Tag Archives: pre-budget consultation

Fix Our Schools’ Submission to the Pre-budget Consultation

January 28, 2020

As part of the provincial budget planning process, the Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs runs consultations across the province to listen to presentations from various interested parties. Fix Our Schools was selected to present on Friday, January 17, 2020 when the Committee was sitting at Queen’s Park in Toronto.

In addition, each Ministry seeks funding feedback from relevant parties. The Ministry of Education sent out a memorandum on January 13, 2020 seeking education funding feedback from Directors of Education, Senior Business Officials, Secretary/Treasurers of School Authorities and other Education Partners. In this memorandum, the government indicated a “particular interest in receiving comments on initiatives that could support reducing red tape and administrative burden for the education sector.” The province also underscored its commitment “to supporting students, so they can reach their full potential and succeed in school, life and beyond.”

Fix Our Schools took advantage of the opportunity to submit its feedback directly to the Ministry of Education in order to echo what we had presented to the Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs earlier in the month.

Fix Our Schools Presents at Queen’s Park

January 21, 2020

On January 17, 2020, Fix Our Schools had the opportunity to present to the Standing Committee of Finance & Economic Affairs as part of its pre-budget consultation process. We handed out this document to the committee, urging them to:

  1. Provide adequate and stable funding to school boards for school infrastructure.
  2. Develop a standard of good repair for all Ontario’s publicly funded schools.
  3. Invest the additional $1.6-billion per year needed to eliminate the $16.3-billion repair backlog in schools within seven-eight years.
  4. Continue to collect disrepair data for schools and resume the practice adopted by the previous Liberal government of publicly releasing annual updates on this school disrepair data; adding portables to this process.
  5. Work together in a non-partisan, solution-oriented manner to find the funding solutions needed to make the $1.6-billion per year investment in Ontario’s school infrastructure.

The official transcript of our presentation and subsequent questions from both NDP and PC members of this committee can be read HERE.  The Standing Committee of Finance and Economic Affairs hears many presentations across the province, which represent an important opportunity within our democratic process to give input to our government on how they ought to prioritize funding in the upcoming budget.  The photo below depicts an Education rally at Queen’s Park from the spring, where citizens had another opportunity to provide input to the government on its proposed cuts to education funding.

The presentation delivered by Fix Our Schools served as a platform to further emphasize our asks above to the members of the Standing Committee of Finance & Economic Affairs. Our hope is that our input will be seriously considered as this government develops its spring budget.

Our contribution to the provincial pre-budget consultation process

January 22, 2018

Fix Our Schools contributed this submission to the provincial pre-budget consultation process. It highlights that the $1.4 billion/year our provincial government is currently allocating for school renewal is simply not enough to start to reduce the $15.9 billion of disrepair in Ontario’s schools. To make up for the 20 years when provincial funding was a mere fraction of what it ought to have been as per industry standards, economist Hugh Mackenzie suggests that an additional investment of $1.6 billion/year is needed to start to truly fix Ontario’s schools as per the following breakdown:

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Get public schools on the agenda via the federal pre-budget consultation process!

January 12, 2016

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s pre-budget consultations provide an opportunity to urge our federal government to prioritize school buildings as critical infrastructure. Please engage in this process by:

  • Asking questions at the the in-person pre-budget consultation in Toronto this Thursday, January 14 @ 7 pm at St. Margaret’s of Scotland Church, 222 Ridley Avenue (near Avenue & Wilson)
  • Provide written feedback on Facebook
  • Provide written feedback via the Government of Canada feedback form 

  • Tweet using the hashtag #pbc16

Here are some bullet points to help make it easy to ask questions in-person or provide written feedback! 

  • Schools must be considered critical public infrastructure in this country. Yet, we’ve allowed publicly funded schools from coast to coast fall into states of gross disrepair. 
  • In Ontario alone – there is $15-billion of disrepair in publicly funded schools, $1.7-billion of which has been identified as urgent and critical by the Ontario Auditor-General.
  • The Auditor-General has also confirmed that $1.4-billion per year is needed to maintain Ontario public schools, yet for the past five years our provincial government has only allotted between $150-500-million.
  • When your government was elected in October, you committed a significant increase in infrastructure spending. Premier Wynne was thrilled, stating this will allow Ontario “to do more – and to do it faster!”
  • My question is: “How will you work with provincial governments to ensure that publicly funded schools across Canada are considered critical public infrastructure and funded appropriately to ensure that the buildings in which children spend six hours each day are safe and well-maintained?”
  • I recognize that public education is a provincial jurisdiction but the infrastructure funding, policies and approach provided by our federal government can certainly impact how disrepair in public schools is prioritized and addressed by Canada’s provincial governments.