noun
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a deceptive and evasive action or ploy, especially a political one.
This definition is applicable to how the Ford government has funded Ontario’s public schools and education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce have repeatedly claimed that they will “spare no expense” to ensure the safety of Ontario’s children, teachers, and education workers. In fact, Ford is on record as claiming that “we have done absolutely everything, everything. We’re sparing nothing. Every idea possible, we’re putting into the classrooms.” These claims are false. They are a deceptive and evasive political ploy – a shell game if you will – where Ontario’s students, teachers, and education workers are the losers.
For months, at almost every press conference Doug Ford said: “I will spare no expense, no expense at all to make sure we take care of the people’s health and the economy of this province.”
Suddenly there is “no additional funding” for reopening schools!@ETFOeducators @CTFFCE https://t.co/K5GTFagDaV
— Sam Hammond (@SLAR2023) July 23, 2020
As the Toronto Star article entitled, “Ontario trumpeted its $1.3-billion back-to-school plan. But a closer analysis shows it’s all about muddy math” outlines, only $413-million of the $1.3-billion the Ford government claims has been provided is actually new money from the provincial government. Approximately $500-million of the $1.3-billion is meant to come out of school board reserve funds, money that these school boards have already allocated to important future expenses, such as capital improvements and retirement benefit obligations. So the numbers behind the government’s funding announcements are, in reality, far less than what parents have been led to believe.
‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’: An analysis shows Ontario’s trumpeted $1.3B back-to-school plan is all about muddy math @fordnation @Sflecce #onpoli @OntLiberal https://t.co/o8pTGzVQf4 via @torontostar
— Michael Coteau (@coteau) October 4, 2020
Halton District School Board chair Andréa Grebenc said it well when she said, “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, really,”
Ricardo Tranjan, a political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, has analyzed the provincial numbers and also concluded they simply do not add up. He has called the government’s claim that it is providing $1.3 billion “disingenuously inaccurate.”
The Ford government’s boast that it spent $1.3 billion on its back-to-school plan is “disingenuously inaccurate,” according to an economist who crunched the numbers. @KenyonWallace breaks down the $1.3 billion to explain why class sizes are still so big: https://t.co/qgq9U7X3Zv
— Brendan Kennedy (@BKennedyStar) October 4, 2020
As Fix Our Schools has noted previously, if Premier Ford’s primary concern was safety and he was genuine in his claim that his government would “spare no expense”, he would have announced a whole lot more funding a whole lot earlier. Instead, as one example of underfunding, Premier Ford’s government allocated $50-M for school boards to address HVAC and ventilation issues, an amount that nets out to a mere $10,000 per school in the province – and he announced this funding extremely late in the game for school boards to reasonably be able to conduct the work.
Fix Our Schools is not proposing that money solves all the world’s problems. However, sufficient money is imperative if we believe that all of Ontario’s publicly funded schools ought to be safe, healthy, well-maintained buildings. Since 2014, we have been calling on successive provincial governments to ensure stable, adequate funding for schools. Amidst a global pandemic, this call to action becomes all the more urgent. Premier Ford and Minister Lecce: If you will not provide adequate, stable funding now – then when?