Leader Patrick Brown to Premier: Restore Integrity to Ontario’s Education System

QUEEN’S PARK – Today, Leader of the Official Opposition and PC Education Critic Patrick Brown urged the Premier to support the Ontario PC Caucus’ Opposition Day Motion.

The motion, being debated this afternoon, calls upon the Ontario Liberal Party to repay the Ministry of Education $3.7 million to reimburse Ontario’s students for the funds taken out of the classroom to pay for bargaining costs.

“If that money had been invested into Ontario’s education system it would have gone a long way,” stated Leader Patrick Brown in the Legislature.  “The Premier could have funded 75 educational assistants with that money.  She could have put that money towards special education programs.”

The motion also calls to prohibit any future payments to public sector unions to compensate for bargaining costs, and requests that the Government introduce legislation to cap third-party advertising.

Government’s payments to teachers’ unions for bargaining costs have continued for over a decade. At the same time, over the past three provincial election campaigns teachers’ unions have spent more than $6.5 million to run negative election ad campaigns.  The same teachers’ unions have donated nearly $800,000 to the Ontario Liberal Party over the past decade.

“These payments just leave too many unanswered questions,” Leader Patrick Brown added.  “But we do know that recipients of these payments did spend more than $3 million dollars campaigning in the last provincial election.”

Leader Patrick Brown concluded, “Ontario is the wild west of third party advertising.  It’s time to fix that.”