Education Spending in Ontario: follow the money
TORONTO – Ontario spends approximately $32 billion dollar annually for in class instruction.
It has been a year since The Minister of Education sought authority from the Lieutenant Governor in Council to vest authority over school boards in [his] person. Minister Calandra had commissioned several independent auditing firms to conduct financial investigations into the [mis]management of allocated public funds by local school boards. To no one’s surprise, those investigators, after what must have been the swiftest of examinations, concluded that indeed there was cause to dissolve the boards, thus giving the Minister the “green light” to do as he wished. Four school boards were immediately placed under the supervision of a personally appointed Supervisor with absolute control – especially financial and operating funds – over those and subsequently other boards.
Corriere read all the reports then and raised questions since all boards are required to seek and receive consent and approval by the Deputy Minister before any expenditures, in class or out, can be authorized. As an aside, no senior executive staff were held accountable. Except for the sacrificial lamb at the Toronto District School Board, none of the others were “released”.
Perhaps coincidentally, an Ontario Superior Judge dismissed a Motion brought by tech giant Facebook (and its Meta group of companies) to strike the Class-action Lawsuit filed by several Boards of education against the Meta group. The boards sought to recover alleged “damages” prompted by deliberate business practices employed by said giant to turn students into toxic dependency on their products. The attached table speaks for itself: at least $ 8,077 billion of money the Ministry of Education had already forwarded (equal to approximately 25 per cent of the annual education Budget).
Now that the suit can proceed to trial, who receives the money, in the event of Board victory, if the Minister’s Supervisor determines how money that belongs to parents should be spent. Stay tuned.
