The leaked document shows the government intends to strip collective agreements in all education sector unions, freeze wages, grab pension funds, contract out jobs and education services, and fundamentally transform the working and learning environment in all public and post-secondary institutions. Budgets for public school textbooks, transportation, and diverse programs, including special education and funding for Ontario's schools for the blind, deaf, and learning disabled, are to be slashed or eliminated. User fees are to be slapped on Heritage Language programs, as well as English as a Second Language for Adults. Transition and mitigation funds promised to school boards are to be cut, along with grants designated to prevent school closures. Widespread school closures and firesales of assets are anticipated in the secret document.
Millennium scholarships are to be reversed.
The document notes that these are policy reversals or reversals of election pledges. By noon on Nov. 17, every stakeholder in public and post-secondary education had converged on Queen's Park, spitting mad about the planned cuts and the secrecy shrouding their development and implementation. Both opposition parties charged the government with lying. People for Education and the Metro Parents' Network, ably represented by Annie Kidder and Kathleen Wynn, denounced the government, calling on parents, the public and the Toronto District School Board to refuse to implement the cuts. In a press statement she sharply attacked the government for its secrecy.