ANALYSIS: ‘Vague Promises’: Ontarians Try to Read Between the Lines of New School Legislation

Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce makes an announcement at St. Robert Catholic High School in Toronto on Aug. 4, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Tijana Martin)

News Analysis

Ontario’s education minister tabled legislation on April 17 that he says will bring schools’ focus back to basics—math and literacy. But the question many are asking is, what does the minister think the schools have been focusing on too much instead?

“Does the education minister plan to elevate the focus on math and reading by significantly restricting the attention that’s now given to the teaching of radical gender ideology and identity politics dressed as ‘anti-racism’ instruction?” David Haskell, a liberal arts professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, told The Epoch Times.

“We might wonder if this legislation has some greater meaning hidden between the lines.”

Haskell’s thoughts were echoed by many who have been outspoken on issues of gender and identity politics in schools.

The bill contains “vague promises as if it’s a code for some genius secret plan,” tweeted Ontario teacher Chanel Pfahl. She has been professionally censured for criticizing critical race theory in schools. This theory generally emphasizes the “privileged” position of white people and their role as oppressors.

“[I’m] trying to read between the lines. Are they finally realizing that they are focusing too much on non-academic issues?" said Tanya Gaw, founder of the citizen group Action4Canada, in an email to The Epoch Times.

“If it is a genuine effort to truly put children’s education and their academic achievement ahead of Marxist social justice, this could be a game changer for the Canadian education system.”

Teachers’ unions have also asked about the intent.

“Why is an overhaul necessary? What is their agenda?” asked the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario in a statement.

“What are we supposed to be leaving out here?” Karen Littlewood, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, asked in an interview with the CBC.

Similar questions have swirled across social media and in news reports since Lecce’s announcement.

‘What Matters Most’

Lecce’s office did not reply by time of publication to an Epoch Times inquiry seeking further details and clarification.

Lecce told the press on April 17 that when students graduate from the Ontario school system, they aren’t at the level they should be.

“They graduate, they get their physical certificate, but they still are not meeting the standards of literacy for their age,” he said. “The fundamental skills have regressed.”

Lecce said he has heard from parents about the skills that matter most. “The goal here today is to send a signal to school boards to refocus their energies on what matters most, which is improving reading, writing, and math skills and STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education,” he said.

The ministry’s backgrounder on the legislation, Bill 98, says it will allow the minister to set provincial priorities for focus on these academic areas.

It also requires boards to give parents more information about their children’s education, and it gives the minister more power over school boards.

More Control Over School Boards

With battles over gender identity and other charged subjects regularly erupting at school board meetings across the province, Lecce’s move to increase his power over the boards may be significant.

Such battles include recent Ottawa-Carleton District School Board meetings on the matter of transgender students using girls’ washrooms, which drew a large number of protesters. The board had initially called parent concerns on the matter “transphobic.”

Multiple trustees in the province have been censured for comments on critical race theory and gender identity, including Durham District School Board Trustee Linda Stone, Toronto Catholic School Board Trustee Mike Del Grande, and Waterloo School Board Trustee Mike Ramsay.

Heated debates have also rocked board meetings over the appropriateness of books in school libraries such as “Gender Queer,” which contains illustrations of two males in a sexual act.

The legislation gives the minister greater power to assess the performance of education directors at the province’s school boards, as well as the power to mandate training for school board trustees.

It also touches on code of conduct complaints for trustees. Such complaints have been the avenue of censure for trustees commenting on matters of ideology.

For example, the backgrounder says the legislation will “strengthen trustee codes of conduct and reduce disruption so trustees can focus their attention on student achievement.” It will also create a new “impartial Integrity Commissioner-led process for resolving code of conduct complaints.”

Waterloo Trustee Ramsay had a code of conduct complaint lodged against him last year, in part for his tweets about “woke politics” in the board. His fellow trustees voted 6–3 to bar him from board meetings for more than three months.

Ramsay told The Epoch Times an impartial process is needed to decide cases like his. Currently, they are decided by other board members who are “elected politicians voting in judgement of their colleagues and political opponents,” he said via email.

“It is far from objective, and far from fair. There needs to be more transparency and due process safeguards, so the Code of Conduct system doesn’t degenerate into a political weapon,” he said.

Bill 98 would also “enable more efficient disciplinary processes” for teachers.

Skeptical About Change

Pfahl, who has been at the centre of just such a process, remains skeptical that Lecce’s legislation will change much.

“I applaud this move in the right direction, but sincerely you cannot fix wokism with a few bandaids,” she said in a tweet aimed at Lecce. “It has to be a full amputation or it will not work.”

Haskell was also skeptical. “In terms of clear action, this act seems to stay in park and never shift into drive,” he said.

Lecce has stayed mum on most issues raised by Pfahl, Ramsay, and others like them.

He has spoken in clear terms on only one instance that touches on gender identity issues. He has called out the Halton District School Board for ineffectively dealing with a teacher who has made international headlines since September for wearing oversized prosthetic breasts with protruding nipples.

Lecce said at Queen’s Park on Feb. 21, “It’s unacceptable and an abdication of responsibility of the school board for not defending and upholding the interests of children.” Shortly thereafter, the board took the teacher off active assignment.

Campaign Life Coalition spokesperson Jack Fonseca said he is wary of Lecce’s intent with the legislation. It takes power from trustees as elected officials, he said, and could just as well work against the “anti-woke” trustees.

“Guess which trustees would be targeted with these new powers? I'll bet it would be the traditionally-principled, anti-woke trustees,” Fonesca said via email.

Lecce oversaw changes made to the Peel District School Board over the past couple years following accusations the board was racist. Under his ministry’s oversight, the board greatly expanded its “equity and anti-oppression” initiatives.