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The Ontario Education Funding Squeeze
In the 1980s your scribe was a school trustee on the legacy Toronto Board of Education, long before Mike Harris amalgamated it with other suburban boards to form the Toronto District School Board (TDSB)in 1998. I would often see a friend and journalist from NOW magazine at the meetings, if the issue was edgy like queer issues at the time or condoms in the washrooms type iissues. No problem, but I asked her where the press was during debates over huge issues like the budget, which was over $2B at the time and largely circumscribed most possibilities, over the next year.
She responded, ‘’how about you write about it and we’ll print it.’’ and thus began my party time journalism gig. I wrote about education for NOW from the late 1980s until 2003 when I took a position with provincial OSSTF, a teachers' union.
All this to say budgets are, simultaneously, critical and also somewhat boring. Even old Joe Biden was famous for saying “don’t tell me what your values are. Show me your budget and I'll tell you what your values are”.
So, back to Ontario’s education budget - who is telling the truth? Education minister Paul Calandra says in committee and the legislature, “no government has ever put as many dollars into education in this province as this conservative government”. That is true, however, his own Financial Accountability Office, (FAO), and Chandra Pasma, the NDP official opposition critic, point to the fact that this fall, Ontario is spending
$15 149/student in 25/26 and will be spending $14 775/student by 28/29, in inflation adjusted dollars. This represents an overall cut of $2B in planned spending to maintain a system that is already seriously underfunded.
Premier Ford’s education funding amounts to more dollars but less school, especially when inflation, pent up wage demands in a negotiations year, enrollment, and the rapid growth of special education are factored in.
The FAO report shows a $42.7B 2026 budget with 0.6% growth when it would take 2.1% just to maintain the existing services. Minister Calandra says they will need “efficiencies” which is government language for deep cuts.
This table is the per student expenditure in rea, inflation adjusted dollars.
For teachers and other education workers now in negotiations, to recover their living standard, employees would need a four year contract with a real 4% raise, every year just to stand still in real terms.
Anticipated inflation of 8% from 26 to 2030 of 8% would leave a real gain of 8.1%. If the unions achieved only 2%/year they would achieve nothing but staying even with inflation. This is, of course, before serious discussions of class size and complexity, due to over inclusion, or new special education anticipated needs. This is what happens when you underfund a system by an estimated $6B over a number of years. Ontario is allowing the slow disintegration of a once great education system, to pay for a long series of tax cuts that favour business interests and friends of the government.
