Ontario Hansard - 22-November2005

SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): My question today is for the Minister of Education. Last year I stood up with the member from Simcoe North and asked you to resolve a transportation issue affecting students and families in the Carden-Dalton areas of my riding of Haliburton-Victoria-Brock. I told you then about the approximately 150 students in these former townships who for generations have taken their elementary and secondary school education with the Simcoe County District School Board. Many of them have travelled and are in the galleries today.

Minister, a year has passed, and still your government has not found a way to resolve this issue. The local municipalities, student councils and myself believe it is time to put politics second and students first. Surely these students and families have a right to expect a decision. When are you going to make that decision?
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Hon. Gerard Kennedy (Minister of Education): I hope that the member opposite has spoken a little more frankly to the people in the gallery about her own position. Last year, she came to us, and I have a letter here from the director of education that says, "As a direct result of the intervention from the minister, Gerard Kennedy, we have provided transportation that will gain time for the two boards to resolve" this issue. We resolved this problem once.

This is a local school board issue. At that time, I found the member opposite was in favour. There are 89 children in one board; 69 children in another board.

The member opposite, in her supplementary, I'm sure, will stand up and say what solution she advocates, because some are advocating a boundary change; many who have written to me want it to be left the same. For me, this is clearly an issue to have the local boards resolve, but I ask the member opposite to express in her supplementary what she wants done in that area. Does she want her residents moved outside of her area, and give up on them, or does she want to hang on to them and have another solution in mind? I look forward to seeing the solution she has.

The Speaker (Hon. Michael A. Brown): Supplementary.

Mr. Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North): Minister, today we have in the gallery, all around us, from Carden and Dalton, parents and students who have had to live with this uncertainty for the last two years. They have travelled here today to ask you to permanently find a solution so that the children of Carden and Dalton can attend Simcoe county schools. Those are the same schools that the Ministry of Education has funded in the past with major expansions. They are also the schools that the Carden and Dalton families have attended for the last 50 years.

Minister, please provide a decision today. Please put these students first. Please tell this House and these people who are visiting us here today what you plan to do to resolve this situation permanently.

Hon. Mr. Kennedy: Again, each of the local members, and I appreciate this very much, has written, and they were responded to. We helped the local boards in an intervention to make sure that transportation was sustained.

I want to say very clearly: We do expect, on behalf of any of the families that are affected, certainty from the education system. We are paying for the transportation of children who may have to go to school in another place, but as far as we're concerned, the dollars are being provided.

I would say this, because the government opposite was always blaming school boards and so on: We are looking forward to the boards finding a resolution. If the boards cannot find a resolution, we will move with mediation, with other assistance to find a resolution, because we have 90 students on the one hand that are being educated in one county; 70 students on the other hand.

The local members have no idea what they want done about it. We ourselves at the province will work with the boards. We will get an equitable solution, and we will take this anxiety off of the backs of families, where it doesn't belong.