The Minister of Education
now has the authority to establish a code of conduct governing the behaviour
of teachers while they are at school. Specifically, "the Minister may
establish a code of conduct governing the behaviour of all persons in
schools," which includes teachers.
In addition, no teacher is to be allowed to "enter or remain on school
premises unless he or she is authorized by regulation to be there on
that day or at that time," and the Minister may specify "classes of
persons who are permitted to be on school premises" and may also specify
"the days and times at which different classes of persons are prohibited
from being on school premises." (It all happened when Mike's Marauders
rushed Bill 81 through the Legislative Assembly, under the guise of
a student code of conduct, in two weeks. I believe that Bill 81 is actually
intended to control teachers, since there was already legislation in
place to control students.)
Now, what is meant by "classes of persons?" Well, this government has
been fond of using this term in various pieces of legislation, and it
is usually "defined" like this:
"A class may be defined with respect to any attribute and may be defined
to consist of or to exclude any specified member of the class, whether
or not with the same attributes." (Sounds just a little arbitrary!)
I wonder when (if?) "union bosses" will be allowed to be on school
premises? Could those in-school teachers who form their school's OSSTF
executive be denied entrance to school premises?
Actually, it's quite scary, if you apply the definition of classes
of persons to the section of Bill 81 that deals with suspensions: "The
minimum and maximum duration" (of suspension) "may be varied by regulation,
and different standards may be established ... for different classes
of persons." Different standards for different classes of persons! Wow!
And I find it interesting that they don't specify "different classes
of students," but instead use the phrase "different classes of persons,"
which could include teachers. Does this mean that teachers could be
subjected to suspensions at the Minister's whim? But then, of course
this government would never do anything to persecute teachers...
As to the collection of personal information, here is an excerpt from
Hansard, 13A June, 2000. (13A because this government has deemed that
one day may be two days for the purposes of time-defined proceedings.)
A government MPP, Mr Joseph N. Tascona (Barrie-Simcoe-Bradford), during
3rd reading debate of Bill 81 in the Legislative Assembly, said:
"One other area I want to touch on at this time is the collection of
personal information about persons and the request under the act to
ask boards to collect this information. It's important for every student
to feel safe and secure at school. One way of achieving this result
is to ensure that students and parents know that they can trust people
working in schools. We know that the vast majority of teachers and school
staff have earned and deserve the respect of their students. Still,
as the Honourable Sydney Robins told us, we can do more to ensure that
children in schools are not abused by adults to whom they are entrusted.
This government is committed to identifying more and better ways to
help ensure the safety of Ontario's children. Justice Robins's report,
Protecting our Students: A Review to Identify and Prevent Sexual Misconduct
in Ontario Schools, recommended that the government introduce mandatory
criminal background checks for everyone teaching or working in Ontario
schools. In order to make a safer school environment for students ...
we will have to collect specific information."
Here is the "specific information" that the government feels that it
needs to collect on Ontario's teachers in order to ensure "safe schools":
Information relating to the race, national or ethnic origin, colour,
religion, age, sex, sexual orientation or marital or family status of
the teacher, information relating to the education or the medical, psychiatric,
psychological, criminal or employment history of the teacher or information
relating to financial transactions in which the teacher has been involved,
any identifying number, symbol or other particular assigned to the teacher,
the address, telephone number, fingerprints or blood type of the teacher,
the personal opinions or views of the teacher except where they relate
to another individual, correspondence sent to an institution by the
teacher that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential
nature, and replies to that correspondence that would reveal the contents
of the original correspondence, the views and opinions of any other
person about the teacher.
Now, under Bill 81, the Minister may specify the manner in which the
above personal information is to be collected on teachers. I am aware
of two official definitions of the manner of collecting information.
One is "directly" (by asking the person); the other is "indirectly"
(by any other means). Which method do you think that Janet Ecker will
use? (Don't forget that she is the same person who once said that storing
an electronic representation (in an electronic database) of the pattern
on the tip of a person's finger is not the same thing as fingerprinting.)
Note that this list goes far beyond "criminal background checks," and
even includes hearsay (third party) "evidence".
Also note that there was absolutely no reason for including this language
in Bill 81 to enable the collection of personal information on students;
this government gave itself the right to secretly collect personal information
on Ontario's students a few years ago, through the infamous Bill 160.
No, it is teachers that they are after this time.
Bill 81 must be repealed/withdrawn along with Bill 74 before a humane
work environment can return to Ontario's school system.
Regards,
Rick Jones e-mail: rickjone@kitwat.enoreo.on.ca
Please feel free to pass this around as you see fit. If you would like
an electronic copy, then email me and I will send it to you.
