To succeed, we need trustee taxation powers returned
In April the participating organizations at the Campaign for Public Education resolved to sent the following letter to Ontario’s Premier, the Hon Kathleen Wynne.
Dear Premier Wynne,
Further to our February 11th letter, we would like to raise a question with you when we meet. CPE’s association of Toronto-based agencies and organizations is looking forward to sitting down with you to examine ways and means of securing sufficient funding for public school boards across this province.
The motion below was passed last month at our monthly assembly of representatives. It will provide you with the rationale for our proposal.
Sincerely,
Stephen
Stephen Seaborn
On behalf of the CampaignforPublicEducation.ca
CPE calls on the Provincial Government to enact legislation which restores the right of Ontario’s school board trustees to levy municipal education taxes for the purpose of fulfilling their mandate under the Education Act. This call is issued because
1. prior to is elimination by the Harris Progressive Conservative government the power to collect taxes for public education had been a central democratic tool instituted with broad public support by the elected leaders of Toronto’s city government in the 1850s.
2. the 15 year experiment instituted by the Harris Progressive Conservative government, of having the province tax and fund has failed to provide adequate funding for public education;
3. the current funding formula for public education has not been fixed, despite the long-standing promise of the Liberal government to do so;
4. local trustees know both the needs of the schools within their jurisdiction and the ability of their communities to pay; and
5. the Provincial Government would continue to maintain the capacity to fund special projects and/or provide funding where local levies are insufficient.
Campaign for Public Education
CPE is an association of Toronto organizations, civic agencies and groups representing community leaders parents, adult learners, students, teachers, school trustees, education workers and ethno-racial communities representatives who have been campaigning together for the full funding of quality public education since 2001
sent:
April 3, 2014
Hon Kathleen Wynne
Queens Park
Toronto, ON
