Oh, Woe is me… Not yet please
TORONTO – We are trying our hardest to keep a straight face about some of the nonsense that masks as legitimate concern in the wake of the provincial government’s announcements last Thursday and Friday: (1) the budget, and (2) the elimination of the International Languages Elementary (ILE) program.
To start, according to AI-generated summaries, of the 20,000 students affected (in the 43 of the 44 schools where it is offered), approximately 19,000 of those students are of Italian background, about 22% of the Board’s student population. Moreover, only 77 instructors out of 14,000 employees claimed by the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB), are assigned to ILE – the alleged target of measure #two.
The TCDSB is under the supervision of one Frank Benedetto. He answers to no one except the Education Minister Paul Calandra, and, by extension Premier Ford.
Mr. Benedetto’s curriculum vitae does not seem founded on, or steeped in, the affairs of running a complex educational enterprise the size of TCDSB, circa $1.5 Billion. He will have had to, and still does, rely on the “advice and supporting data” funneled to him through the Director of Education Brendan Browne and his senior staff – none of them were dismissed when the TCDSB was placed under supervision for alleged incompetence dealing with the financial affairs of the Board. We have asked “why?”
It is significant to note that, as the Corriere has noted in the past, in Autumn of 2023-24, the TCDSB, on the advice of the CFO and CEO approved a year-in surplus of $100 million. By Spring of 2024-25, that surplus became a deficit of $78 million. In June of 2025, Minister Calandra asked the Lieutenant Governor to “vest” the Board’s authority in his person.
Dear reader, please note none of the trustees – former and current – had any jurisdictional authority to implement or to finance ILE programs. They could, and probably did try to influence, to the extent any Superintendents listened, the establishment of such programs in their “Wards.” However, these would be purely operational decisions, hence outside the control of trustees.
None of these programs affect the high school curricula, the buildings where they are offered or the staff that deliver them. Given the numbers claimed by the TCDSB, only 25% of elementary schools offer the ILE program (in Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin/Cantonese on Spanish etc.). Does anyone really think that eliminating 77 instructors earning in the vicinity of $52,000.00 p/a will alter the surplus/deficit balance of a corporation swallowing $1.5 billion of Catholic taxpayers’ contributions?
Please do not count Premier Ford among those on that list. He is too astute for that nonsense. He will use the next six weeks of the Legislative ensuring that the bills contained in his Budget plan receive the appropriate consideration and vote.
Besides, 17,500 of his own constituents according to Statistics Canada self-identify as ethnically Italian. Their property taxes are directed to Catholic schools where their children and grandchildren can attend ILE classes.
