| MPP
Arnott Debates Liberal Critic on School Board’s Balanced
Budget
Waterloo-Wellington
MPP Ted Arnott explained how a provincially appointed
supervisor balanced the budget of the Toronto District
School Board in a recent special debate. The exchange
between Mr. Arnott and the Liberal Education Critic,
Gerard Kennedy, took place on November 26, 2002 in the
Ontario Legislature. The following is the Hansard excerpt
of the complete debate:
Mr
Gerard Kennedy (Parkdale-High Park): It is a limited
pleasure to rise tonight and to address the inadequacies
of the Premier's response. In a sense, my question yesterday
was directed to the minister, but also today I asked
a similar question to the Premier. It was a simple question.
It
was the Premier and the minister who said, "We
will appoint someone to take over the Toronto school
board and we will balance their budget." They said
that a number of weeks ago. They said that about Ottawa
and Hamilton as well. Then there were the events of
the last number of weeks. They spent a lot of money.
They hired new people. They hired public relations people.
When
the day came to provide what they called a balanced
budget, they put this out -- this isn't available unless
there's a big zoom for the cameras in the Legislature
-- a cut-and-paste number of columns. This is what they
released to the public. On this release are net expenditures
and gross expenditures mixed together. What this release
did was permit the Premier of the province to say categorically
last week that the classroom expenditures, the artificial
category that even this government concedes are important
expenditures to students, were being increased. The
Premier said that; so did the minister. The minister
said these cuts had not materialized to the classroom.
The supervisor opened his presentation and said that.
The government in fact hitched its entire credibility
to the fact that it had cut the budget and saved money
for the classroom and protected children.
Instead,
we learned that these figures do not tell the substantive
story, the important story, of what was happening at
the Toronto board, that in fact there's another $110
million that was spent last year that was deliberately
omitted from these figures -- and I say that
We
have now had five days in this House where no one on
the government side -- Mr Arnott is here on behalf of
the government to remedy this, I hope -- has produced
an official set of figures to show the degree and the
depth of the cuts to children in public schools in this
city.
Should
Mr Arnott or anyone else in the government show up without
that, then I'd say it besmirches this House, because
to me it is fundamental that when we're talking about
things like children's education, there are certain
things on which we can rely. This government would be
happy to have this debate dissolve into one about numbers,
but it is instead about important areas.
For
example, the government tried to say that there would
be more money spent on textbooks. In fact, by the best
figures we were able to obtain from the school board,
there is less money being spent on textbooks. Further,
teacher assistants, $2.4 million; fewer teacher assistants,
not a $640,000 increase. Supply teachers, a $2.8-million
decline.
The
government tried to say today and yesterday that somehow
the figures we were using weren't fully accurate. What
we found and confirmed with board officials is that
the figures I was provided with by the school board,
which were confirmed by them, are far closer to the
reality of this government.
I
say again to the public of Ontario and I say to the
honourable members opposite, they need to release these
figures to have any honour in this House. This House
would deny them any reasonable credibility if they can't
tell us what their handiwork has done. The only people
in this province who are elected democratically who
can respond to the needs of the children in Ontario,
in Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton, are in this House.
Should this government show up tonight without a set
of figures, with just more rhetoric, without being able
to tell us exactly and precisely how much harm they're
doing to education in Toronto, I say shame on them in
a way I've never felt in this House before.
Should
that be their deliberate response, the one I asked for
by being here tonight, then that is the government prepared
to go, without reservation, to no shortage of space
to deceive us. I put that forward not as something I'm
implying, but I would say there's a set of conditions
here under which the government needs to provide to
the people the very rudiments of their ability to judge
its performance.
I
say on behalf of students in Toronto -- and I understand
in Ottawa we have learned now that they can't balance
the budget, that that supervisor has been able to find
less than half of the savings that this government promoted
and promised would take place. This government needs
to come clean with the students of Ontario. It needs
to provide to this House and these only elected officials
the information and the assurances to reconcile statements
made by the Premier of this province, the person who
should be able to be depended on when he says children
are not going to be harmed.
Mr
Ted Arnott (Waterloo-Wellington): It's a pleasure to
respond to the member for Parkdale-High Park. Let me
start off by placing into historical perspective the
issue of the appointment of school board supervisors,
an issue which is paramount to this debate. We appointed
a supervisor because, "The Education Act is very
clear. No school board is allowed by law to plan for
a deficit; that is simply not permitted."
Those
words were spoken, I'm told, by an honourable member
opposite, the member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke,
who is here in the House tonight, when he made this
statement in the House on June 14, 1990, when he served
as Minister of Education in the Peterson government.
The member was quite right when he said that.
Now
that this is on the record, it's equally imperative
that we clear up any distortion or mistaken information
instigated by the member for Parkdale-High Park. As
of late, the member opposite, through exaggerated conjecture
and rhetoric, has tried to infer that the Toronto District
School Board's balanced budget is somehow askew. Well,
the member opposite is simply incorrect. This House
is well aware of this member's tendency to embellish
and his unwillingness to put information in its proper
context or, in other words, his fearmongering --
The
Acting Speaker (Mr Michael A. Brown): Stop the clock.
A point of order?
Mr
Kennedy: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The member
opposite is using the word "embellish." There
are facts that I have put on the table here and --
The
Acting Speaker: That's not a point of order, and I'm
not permitted to allow points of order.
Mr
Arnott: For the record, allow me to correct the member
opposite with respect to his claims. You see, the member
for Parkdale-High Park is on record trying to fearmonger
by saying that the supervisor's budget would "cut
all the pool programs, all the recreation programs,
all the special-needs programs." This was Gerard
Kennedy on CFRB radio, August 27, 2002.
As
he so often does, the member for Parkdale-High Park,
much like his leader, the leader of the Liberal opposition,
claimed that the sky would fall. But the sky isn't falling;
in fact, quite the opposite. The member said that the
pools would close. I say to this member, his dire prediction
was wrong. The pools will be open. The member for Parkdale-High
Park said that recreation programs would be cut. Well,
he was wrong again. In fact, the programs in place when
the supervisor arrived stayed in place. Not only was
he wrong about the supervisor cutting programs, the
supervisor announced new investments in key areas such
as teachers, technology, textbooks and classroom supplies.
The member said that special education in Toronto would
also be cut, and he was wrong yet again. The supervisor
protected special-education funding and ensured that
the needs of the students would be met.
The
supervisor recently passed a good-news budget for the
students and people of Toronto, and it's utterly shameful
that the member opposite would try to distort the reality
of the situation at the TDSB. That budget showed that
tough decisions could be made while still protecting
key programs in the classroom.
I'm
advised that the budget plan also included some of the
following highlights: the budget increased spending
for classroom teachers by $5 million; increased spending
on textbooks and classroom supplies by $500,000; increased
spending on classroom computers, while still achieving
significant efficiencies, by $2 million; and so on and
so on.
The
Liberal leader and his education critic continue to
employ the Liberal version of accounting, which, as
we all know, is somewhat lacking, to say the least.
You see, their methodology is fundamentally flawed.
The other day, the member for Parkdale-High Park tried
to make comparisons on spending in the TDSB by comparing
total expenditures in the fiscal year 2001-02 to net
expenditures in 2002-03, which, as we know and as has
been established in this House, is an apples-to-oranges
comparison.
I'm
told the member for Parkdale-High Park's expenditure
comparison that he released regarding total expenditures
against total expenditures in 2002-03 was a fair comparison,
and it supports the supervisor's claim that funding
under this budget is going up in four key areas.
At
the end of the day, regardless of how you look at the
numbers, the supervisor's budget has put the board back
on the road to financial health. The supervisor has
been successful in finding $90 million in savings. The
programs that were in place when the supervisor was
appointed are still in place, such as swimming pools,
heritage language, outdoor centres and parenting centres.
It's
time that the member opposite stopped fearmongering
and admitted that his doom-and-gloom predictions did
not happen. With sound fiscal management --
The
Acting Speaker: Thank you. The motion to adjourn is
deemed to have been carried. The House stands adjourned
until 6:45 of the clock.
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