Another school year begins, and more dithering on the province’s math education.  The EQAO recently released the standardized test scores from the previous academic year, and it has provided us with more evidence on the declining state of math education in Ontario.

One of the most troubling statistics is the fact that nearly half of Grade 6 kids are not meeting the provincial standard.  A closer look at the results proves to be even more troubling.  Math test scores have been dropping for more than a decade.  Over the past 5 years, despite attention being drawn not only by EQAO results but also on international rankings where Ontario students are falling behind, the scores have not reversed.  Fixing the growing numeracy gap should be the government’s top priority.

The future prognosis is grim.  Test results in Grade 3 and Grade 6 have predicted a continued slide in Grade 9.  Early identification and intervention is key to reversing those statistics.  However, the stats show a different story.  One out of every five kids who met the standard in Grade 3 now do not meet the standard in Grade 6.  If this trend continues, we will see lower scores once these students get to Grade 9 in three years.

The downstream effects of not reversing course are significant.  The College Student Achievement Project – an annual study of some 12,000 college students – has shown many students are struggling with the mathematics courses required to complete many college degree and diploma programs.  Media reports have been sporadically following university math professors and math students complaining about the lack of math preparation of recent high school graduates.

The economic implications of declining math scores are significant as well.  Our math achievement is declining at a time when math has never been more important to the future of the economy.  A few years ago, TD Bank reported that 6 in 10 Canadians do not have sufficient numeracy skills and that a staggering 25% only function at Level 1 numeracy, the lowest category.  The implications for building technical skills are significant and it leads to a loss of productivity in the broader economy.

In a report last year, the C.D. Howe Institute asks what needs to be done to reverse course.  They are calling for a complete rethink for how math is taught in schools.  The current fad of discovery learning was embraced in Ontario in the mid-2000s and our math scores have steadily fallen ever since.  C.D. Howe says that rote learning should be re-introduced and should be the predominant teaching technique in the primary and junior grades following an 80-20 rule: 80% rote learning and 20% problem-based discovery method.

In addition to this, the numeracygap.ca points to even more staggering statistics.  In Grade 3, 83% of teachers say they did not complete any math courses after high school, 82% said they did not get any math help at Teachers College, and 71% said they have not undertaken additional math professional development.  In Grade 6, 80% of teachers say they did not take math after high school, and 69% have not undertaken further professional development in mathematics.

The obvious question this begs is this: How is it possible to improve on math education when parents and teachers can’t help their kids?

The answer is that parents and students are turning to private tutoring in larger numbers.  If you live in a suburban community, every time a new strip mall is constructed, competing for space with the pizza shop and the new nail salons are tutoring centres.  They are everywhere!  And the statistics are backing this up as well.  The 19^th OISE Report on Educational Issues tells us that people purchasing private tutoring is up 11% since 2002 – more than one out of every three students now get paid extra help.  As more students turn to private tutoring to supplement public education, one can surmise that declining test scores are being propped up by additional private instruction, without which math scores may well be even lower.

This only accentuates a social justice inequity.  Children from disadvantage families and neighbourhoods just fall through the cracks because the parents of these kids don’t have the skills themselves to help their children with math and they can’t pay for help either.

To counteract the declining math scores, the government recently tabled a $60 million math rethink.  That’s in addition to the $4 million math fix that was announced in 2014.  The new math strategy looks to dedicate math time in school, identify math “lead teachers” to mentor teachers inside schools, utilize online math resources, and provide further math-focused professional development.  It’s a step in the right direction, but we must wonder why it has taken so long.  Many of the points made in this math rethink were present in the Math Achievement Action Plan I tabled in 2014 while I was an MPP.

Serious thought should be given to revamping math education in Ontario.  If we want to build that innovation economy we have all been talking about, we would be hard pressed to get there without solid math education.  The time to act is now.

This article appeared in Queen’s Park Briefing.  Visit QPBriefing.com to subscribe to this publication and stay on top of all things related to Ontario government and politics!

Every time there is a quasi-scandal in Canada, we like to add the American -gate to it, as if to denote its severity.  I cringe at it, but surprisingly, on ORPP severances, we didn’t hear it. So, let’s call a scandal a scandal and call this severance-gate.

The Ontario Retirement Pension Plan is no longer and the costs associated with it are now at $70 million.  We learned of the figures just before the August long weekend when people were packing their coolers with libations that will make them forget about the terrible waste.

We know this figure thanks to some proactive disclosure by the government.  The government released the details of the full program costs on their own, however, we seem to be forgetting that they tried to give us a much lower cost estimate about a month earlier.  At the end of June, we were told that the government spent about $20 million to start up and abruptly cancel the provincial pension scheme, even though it has had a willing federal partner for months. Now that number is three and a half times bigger.  Oops.

This episode reminds me of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie my kids like to watch.  The older brother, Rodrick, tells his younger brother, Greg, that there are rules to success in life.  One of those rules is to manage your parents’ expectations.  The movie switches to Greg telling his parents that he thought he failed a test, but when he got his mark back, he barely passed.  The dad, partially happy he averted the worst case says, ‘well, at least you didn’t fail.’

This latest ORPP episode is much like that.  Hey, Ontario, it’s true that our government wasn’t forthright about the true costs in June, but at least they proactively told us about the costs instead of having them pried out through an auditor-general or examining the public accounts.  No outcry needed as a result – yes the $70 million is bad, but at least they are now honest about it.  And because of this newfound proactive honesty, Ontarians can continue drinking their frozen Palm Bays courtesy of their online purchase at the LCBO.

What seemed to irritate more than a few people is the fact that $2 million in severance was being doled out to 6 people, some of whom got six-figure payouts for being on the job less than half a year.

This reminds me of what transpired at Western University during my first year there.  When the public disclosure of salaries for 2014 was made in early 2015, one of the eye-popping compensation packages went to the university’s president, Amit Chakma.  In his contract, he had the option of being paid an extra year’s salary if he opted not to take an administrative leave.  He didn’t take that leave, and it was revealed that he earned nearly a million dollars in 2014.

The response from the university community was swift and merciless.  How could a president who led an administration that was preaching restraint be compensated so egregiously high? And so there were protests everywhere – on social media, at the university Senate, around the water cooler, and more.  As we learned more about it, we not only started to question why the president took the money, but how inadequate university governance was to accept such a negotiated contract.

The outcry was so loud that Dr. Chakma heeded those concerns, agreed to give back the extra salary, and launched a review of governance structures to listen to the concerns of those in the university community that he leads.

The situation with the ORPP severances tells a different tale.  Whoever negotiates these contracts on behalf of tax payers is failing in their fiduciary duty to be mindful of the public purse.  To add salt to the wound, these contracts would have been rubber stamped by cabinet.  The fact that nobody tried to stop these severances from being negotiated even as the ORPP was winding down with a newfound federal partner shows us that the government really doesn’t care about the money they oversee.

Any organization, whether it be a university or a corporation or some other entity would have serious governance questions asked if such a scenario were to arise, but for the Government of Ontario, no questions are ever asked and no changes are ever made, which is why we keep seeing this happen over and over again.

Sadly, a by-election is being waged this week, and barely a mention of this until Kevin O’Leary penned his second open letter to the Premier and published it in the Toronto Sun.  It’s time that voters place some greater expectations on their government before the government continues to manage your expectations lower still. Who knows what will be next?

I often get the question: who is Tim Hudak or where is the real Tim?  Most pundits thought he lacked authenticity. Some even called him robotic, or nicknamed him “Robo Tim.”  So perhaps it is worthwhile to share with readers the Tim Hudak I have known for years.

The first ever conversation I had with Tim Hudak is still etched in my mind.  I attended an event at Bingeman’s in Kitchener that he also attended way back in the early part of 2007.  I don’t remember what the event was for, whether it was partisan or policy, but there I was standing in line trying to get a drink and Tim extends his hand and introduces himself.  I introduced myself and we started to chat.  I told him that I was working on my PhD and that I was interested in policy, public management and democratic reform.  With most people, that’s the conversation ender, but with Tim, he proceeded to ask me for my thoughts and opinions on the referendum on electoral reform.

I remember all of this not because I was in awe with meeting a real life politician – by that point, I had encountered many.  I remember this event because a few weeks later, when I arrived at my office at McMaster University, I had an envelope from Tim Hudak waiting in my mailbox.  Inside that envelope was a handwritten note from Tim Hudak acknowledging our conversation and thanking me for my insights.  Of all the politicians I had ever met – even ones I had helped elect – none had ever done that, and I didn’t even give him a business card.

In another moment, I remember heading into the budget lockup of 2012.  Let me lay the rumours to rest.  We actually did read the budget before we decided to vote against it!  We held a caucus meeting in that lockup to confirm we were voting against it since the budget deficit wasn’t improving at all.  It was a pretty serious moment being the opposition in a minority parliament.  Tim comes and sits beside me.  He asks me what I think we should do, and I told him.  I then said that “I think I need a gin and tonic.”

Tim – who earlier this year introduced the Free My Rye Act – took an immediate interest in trying to assess my conservative pedigree.  He recited some survey results he had encountered some years before and asked me questions from it.  On most of the questions, my answers fell in line with the typical conservative except for my choice of alcohol.  According to Tim, surveys show that conservatives enjoy the dark liquor while liberals enjoy the clear liquors. I have no idea whether Tim was serious or not, but the point is that the real Tim was one you could enjoy even the serious moments with.

The final story I’ll share comes a week before election 2014.  I get a text message from Tim who asks for my input.  After providing that input, his response was “pithy.”  I then proceeded to mock him for using a very academic word.  Tim, who recently revealed that he is a pro-wrestling aficionado on his radio show on AM 1010, then related all of this to Damien Sandow, whose character on WWE comes off as somewhat of an intellectual.  Accompanying that message was a YouTube video showing Sandow at his finest.   I thought to myself that I wish I could somehow make that text conversation public.  It was witty, funny, and personable.

That’s the real Tim Hudak – a family man and a guy who loved ordinary things.  However, that private persona was something that the public never really got to see.  He is witty in the legislature. He is the kind of guy who remembered to call his staff on their birthday.  When my wife was hospitalized after our third child was born, he and his wife, Deb Hutton, made sure a pot of homemade stew got to my home.  And he had an uncanny ability to remember obscure conversations with people he had met along the way.  That’s in large part why Tim Hudak became the leader of the Ontario Tories, and it is why he continues to have a loyal following.

The going thesis on why we didn’t see the real Tim is that he needed to look premier-like.  We were told that ‘Tim wasn’t the neighbour on the block you’d want to barbecue with, but he needed to be most trusted to fix the economy.’  The great irony in that idea is that no leader probably liked to barbecue more than Tim.

Therein seems to lie the tale of two Hudaks.  There is the guy he is and the guy who wanted to be premier.  For most people, they wanted some congruence between the two, and many more left longing for more.

This juxtaposition of personality seemed to carry with him everywhere.  Sometimes, in caucus, he’d be the guy he is that wanted to listen to everybody’s opinions.  Other times, he would feel the need to be decisive and ruffle some feathers. It wasn’t exactly harmonious and perhaps it could never be.

Leading the Ontario Tories, much like most modern brokerage parties, is a tough job. There will always be some faction of the party unhappy with a course of action.  These factions tolerate decisions they don’t agree with so long as the team is winning.  When the team is losing, problems magnify in a hurry.  Once stuck in a losing rut, approval ratings take a hit which perpetuates the problems even more.

There was a logic that to correct the course, the Tories needed to be dramatic and bold.  Unfortunately for Tim and the Ontario PCs, voters saw flaws in the execution of that logic.  As a result, Tim Hudak’s time in politics will come to an end this September after more than 20 years in public life. He accomplished so much, but short of his ultimate goal.

This article appeared in Queen’s Park Briefing.  Visit QPBriefing.com to subscribe to this publication and stay on top of all things related to Ontario government and politics!

The question of buying influence in politics is not a new study.  It has long been seen as problematic that government decisions are based on a narrow set of interests based on who can buy access to political leaders by purchasing high priced fundraising tickets.

The evidence has been mounting for some time.  Whether its former staffers working for the beer lobby, or pay-to-play stories in the press, the news coming out of Ontario is not encouraging.  The fact that corporations, unions, and professional associations can contribute tens of thousands of dollars to, as Premier Kathleen Wynne used to say, ‘support the democratic process,’ is certainly one thing.  However, if the allocation of public money follows those that pony up large sums of money, even more serious problems emerge.

That is essentially the story we have seen in Quebec.  In that province, allegations swirled that there was a revolving door between political donations, access at fundraising events, and public contracts being awarded to friendly firms. In Quebec, construction contracts were alleged to have been handed to those very companies who so graciously contributed to the democratic process.  So bad was the fallout that the former government of Jean Charest was forced to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate these concerns.

In Ontario, we have seen much controversy over the ability to not only contribute to political parties, but also to third-parties, and none is more famous than the Working Families Coalition, a third-party interest group funded by big labour.  The problem in Ontario is that we have been so focused on the high price for some political fundraisers for ministers, that we haven’t quite explored whether a similar revolving door exists in this province as it does in Quebec.

Last fall, I wrote a blog on this site showing how yearly outflows from the province’s treasury to teacher federations had been occurring without policy announcements or any accountability on how the money was spent.  The teacher federations have long been supporters of the government through donations to the Ontario Liberals and through the Working Families Coalition.  The favourable policy decisions that have emerged as a result have been widely known.

The Auditor-General looked into the payments from the public treasury to the teacher federations and provided support for the notion that lax accounting and accountability has been seen in the $80 million she has uncovered through public accounts.  If this were Quebec, pressure would have mounted to an unbelievable level that the government would be forced to appoint a commission of inquiry.  But this is Ontario, and there is very little outcry.

Last week, the Globe and Mail reported on the money trail they have been following and uncovered some real nuggets.  For example, the consortium that received nearly $60 million in fees associated with the partial selloff of Hydro One donated big to the Ontario Liberals.  Not a bad quid pro quo relationship.

And so we reach to today, where Queen’s Park is in recess until September, but a legislative committee is quietly studying revisions to election finance laws.  Except, taking a look at Bill 201, one may be hard pressed to figure out exactly how closed to outside influence political financing will actually be.  Individuals who can afford it, instead of unions and corporations, can still donate thousands.  Collusion between parties and third-parties (which is troubling especially for the governing party that controls the public purse) aren’t tight enough.  These are the sorts of things that will consume time in committee.

While the bill itself is an improvement over the antiquated rules, the biggest failure of the legislation is that the attention has shifted away from the problems of the past to the immediate concerns of this legislation.  This bill, tabled in haste when public opinion was souring over the latest election finance fiasco, misses an opportunity for a broader discussion about the kind of politics we actually want.

Our current politics focuses on chasing money to fund elections only for that money to be used in ways that the public may not appreciate.  Political parties often use their money to demonize individuals rather than have a fulsome debate about the ideas of the future.   This could be the opportunity to change our politics.

We could be exploring ideas like banning political advertising and having Elections Ontario provide equal airtime for political parties to produce infomercials about their platforms during campaigns that would be a bit longer than the 30 seconds of negativity we have been seeing.  The United Kingdom does politics in this way.  This would be fair and would be a more appropriate use of public funds rather than giving political parties money based on the number of votes they receive, for example.

Bold ideas can eliminate the need for political parties to be obsessed (and annoying) with fundraising.  If we create an environment where ideas are the determinant of success not on the size of the campaign budget of parties (and third-parties!), then we can avoid the perception that big money influences our politics and the allegations of corruption that emerge as a consequence.

This article appeared in Queen’s Park Briefing.  Visit QPBriefing.com to subscribe to this publication and stay on top of all things related to Ontario government and politics!

The Ontario Retirement Pension Plan is dead. The federal government forged consensus on enhancing the CPP and the Ontario pension plan is going the way of the Avro Arrow.

We have no final tally on what this will all cost, but it will clearly be tens of millions of dollars.  The Premier says it is absolutely money well spent, just like the billion dollars to cancel two power plants in the GTA or the $25 million or so that went to scrapping the never-used diabetes registry.  Money well spent is the new euphemism for costly government decision-making that leaves the public worse off than it began.

That is surely true for the ORPP.  Wynne promised the ORPP to give workers more income in their retirement.  Seniors on fixed incomes have long complained that their Ontario is becoming too unaffordable for them.  So Wynne promised to boost their retirement earnings with a new plan.  She vowed to continue down that path unless the federal government came up with a deal at least as good as Ontario’s.

The business lobby fretted.  They insisted that this new payroll tax was going to kill jobs.  Businesses started doing the math for themselves, and they warned of freezing or lowering employment levels, lowering other benefits, and freezing wages.  They were not fans of the ORPP.

So it comes with some amusement that, in the end, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce is applauding the government for forging a deal with the federal government and most of the other provinces.  Of course, what this means is that businesses are going to pay less with the CPP enhancement than they would have under the Ontario pension scheme. It also means that workers benefits will be less too.  The ‘activist centre’ has a burning hole in the middle of it.

In what might be considered another crushing defeat for the proletariat, one might expect the Ontario Federation of Labour to stand up for the diminished deal for workers.  Nope.  Big labour is applauding the government for giving workers less than what was promised too.

Ok, let’s go to Queen’s Park.  We are bound to find somebody there that will call the government out.  The NDP, predictably, were complementary of the CPP enhancement, since they have been advocating for it, along with their big labour friends, for some time.

So then, it leaves us to the Ontario PCs. Will they disagree?  Here’s a quote from their critic, MPP Julia Munro: “The Ontario PC Caucus is pleased that the Wynne Liberals have listened to our calls that any retirement enhancement should be done through the Canadian Pension Plan.”

Let that sink in for a minute.

The Premier began this pension enhancement process plagued in criticism.  She has emerged from the battle with unanimity and consensus.  It’s remarkable and breathtaking!

And it’s not like there aren’t any points of contention.  The ORPP was criticized as a payroll tax, yet the CPP enhancement suddenly isn’t one?

And on the pension and seniors file, the leadership of an opposing vision continues to be absent.  The cost of living in Ontario is rising sharply in energy, property taxes, transportation, and more.  And government policies have been sufficiently responsible for these rising costs.  The solution of big government is to force savings onto people rather than prevent government policies from contributing to those increasing costs.

And how about addressing another major problem, which is that manufacturing jobs are gone, and with it the pensions and benefits that used to sustain families.  Once those jobs are gone, unskilled workers find it very difficult to find employment that comes close to replacing their pay and benefits.  Where is the vision to kick start private sector employment with good pay and benefits?  A vision that necessarily has to look at input costs such as regulation and energy, but also that inspires employers to build a more resilient and productive work force.

If we can’t fix the lagging productivity issues in our economy, we are going to lose even more jobs.  Providing employers with incentives to invest in their machinery and their people through upgrading adult literacy and numeracy proficiency can all help make the case that this pension enhancement misses the mark entirely on what this province and country needs.

We are missing that alternative vision – one that inspires Ontario to be an economic engine through smarter government decisions and a stronger economy.  The consensus on CPP enhancement shows just how far away we are from it.

This article appeared in Queen’s Park Briefing.  Visit QPBriefing.com to subscribe to this publication and stay on top of all things related to Ontario government and politics!

Cabinet shuffles are a tried and true feature of parliamentary government.  The punditry will always make some assessment of winners and losers in a cabinet shuffle.  Nevertheless, we should view it as an essential tool of good governance and sound public administration.

Because of a permanent bureaucracy, we enjoy the spectacle of cabinet rotation to make sure political masters of this army of public servants are checked against what has been termed self-absorption – which occurs when bureaucracies are more concerned about satisfying internal organizational needs ahead of the needs of the public it serves.  On that front, Premier Kathleen Wynne was very much in need of an organizational shakeup.

It is through that lens that we can begin to assess this cabinet shuffle.  In energy, where former Minister Chiarelli was waste deep in the energy sector fundraising lobby, it is hard to not see how badly a new political minister was required to provide a fresh view among the entrenched energy players.  In education, former Minister Liz Sandals held the post since Premier Wynne came to office in 2013, and she is widely credited for restoring the soured relations between the teacher federations and the government.  However, without any fundamental changes to the province’s second biggest ministry, self-absorption has certainly set in and change was needed.

Perhaps the more troubling feature of this new cabinet is its size.  Many pundits will point to the fact that at 30 ministers, this cabinet is now bigger than the federal government, and definitely the largest of any province.  There are several governance problems with this growth in cabinet that go beyond the perception it gives a skeptical public of a government that lacks fiscal discipline.

The first is an accountability problem.  Academics who study cabinets and parliaments will often point to the ratio between the size of the government caucus members and the size of cabinet.  This is important because a greater ratio provides an environment for more backbench independence to emerge and for the executive council to heed the concerns of government members.

More than half of the government caucus is now in cabinet, and this renders the rest of the government caucus as weak and ineffectual.  Combine this with the fact that every other backbencher has a parliamentary assistant position and/or committee chair, and the entire government backbench does not have an independent voice to hold its own leader’s feet to the fire.

The other problem regarding the extraordinary size of this cabinet relates to political staff.  The size of a ministerial staff office compared to non-cabinet political staff office is massive.  The opposition critics may have one or two staffers to help them scrutinize government compared to 10 times as many for the minister’s political staff contingent (in addition to the legions of public servants who carry out their duties as well).

This imbalance has significant democratic implications, for the scrutiny of government activity is not given even close to the weight it deserves when the government staff contingent is massively outmatching its opposition counterparts both in number of personnel and salaries.  This imbalance has been accentuated thanks to austerity measures that have frozen the office budgets of MPPs for years, while the government’s cabinet grows unrestrained.

Given the hoopla over the government’s election finance policies, and the stated goal of creating a fairer democracy, one should view this growth in the size of cabinet with a degree of skepticism.  What it amounts to is a tilting of the balance in our parliamentary system toward the government by stealth.  None of the punditry has recognized how potent bigger cabinets can be to the health and vitality of democratic governance.

In addition to the common criticism that this government lacks fiscal discipline, which a bigger cabinet does not dispel, the Achilles heal of this government is its deficiency when it comes to accountability, transparency, ethics, and the subversion of democracy.  On this count, the cabinet shuffle should be viewed as yet another example of the government running offside of what the voting public expects from its government.

If the opposition seizes on this point, this shuffling of ministers could lead to a scuttling of a government.

This article appeared in Queen’s Park Briefing.  Visit QPBriefing.com to subscribe to this publication and stay on top of all things related to Ontario government and politics!

Good grief! #ElbowGate? Why do Canadians insist on using American terminology on these incidents?

Anyway, when I saw the South African parliamentary brawl, I was envisioning that this scenario played out on Parliament Hill.  Or, I thought our MPs were trying out for the Blue Jays to replace all those suspended players from the Texas Rangers game this past weekend.  You can judge the actions for yourself.  Here’s the video: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-conservative-whip-1.3588407

Look, the PM doesn’t look great here.  He elbowed a female MP in the chest.  That matters.  And she should be upset about it. The PM basically tried to usher the Conservative Whip through the crowd that was in front of him.  PM Trudeau did what the Conservative Whip did not want to physically do himself.  The Conservative Whip was right to refrain from pushing his way through.  You just don’t do that.

A point of privilege was raised, and the Speaker found a prima facie breach of privilege, as he should have.  However, in tabling the motion to investigate privilege, Conservative MP Peter van Loan calls upon an investigation of physical molestation of the Quebec NDP MP the Prime Minister elbowed.  Physical molestation? He just torpedoed his own motion!

I am not entirely sure why the Conservatives are just going after the Prime Minister’s actions here.  They are completely willing to ignore the fact that the crowd of NDP MPs were impeding the Conservative Whip’s movement, which stalled the vote for all members of the House.  From a procedural perspective, this is not allowed.  You cannot impede another member’s movement in the parliamentary precinct.  The fact that there was clear obstruction, confirmed by the video linked above, means that the Whip should have been allowed to take his seat.  This should have been a point of privilege, and I am quite surprised that it wasn’t one.

As it stands, the Conservative motion completely ignores the NDP’s behaviour.  By focusing on this supposed “physical molestation,” an act that anybody at first blush would find hard to see, it ignores the idiotic behaviour that sparked the PM’s rage to begin with.  The Conservative motion should have included its Whip’s movement being impeded, in addition to the PM immersing himself in the business of policing the House, which isn’t his job.

The entire overreach detracts from the seriousness of the incident – one that should never have taken place to begin with.  Ruth Ellen Brosseau should not have been elbowed, but her colleagues should also not have blocked the Conservative Whip from taking his seat.  The Conservatives could have risen from this mess to tell the kids to quit throwing sand in the sand box, but completely missed their chance to do so.