After the longest recess in a quarter-century, Ontario’s MPPs returned to Queen’s Park this week. According to the Globe and Mail, Premier Ford has promised a new, less confrontational approach to governing the province. As per the Toronto Star, the first legislation of the new session focused on allowing bars and restaurants beyond security checkpoints in some airports to serve alcohol 24 hours a day.
Fix Our Schools continues to be a non-partisan, Ontario-wide, parent-led campaign calling for safe, healthy, well-maintained publicly funded schools. To achieve this goal, we ask Doug Ford’s government to please increase provincial funding for school repairs, renewal, operational maintenance and new school builds. We also ask for the province to provide predictable funding to school boards. Adequacy and stability of provincial funding is an absolute necessity for school boards to be efficient and effective in dealing with repair backlogs in their buildings.
Additionally, we ask that Doug Ford’s government please update and release disrepair and Facility Conditions Index information for Ontario’s schools in the same format that was previously released in October 2017. The public deserves transparency into this data. Only by tracking the impact of provincial funding on school conditions, will we be able to objectively measure the adequacy of this provincial funding and determine the way forward.