It’s been a chaotic year for public education in Ontario. And for all of us who benefit from a high quality and publicly-accountable system, the stakes are high—particularly for our youngest and most vulnerable. Given what we know about the tremendous societal and economic benefits of investment in public education,…
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Wikimedia Commons photo The future of Ontario Place is up for grabs. Will Toronto’s waterfront park be a reinvigorated public space beside the natural wonder of Lake Ontario? Or a glitzy commercial zone, where enjoying the view means shelling out big bucks? Last month, the Ontario government clearly backed the…
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The urgency of the global climate crisis could not be more obvious than in India right now, where a 50ºC heatwave is causing “heavy casualties” both directly through heat-related deaths and indirectly through water and food shortages. Canadians have been spared that kind of heat so far, but it’s little…
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By 2020 all secondary school students in Ontario will need four e-learning credits to graduate. E-learning can be delivered a number of ways, but the Ministry of Education is mandating supplementary courses that take the place of face-to-face offerings, delivered entirely online. To date, we do not know who…
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This week on CBC’s Metro Morning, Ontario Treasury Board President Peter Bethlanfalvy defended cuts in transfers to the City of Toronto by saying that the Ontario government had to “do something immediately” because of the province’s debt. His government had inherited a “staggering amount of debt,” he said. Hours later,…
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May 17th, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia draws attention to the realities of violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTQ2+ people in Canada and around the world. It is an opportunity to advocate and organize for LGBTQ2+ inclusion—to emphasize our continued failure to do justice to LGBTQ2+ communities,…
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It’s entirely possible that the Doug Ford government is about to bring in legislation to cap wages in the Ontario public sector. Treasury Board Chair Peter Bethlenfalvy first raised the idea back in April, when he called on public employees to accept wage settlements that were “modest, reasonable, and, most…
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Photo credit: Richard Bradley It seems like the wrong time to be cutting back on flood protection. In the past week, rising water has closed Highway 17 east of North Bay, submerged entire sections of communities like Bracebridge, and brought Ontarians out in droves to fill sandbags. At one…
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Back in 1995 when I was competing my MA at the University of Guelph, I was interested in looking more closely at the commercialization of public education. Maude Barlow gave me a name: George Martell. I phoned him from my tiny apartment on Glasgow Ave. We exchanged ideas, and I…
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Last week’s budget left many Ontarians confused. The Minister of Finance had warned that dealing with the provincial deficit would require spending cuts and “sacrifice” from all of us, yet the budget actually increased investment in both dental health for low-income seniors and child care for families (analysis of the…
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