Ontario’s schooling minister insists “vital change” is coming to the province’s faculty boards — however says he’s engaged on laws that won’t depend on the however clause to abolish trustees.
Chatting with reporters at Queen’s Park on Monday, Paul Calandra stated he was making ready to desk schooling reform in cupboard “very quickly,” suggesting hypothesis he could again down in his combat with trustees was misguided.
“I do know there’s been some scorching rumours that change isn’t coming,” he stated. “Folks ought to anticipate vital change to the schooling system going ahead.”
Since taking on as schooling minister final yr, Calandra has mused about the way forward for elected trustees in Ontario.
He’s taken direct management of eight faculty boards — together with the Catholic and public boards in each Toronto and Peel Area — citing mismanagement and infighting amongst trustees.
The schooling minister has recommended he may eradicate English public board trustees “in a single fell swoop” as a result of they don’t have constitutional protections as afforded to each Catholic and French representatives.
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Calandra had beforehand indicated in December 2025 that he would have his plan to reform faculty boards prepared by early 2026.
“Any legislative course of that you simply do — not simply on faculty boards — goes by way of a constitutional lens first,” he instructed reporters on Monday.
“Clearly, on this one, we’re very cognizant of our constitutional tasks…. That’s the reason we’ve taken a bit of additional time to make sure that no matter we deliver ahead isn’t solely in the most effective curiosity of scholars, mother and father and lecturers … but additionally meets the constitutional check.”
Requested if he would use the however clause to defend himself from a courtroom problem, the minister stated he deliberate to desk laws that wouldn’t want that additional step.
“I’m not making ready to current laws that will use the however clause,” Calandra stated.
“Any laws that we current could have gone by way of in depth vetting upfront of that, so I don’t must deliver ahead the however clause on the identical time.”
Particulars of precisely what Calandra will unveil stay unclear, however he has laid out a number of crimson traces of what he doesn’t intend to vary.
He has stated all 72 separate faculty boards throughout the English, Catholic and French techniques will stay in place. Rumours of collapsing the boards into simply 4 establishments, he stated, are categorically unfaithful.
Critics have argued that the modifications and deal with trustees are a distraction from points within the classroom, like issues about particular schooling.
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