(The following article is from the October 1-15, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Liz Rowley

Supporters of local autonomy and democracy are organizing to defeat the Ontario Ministry of Labour's Bill 177, which aims to transform locally elected School Boards into being transmission belts for the government's austerity and privatization policies.

     Bill 177 closely tracks Harris Tory legislation which was repealed by the McGuinty Liberals in 2003-4. Under the new bill's regulations, School Boards and Trustees that fail to comply can be put under provincial supervision (trusteeship) and removed from office.

     Instead of bringing in the needs-based education funding formula promised in the 2003 and 2007 Liberal campaigns, the government is continuing to under-fund and privatize education.

     As public pressure builds to deliver better quality education and services, School Boards are demanding more and better funding from the province and the Ministry of Education.

     The same thing is happening in Ontario hospitals, where funding cuts are creating long waits for emergency treatment and for non-existent beds in closed wards. Operating at 98% capacity, hospitals are over-crowded breeding grounds for super-bugs like C-Difficile. Hospital boards are also demanding adequate funding, and an end to balanced budget legislation which makes it illegal to run deficits or borrow against capital accountants.

     The province has vaporized mostly appointed hospital boards, despite public outcries. The same fate might happen to School Boards if not for constitutional protections of the Catholic Boards, which the courts have deemed also protect the public system. This was put to the test by the Harris government when it sought to abolish locally elected School Boards. 

     Thus, Bill 177 has been created to convert School Boards into bodies controlled and accountable to the Provincial government.

     As the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) brief noted: "Bill 177 and its regulations are shot through with the central obligation of School Boards `to ensure effective stewardship of the Board's resources', `to effectively use the resources entrusted to it', to `use the resources entrusted to it for the purposes of delivering effective and appropriate education', and most Machiavellian of all, to `manage the resources entrusted to it in a manner that upholds public confidence'. (Appendix A: Bill 177 - Duties and Powers of School Boards)"

     Those Boards and Trustees which refuse to sell budget cuts "in a manner that upholds public confidence", will face the measures set out in Appendix B: Section 11.1 - Provincial Interest Regulations, which state that the Ministry can "require a board to adopt and implement measures specified in the regulation to ensure that the board's funds and other resources are applied (i) effectively, and (ii) in compliance with this Act, the regulations and the policies and guidelines made under this Act."

     Ironically, the Minister responsible for this Bill is Kathleen Wynne, a former Toronto Trustee prominent in the fight against budget cuts and trusteeship imposed by the Harris government. Knowing that the public would fight Bill 177, Wynne organized "consultations" by email, during July and August.

     The Bill is being fast-tracked through the Legislature in hopes that the public won't have time to mobilize against it. Another tactic is to distract attention from the real contents of the Bill by making much of over-billing of personal expenses by some Trustees in the Toronto Catholic Board. All of the questionable bills have been repaid, and no charges were ever laid.

     The Communist Party and others say this is a fig leaf, not comparable to the real corruption of Liberal and Tory appointees to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Commission and to EHealth Ontario, where millions of dollars are missing.

     The over-billing by some Trustees is the result of savage cuts to honoraria by the Harris government, and caps by the McGuinty government which force Trustees to service wards that are twice as large as federal ridings, for a maximum of $20,000 a year.

     The CPC (Ontario) is calling on the government to withdraw Bill 177 and instead draft new legislation to restore and enhance the powers of Ontario's local School Boards, including:

* a needs-based funding formula to guarantee adequate and stable funding to public School Boards and a universal, quality system of public education.

* remove education from the property tax, and fund education from provincial general revenues.

* repeal balanced budget legislation affecting school boards, hospitals, and municipalities.

* strengthen local autonomy and democracy for School Boards.

* restore the right of Boards and communities to set appropriate honoraria and benefits for Trustees.

* provide status for School Boards and municipalities in the Canadian Constitution.

* repeal Harris era "Secondary reform" and introduce a broad based liberal arts curricula, including Canadian history, Aboriginal history, and labour and women's studies.

* repeal standardized testing.

* fight for ESL funding, and fund Special Education to meet the needs of all students.

* fund hot breakfast and lunch programs.

     Now that school is back, education activists are moving quickly to mobilize parents, students and community to defeat this Bill, and to make next fall's province-wide School Board elections a referendum on Liberal education policy.

     To move forward, the friends of public education will have to mobilize to field candidates with programs that call for a new needs-based provincial funding formula and strong local autonomy and democracy for School Boards and communities. Trustees must not only be elected by communities, but be fully accountable to them as well.

     - Liz Rowley is the leader of the CPC (Ontario), and a former school trustee.