power, to over 416,000 today. A Greater Essex County District School Board spokesman recently pegged the cost of their surplus places at $1000 per year – a figure other trustees have told me they believe to be lower than actual. That figure implies at least “hundreds of millions” of dollars a year going to maintain empty space, which coincidentally was the phrase Education Minister Liz Sandals herself used to describe the order of sums involved. As a minimum, surplus pupil places should be reduced to at least 2002-03 levels when the student population was greater than today, implying a reduction of at least 300,000 pupil places and a savings of at least $300 million per year going forward.
A reduction of this magnitude implies hundreds of school closings. This can be done – but this can only be done without significant detrimental impact on Ontario neighbourhoods and communities if we merge the best of the public and Catholic school systems into one school system at the same time. The alternative is to close schools while condemning even more kids to needlessly long commutes to ever more distant schools.
Education Minister Liz Sandals has been promoting the even less sensible approach of bashing under-enrolled and still separate public and Catholic schools together in the same building with their separate but similar split grade classes and their separate but similar administrations intact. School will still close, but the Ontario educational landscape will be messier and more nonsensical than ever.
One other saving to be realized by the move to one school system would be the movement of at least some students to private religious schools. If only 2-5% of Catholic students were to move to private religious schools, additional savings of $140-350 million per year would be realized.
It is pretty clear the savings from a move to one school system are not “nickels and dimes”. It is time our cash-strapped, heavily indebted government got on with the task. If the financial benefits are not enough to sway them, then perhaps someday at least they might want to respect all Ontarians as equals before and under the law.
Canada has twice been censured by the UN Human Rights Committee for the religious discrimination whereby Ontario funds the religious schools of the Catholic faith exclusively. Ontario Superior Court Justice David Corbett recently (Oct 2013) described those censures as “a signal from the United Nations that s. 93 of the Canadian constitution [the section concerning Catholic school funding] offends international human rights norms.”
People for Education does some great work contributing to education related discourse in Ontario – except, strangely, when it comes to the issue of public and Catholic school board mergers. There, its arguments are little more than flimsy assertions that the savings would be insignificant. In the absence of evidence to support that claim, they should at least disclose the significant funding they receive from the government whose wasteful and discriminatory school system they defend.
Kathleen Wynne and other defenders of Ontario’s wasteful and discriminatory “school system as it exists” will have to come up with some compelling reasons for taking that position – if any can be found. Because I can assure them, this issue is not going away. As taxes mount, hydro rates soar, and our truly essential services go wanting for adequate funding, the calls to eliminate the completely unnecessary duplication and overlap in our school system will only grow louder and louder.
Leonard Baak
President, OneSchoolSystem.org, Ottawa
leonard@OneSchoolSystem.org
Leonard Baak is an Ottawa based software engineer who started OneSchoolSystem.org with two other Ottawa area parents in 2004 to push for the merger of Ontario’s public and Catholic school systems into one school system for each official language.
Reporter Donovan Vincent’s recent article (Could Greens save $1 billion…?”, June 4) “testing the claim” of the Green Party of Ontario to over $1 billion in annual savings by merging Ontario’s overlapping public and Catholic school systems was incomplete in that it did not really delve into arguments supporting the claim.
The “last massive amalgamation effort” that People for Education’s Annie Kidder spoke of in the article involved the 1998 merger of adjacent school boards, not overlapping ones. According to the report of the School Board Reduction Task Force that advised that exercise, nearly all of the 1296 responses to their interim report disagreed with the Task Force's mandate forbidding them from even considering the merger of overlapping public and Catholic school boards. Everyone without a vested interest in the status quo knew that this was where the most significant savings were to be found and the Task Force believed the sentiment was so strong it warranted special mention.
For clear evidence of the savings possible by merging the public and Catholic school systems, one need only look at the significant disparity in funding between school boards serving the same area.
In Ontario, almost without exception, smaller school boards with more geographically dispersed schools and students receive significantly higher funding on a per pupil basis (total funding divided by total enrolment) than their larger counterparts in the same area. This is not favoritism. This is the Ministry of Education recognizing that Ontario’s smaller school boards cannot realize the same economies and efficiencies as their larger counterparts and therefore need higher funding to offer a comparable quality of education.
In Green Party leader Mike Schreiner’s Guelph area riding, for example, the English Catholic, French Catholic, and French public school boards receive 6%, 35%, and 50% higher funding on a per pupil basis than the English public school board.
In education, costs are not solely determined by the number of students, but by the manner in which we chose to serve them. In Ontario, we chose a very costly way.
Would we tolerate two fire stations in every community – one to serve two of three houses on each street and the other to serve the remainder? Or two gas utilities with separate infrastructures? Of course not – yet we tolerate exactly this type of costly duplication and overlap in education every day.
Ontario school boards currently bus hundreds of thousands of children past their nearest publicly funded school each day to attend another one farther away – often in another community. Many children have never attended a school in their own community – even though their community may have a perfectly good publicly funded school. Who can deny that is costly? Who can deny that affects student quality of life and the environment?
With declining enrolment, surplus pupil places (empty seats) have ballooned from 120,000 in 2002-03, just before the Liberals took power, to over 416,000 today. A Greater Essex County District School Board spokesman recently pegged the cost of their surplus places at $1000 per year – a figure other trustees have told me they believe to be lower than actual. That figure implies at least “hundreds of millions” of dollars a year going to maintain empty space, which coincidentally was the phrase Education Minister Liz Sandals herself used to describe the order of sums involved. As a minimum, surplus pupil places should be reduced to at least 2002-03 levels when the student population was greater than today, implying a reduction of at least 300,000 pupil places and a savings of at least $300 million per year going forward.
A reduction of this magnitude implies hundreds of school closings. This can be done – but this can only be done without significant detrimental impact on Ontario neighbourhoods and communities if we merge the best of the public and Catholic school systems into one school system at the same time. The alternative is to close schools while condemning even more kids to needlessly long commutes to ever more distant schools.
Education Minister Liz Sandals has been promoting the even less sensible approach of bashing under-enrolled and still separate public and Catholic schools together in the same building with their separate but similar split grade classes and their separate but similar administrations intact. School will still close, but the Ontario educational landscape will be messier and more nonsensical than ever.
One other saving to be realized by the move to one school system would be the movement of at least some students to private religious schools. If only 2-5% of Catholic students were to move to private religious schools, additional savings of $140-350 million per year would be realized.
It is pretty clear the savings from a move to one school system are not “nickels and dimes”. It is time our cash-strapped, heavily indebted government got on with the task. If the financial benefits are not enough to sway them, then perhaps someday at least they might want to respect all Ontarians as equals before and under the law.
Canada has twice been censured by the UN Human Rights Committee for the religious discrimination whereby Ontario funds the religious schools of the Catholic faith exclusively. Ontario Superior Court Justice David Corbett recently (Oct 2013) described those censures as “a signal from the United Nations that s. 93 of the Canadian constitution [the section concerning Catholic school funding] offends international human rights norms.”
People for Education does some great work contributing to education related discourse in Ontario – except, strangely, when it comes to the issue of public and Catholic school board mergers. There, its arguments are little more than flimsy assertions that the savings would be insignificant. In the absence of evidence to support that claim, they should at least disclose the significant funding they receive from the government whose wasteful and discriminatory school system they defend.
Kathleen Wynne and other defenders of Ontario’s wasteful and discriminatory “school system as it exists” will have to come up with some compelling reasons for taking that position – if any can be found. Because I can assure them, this issue is not going away. As taxes mount, hydro rates soar, and our truly essential services go wanting for adequate funding, the calls to eliminate the completely unnecessary duplication and overlap in our school system will only grow louder and louder.
Leonard Baak
President, OneSchoolSystem.org, Ottawa
leonard@OneSchoolSystem.org
Leonard Baak is an Ottawa based software engineer who started OneSchoolSystem.org with two other Ottawa area parents in 2004 to push for the merger of Ontario’s public and Catholic school systems into one school system for each official language.
5.22.2014
Local ketchup loves local potatoes!
(London): Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario, says Green MPPs will take bold action to support Ontario’s food and beverage processing sector.
“Ontarians want the corn, peas, tomatoes, and strawberries grown here to be processed here,” says Schreiner. “Local food processing is key to keeping the family farm in business.”
The food and farming sector employs more than 740,000 people and contributes more than $40 billion to Ontario's economy. Ontario’s food and beverage processors alone generate $40 billion in revenue, create 125,000 jobs directly, and contribute $11 billion to Ontario’s GDP.
In the wake of the Heinz ketchup factory closing in Leamington in 2013 -- and in response to pressure from Green Party supporters and local food advocates -- the Liberal government announced some funds for food processing.
Unfortunately, the Heinz announcement was only one in a string of Ontario processing plant closures. In the past five years Ontario has lost a major sweet corn and pea canning factory in Exeter and a fruit canning plant near Niagara-on-the-Lake. Since 1998, the province has lost more than half of its small abattoirs.
“Greens will continue to push for a dedicated fund to support homegrown entrepreneurs to start and expand local food processing businesses,” says Schreiner. “Greens will also push for regulatory changes to make it easier for local producers to bring products to market.”
The GPO is calling for regulatory reforms that support small and medium scale food producers who must comply with rules written for large processing firms.
Mike Schreiner and the Green Party are committed to bringing honesty, integrity, and good public policy to Queen’s Park
5.13.2014
Your Green MPP’s Plan of Action for 2014
HIGHLIGHTS
Mike Schreiner and the Green Party of Ontario want to get Ontario back on track.
We have a realistic, responsible plan for Ontario’s future.
In the next session of the legislature, your Green MPPs will demand that the government:
1. Raise the Employer Healthcare Tax exemption from $450,000 to $900,000 for businesses with payrolls of less than $5 million.
2. Implement dedicated revenue tools to raise $3 billion a year to build and operate the transit we need in Ontario.
3. Put $4 billion over four years into home energy retrofit credits.
4. Save $1.2 to $1.6 billion a year by moving to one public system with French and English public school boards.
5. Double the child tax benefit for half a million children living in families near the poverty line.
6. Endow a Social Innovation Fund to support social and economic innovation by young adults.
7. Permanently protect Ontario’s Class 1 farmland and source water regions.
8. Increase royalties and levies for mining, aggregates and water-taking.
9. Close loopholes in legislation that threaten your community and our natural heritage from harmful activities.
Each of the demands is costed, and we show you where the money is coming from.
None of our demands will rely on fairy dust or magic pots of money. None of our commitments will increase the deficit. None of our promises will quietly disappear once they’ve done the work of getting us elected.
All of our commitments will make Ontario a better place in which to live, work, and bring up your family.
Join us and help restore honesty, integrity, and good public policy to Queen’s Park.
Think Big and Expect Better: The Green Party of Ontario Releases Platform
Queen’s Park -- Mike Schreiner, leader of the Green Party of Ontario, released the party’s election platform today at Queen’s Park.
Schreiner is on a mission to bring honesty, integrity and good public policy to Queen’s Park.
“At the doorstep and in coffee shops, people tell me they are tired of the political status quo-- political games, boondoggles, broken promises, and secret deals,” says Schreiner. “We must expect better. Greens are committed to restoring honesty, integrity, and good public policy to Queen’s Park.”
The platform focuses on jobs, kids, and the environment.
It puts forward nine demands that will be made by Green MPPs elected in 2014. Each of the demands is costed and the source of revenue identified.
“Financial, social, and environmental accountability are at the heart of Green Party values,” says Deputy Leader Kevin O’Donnell. “This platform is visionary and responsible. It doesn’t borrow from our kids future by gutting public services or failing to fund important promises.”
The demands include bold and innovative solutions to pressing problems faced by the people of Ontario, like a real plan to save you money on energy bills, without costly gimmicks. They are also all concrete ways in which Green MPPs can contribute to creating a better future for us all.
“I want to make it clear to the people of Ontario: a Green vote can and will make a difference,” says Schreiner. “On issue after issue, we have shown leadership and brought about change for a better Ontario.”
5.06.2014
June election leaves democratic initiatives to die
Guelph - Green Party of Ontario leader and Guelph candidate Mike Schreiner criticized the other party leaders for leaving democracy stranded in the rush to jump on the campaign bus.
“Catchy slogans, media stunts, and rally signs do not make good public policy,” says Schreiner. “Political games by the status quo parties at Queen’s Park killed legislation that would strengthen our democracy.”
Bill 83, known as the anti-SLAPP bill, would make it more difficult for vested interests with deep pockets to threaten critics with legal costs and delays.
The legislation was introduced nearly a year ago, but has been stalled by the tactics of corporate lobbyists and the failure of the status quo parties to cooperate.
“Political games forced citizens to take a back seat,” says Schreiner. “All parties said they supported anti-SLAPP legislation, but they failed to pass the bill. What a shame.”
Bill 166, the Toronto Ranked Ballot Elections Act, has also been abandoned by the election call. The bill would introduce needed electoral reform to eliminate the need for strategic voting, reduce negative campaigning, and ensure our preferences are more directly represented. It opens the door for proportional representation so that every vote counts.
Politicians of all stripes, business owners, social justice leaders, journalists, and artists have joined together in their support for municipal electoral reform.
“If we want to restore faith and bolster participation in politics, we need to fix the broken electoral system,” said Dave Meslin, a leader in the movement to revitalize our democracy. “We elect MPPs to work together in our interest, not to derail the legislature and waste the thousands of hours that have been invested in these important bills. The early election call only serves to feed cynicism about politics.”
Mike Schreiner issued calls to fast track these and other important bills.
The Green Party is on a mission to restore honesty, integrity, and good public policy to Queen’s Park.
5.05.2014
Schreiner lauds Dolime decision, pledges to keep pushing to protect Guelph’s water
Guelph – Green Party leader and Guelph candidate Mike Schreiner applauds the decision of the Environmental Review Tribunal to allow an appeal by the City of the water-taking permit granted the owners of the Guelph Dolime Quarry.
“This is a significant victory for Guelph: let’s take a moment to celebrate everyone’s hard work that led to this decision,” said Schreiner. “But Guelph’s water is still not protected. I will continue to work with residents of Guelph to pressure the Ministry to protect our water.”
On Friday, the Environmental Review Tribunal granted the City leave to appeal the Ministry of the Environment decision to issue an “Amended Permit to Take Water” under the Ontario Water Resources Act to River Valley Developments for operations at the Guelph Dolime Quarry.
“Laws need to change,” adds Schreiner. “It’s outrageous that the City has to spend time and money protecting our water from the very Ministry that is supposed to protect water.”
Schreiner launched a public campaign to support the City of Guelph’s efforts to protect municipal water supplies from the Dolime quarry on April 30, 2013. He has collected over 2,500 petition signatures. On February 11, 2014, Schreiner was able to bring all four political party candidates in Guelph together for a news conference to support the City’s efforts.
“I’m committed to protecting our water by closing legal loopholes that fail to put people and communities first. It’s an example of how politics is broken,” says Schreiner. “People can use their vote in the June 12 provincial election to demand change by voting Green.”
3.18.2014
10.03.2013
Reva Landau denied standing by ON Justice
Source: Metronews.ca
A woman who went to court last year seeking to strip Catholic schools of almost all government funding has been denied legal standing, stopping her court challenge before it got started.
Reva Landau was to argue the court should reduce Catholic school funding to the formula used in 1867, which she said would eliminate public funding for Catholic high schools and restrict elementary school funding to contributions from the property taxes of Catholic landowners.
She argued that the existence of Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic schools is protected by the Constitution, but that the legislation that funds them today violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Read the full story here.
8.18.2013
8.16.2013
8.02.2013
Nine shots. One dead teen. Something wrong with this picture?
In the wake of the tragic shooting death of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim, the Green Party of Ontario is calling for more robust civilian oversight of policing through the reform of the SIU (Special Investigations Unit).
“We have a two-tiered justice system in Ontario,” said Mark Daye, Toronto Centre Candidate for the GPO. “One for civilians and one for police. The Green Party supports the important work that the police provide, and we want to ensure proper oversight and accountability is in place to maintain public confidence in our police force.”
The SIU, created in 1990 is failing in its mandate to conduct independent investigations.
In its current form the SIU is made up of 54 investigators, 47 of whom are former police officers.
The GPO passed a policy resolution at its Annual General Meeting in June of 2013 calling for more police accountability and oversight. The policy resolution supports the call by the Ontario Ombudsman for the need for substantive reforms to the province’s system of civilian police oversight.
“The Liberal government has failed to act on the Ombudsman’s recommendations to reform the SIU,” says Daye. “This is irresponsible, and the Green Party will continue to push the government to implement reforms to the SIU.”
According to a recent Toronto Star article, only 16 convictions have resulted from more than 3,400 investigations conducted by the SIU, and only three of those convictions have led to jail time.
The Green Party of Ontario advocates a comprehensive approach to addressing issues of police accountability that acknowledges the social, cultural, and institutional factors that inform police conduct.
7.30.2013
Protest over Russia's attack on LGBTQ people.
See the facebook event.
On August 3, 2013, the world will be sending a message to Russia that its treatment of its LGBTQ community is an attack on human rights.
On August 3rd, Toronto's LGBTQ community and our allies will be gathering at Church and Wellesley to send a message of hope to the LGBTQ communities in Russia that we support their fight for human rights and that we will be demanding our elected officials do something, that we all do something, to pressure Russia to end its homophobic laws and ensure that the LGBTQ community there have full human rights.
We will be meeting at Church and Wellesley at 7:30PM and then walking together to the Russian Consulate at Church and Bloor St.
BRING POTS and PANS - To make some noise!
WEAR SPORTS GEAR - To acknowledge that Russia is hosting the Olympics, a time when all the world will be watching! From speedos to Football pads!
RAIN or SHINE!
It will be an opportunity to find out what you can do - there are many ways to send the message we stand with Russia's LGBTQ community.
#TOwithRussia
Just how hostile is the climate in Russia?
It's awful.
Consensual homosexual sex was decriminalized in 1993, but that has come to mean less and less in recent years. Ten gay activists brave enough to show up at a January demonstration in Voronezh were beaten by a mob. The body of a gay Russian man was found in Volgograd on May 10. He'd been sodomized with beer bottles and set on fire after coming out to acquaintances. Another was found stabbed and trampled to death in June.
President Vladimir Putin claims to care about "the rights of sexual minorities," but speaks darkly about gay marriage with respect to what he calls Russia's "demographic crisis." He's strongly influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church, whose Patriarch Kirill claims that recognizing same-sex unions is an "apocalyptic symptom."
A Levada Center poll of Russians revealed earlier this year that 89 percent of responders said they had no homosexual friends or relatives. Half said gays and lesbians made them feel "irritated and disgusted."
7.13.2013
7.04.2013
NDP abusing the public purse (nobody's surprised)
Back in April Tom Mulcair NDP said,
"both the Conservatives and Liberals are equally guilty of abusing public funds for purely partisan purposes"
The NDP are equally as guilty of abusing public funds.
Yesterday, I received a letter from
One more reason why I'll never vote for the NDP. They criticize the Harper regime for doing one thing, then turn around and emulate the bad behaviour.
6.29.2013
Pride Message from Green Party of Ontario leader, Mike Schreiner
Green Party of Ontario leader, Mike Schreiner, made the following statement on Toronto Pride Week:
“One of my favourite things about Ontario is that our province is teeming with diversity - whether it’s the richness of our landscape or the cultural diversity in our cities, towns and neighbourhoods.
This week marks the 33rd anniversary of the 2013 Toronto Pride, one of the largest displays of Pride in the world; an event that encourages tolerance, acceptance, and inclusivity.
In Ontario, and indeed Canada, hard fought battles over the past decades mean that we all generally benefit from legislation that offers protections against discrimination and intolerance.
I congratulate and thank the leaders in the LGBTQ community who fought against the odds to bring political change to Ontario.
This fight is not over. We know that discrimination still exists. Sadly, in Ontario this is the case, where our tax dollars fund a school system that uses discriminatory hiring practices.
Our provincial government continues to uphold discrimination against LGBTQ teachers and students, by supporting a separate school system that makes one-third of Ontario’s teaching jobs off limits to these teachers.
It’s time to move to one school system, so that fiscally responsible, efficient, equitable, and effective education is available to all our of children.
I am committed to working with Ontarians to ensure our province provides a welcoming, safe and equal place for all people. Let’s take this opportunity to celebrate our diversity by joining in Pride Week festivities."
The Green Party of Ontario continues to make the issue of discrimination in Ontario's publicly funded schools a priority and asks for you to send a strong message to Queen's Park by signing their petition.
6.07.2013
Housing at Risk. Toronto's Ombudsman, Fiona Crean's damning report on TCHC.
An Investigation into the Toronto Community Housing Corporation's Eviction of Seniors on the Basis of Rent Arrears
This report by City of Toronto Ombudsman, Fiona Crean is filled with instances of mismanagement by TCHC. Her report lists some 30 recommendations, coming after some of the city's most vulnerable and at risk seniors have been evicted because of administrative errors and other TCHC cock-up's.
Which, as you will see below comes after Judge Patrick LeSage already tabled more than 80 recommendations after the death of Al Gosling.
As Joe Fiorito stated in his Star column;
"You and I are the landlord – we live here, we pay taxes, our taxes provide housing for the vulnerable, and we expect TCHC to do its job.
 |
| Al Gosling was 82 years old when he was evicted from Toronto Community Public Housing in 2009. Source: The Star.com |
Which, as you will see below comes after Judge Patrick LeSage already tabled more than 80 recommendations after the death of Al Gosling.
As Joe Fiorito stated in his Star column;
"You and I are the landlord – we live here, we pay taxes, our taxes provide housing for the vulnerable, and we expect TCHC to do its job.
On our behalf.
TCHC has an evection prevention policy, so that people who are vulnerable are not kicked idly to the curb. It is a good policy when applied; it is apparently lethal when it is not.
After Gosling’s death, a series of public hearings was conducted by Judge Patrick LeSage. He tabled more than 80 recommendations designed to prevent such deaths from happening again. His report is measured, and tempered, and damning.
The upshot? The housing corporation should implement its own damn policies, and housing staff should do their damn jobs.
Wasted effort?
You be the judge"
6.06.2013
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