What the Record Shows
The Old Guardian May 5, 2026
This piece does not allege a conspiracy.
It documents a sequence.
It presents that sequence without editorial conclusion and asks a question the people responsible for it have not answered.
The reader can draw their own conclusion. That is how it should work.
The Funding Record
Ontario’s public education system has been underfunded by an estimated $6.3 billion since 2018. That figure comes from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, cited by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario — not from an opposition party or an advocacy campaign, but from economists examining the funding formula against actual board operating costs.
The Toronto District School Board’s own budget analysis — Appendix A, provided to TOG by Trustee Michelle Aarts in September 2025 — documents a structural shortfall of $389.4 million. Of that, $112.6 million represents costs entirely outside the board’s control. Unfunded statutory benefits. Teacher salaries set above Ministry benchmarks. ECE wages funded at rates that don’t match reality.
These are not the product of mismanagement. They are the product of a funding formula that does not cover the actual cost of running a school board.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers investigation commissioned by the Ministry of Education confirmed this. Page 61 of the PwC report states directly: throughout the work conducted, investigators did not find any examples of reckless or deliberate wrongdoing, lack of financial oversight or governance, or actions resulting in potential reputational damage.
No wrongdoing. A structural deficit caused by years of provincial underfunding.
That deficit was used to justify supervision.
The Supervision Trigger
In June 2025, Minister Paul Calandra placed the Toronto District School Board under provincial supervision, citing financial mismanagement and governance failures.
The Ministry’s own investigator found no financial mismanagement.
The governance failures cited were real but disputed. The TEAN fact-check of Calandra’s year-end letter to TDSB families documented that several changes attributed to supervision had been approved by elected trustees before supervision was imposed.
Bill 33 — the Supporting Children and Students Act, passed November 2025 — expanded ministerial authority to intervene in school boards experiencing financial challenges. It removed the requirement for cabinet approval of supervision and eliminated the financial mismanagement threshold that had previously governed when intervention was permitted.
The province created the conditions that produced the deficits. The province then used those deficits to justify removing the elected representatives who might have challenged them.
That is the documented sequence.
Whether it was intended is a question TOG cannot answer. It is a question the Minister has not been asked to answer directly. And it is a question the public deserves to have answered.
What Happened Under Supervision
Since supervision was imposed at the Toronto District School Board on June 27, 2025, the following has been documented:
607 teacher positions eliminated for 2026-27 by union count. 289 by the board’s own figure. The discrepancy itself reflects a transparency blackout — decisions made without public debate, without trustee oversight, and without accountability.
40 vice-principal positions eliminated. Some schools now sharing administrators across multiple buildings.
186 school-based support worker positions eliminated — early childhood educators, lunchroom supervisors, office staff, safety monitors.
The Model Schools program — designed specifically to support students in high-needs communities — is losing 145 full-time equivalent positions. The program provided nutrition support, vision and hearing testing, paediatric clinics, Royal Ontario Museum and McMichael Art Gallery partnerships, and beyond 3:30 programming to schools serving Toronto’s most vulnerable students.
Individual school budgets were removed from the TDSB website. The stated reason: working documents posted without context can create confusion. Parents who want to know how their school’s money is being spent are directed to a business help desk email address.
Special Education advisory committees were cancelled. Parent Interest Advisory Committees were displaced. The mechanisms by which families with complex-needs children communicated their experiences to the system no longer function.
The Putting Student Achievement First Act — tabled April 13, 2026 — introduced a mandatory attendance requirement tying 15% of a high school student’s final grade to physical presence in school. It does not account for disability, mental health, poverty, or the documented reality that the students least able to attend consistently are the students who most need the system’s support.
53 TDSB schools have lead in their drinking water exceeding the federal Health Canada standard of 5 parts per billion. 30 exceed Ontario’s own standard of 10 parts per billion. Internal provincial documents obtained by the Canadian Environmental Law Association through freedom of information requests show that the province has internally acknowledged there is no safe level of lead — and has taken no action to remove exemptions based on levels now recognized as harmful.
The supervisor overseeing these conditions earns up to $400,000 per year. The elected trustees he replaced earned approximately $25,000.
The supervisor cannot speak to media. The Minister has said so explicitly.
The Credential Consequence
The Ontario Secondary School Diploma is not simply a piece of paper. It is the documented gateway to employment, post-secondary education, trades apprenticeships, regulated professional licensing, and in many cases immigration credential assessment in Canada.
Every university in the country. Every college. Every employer requiring proof of secondary education. Every trades licensing body. Every immigration assessment process. The OSSD is the standard against which all other credentials are measured.
Home schooling is legal in Ontario. The legal framework is among the most permissive in Canada. No mandatory curriculum. No government registration required. No reporting obligations.
But the credential home schooling produces — a homeschool diploma — is not a government-issued OSSD. It is not universally recognized by employers. It does not automatically satisfy post-secondary admission requirements. It does not qualify for trades apprenticeships without additional accredited coursework.
Families who can afford private school receive an OSSD through accredited private institutions. Families who can afford accredited online schools receive OSSD credits through those institutions.
Families who cannot afford either — who depend entirely on the public system — receive whatever credential that system produces.
The public system is currently producing it with 607 fewer teachers, 40 fewer vice-principals, 186 fewer support workers, eliminated equity programs, cancelled advisory committees, lead in the drinking water, and governance by people who cannot be questioned by the public.
The families most dependent on that system are the families with the fewest alternatives.
The Property Question
The Toronto District School Board owns approximately $20 billion in public school land across Toronto. That land was acquired over generations through public investment. It was held in trust for the communities whose children attended the schools built on it.
Three pieces of legislation passed over three years have transferred effective control of that land from elected community representatives to a single Minister.
Bill 98 — the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023 — gave the Minister reporting rights over school board property and the power to direct decisions about acquisition, sale, lease, and disposition.
Bill 33 — the Supporting Children and Students Act, November 2025 — gave the Minister power to supervise boards and remove elected trustees entirely.
The Putting Student Achievement First Act — April 2026 — gave the Minister power to oversee, redirect, or cancel capital projects and appoint third parties to control them without placing an entire board under supervision.
Three bills. Three years. A complete legislative transfer of control over $20 billion in public land from democratic community governance to a single Minister — with no elected oversight, no community voice, and no restoration timeline.
The Toronto Lands Corporation — the body managing TDSB property — had active community-benefit projects underway the week before supervision was imposed in June 2025. A 29-year community commitment at 705 Progress Avenue integrating affordable housing, a new school, a community hub, and a city park. A podium school with affordable housing at 50 Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Lane. A new school with long-term care at St. Margaret’s. A city-wide affordable housing memorandum of understanding covering eight TDSB properties.
All of those projects are now subject to ministerial direction. None of them have a public status update under supervision.
Calandra described school properties as assets whose value must be maintained to the highest level. He said he expects the TDSB to go in and protect those assets.
He said this to a reporter who was later fired on the day the bill giving him control of those assets was tabled.
TOG notes the timeline. Readers can draw their own conclusions.
The National Pattern
Ontario is not doing something new.
Nova Scotia eliminated elected school boards in 2018. Five years later public consultation revealed that residents were asking for their return. PISA assessment scores declined. Communities reported that the Regional Centres for Education that replaced boards had become one-way communication channels with no mechanism for local input.
New Brunswick eliminated elected school boards. Then brought them back.
Prince Edward Island eliminated elected school boards. Then brought them back.
Alberta’s Bill 25 — tabled the same week as Ontario’s Putting Student Achievement First Act — would allow the Alberta Minister of Education to give empty school buildings to charter or private schools and would require ministerial approval for any new school superintendent contract.
In every jurisdiction that has gone down this road the pattern is the same. Democratic oversight removed. Centralized authority expanded. Community voice eliminated. And in the cases where the damage became undeniable — democratic governance eventually restored.
Ontario is further down this road than any of those provinces went.
The Question
TOG has been documenting this governance shift since September 2025. What began as an investigation into a single school board has become a documented record of a province-wide transfer of democratic authority over public education.
The funding formula produced deficits. The deficits justified supervision. Supervision eliminated trustees. Without trustees decisions were made without public accountability. Programs were cut. Teachers were fired. Equity supports were eliminated. Property worth $20 billion came under ministerial control. The credential students need to access employment and post-secondary education is now being produced by a system with fewer resources, less accountability, and no democratic recourse for the families most dependent on it.
The families with the most resources have alternatives. Private school. Accredited online schools. Catholic and French boards left largely untouched by these changes.
The families with the fewest resources have the public system. Which is governed by people who cannot be questioned by the public. Which may not be returned to democratic control for a decade. By a Minister’s own words.
TOG does not allege that this outcome was planned.
TOG documents that this outcome was produced.
And TOG asks the question that the people responsible for producing it have not been asked to answer on the public record:
Is this where you intended to go?
If not — what will you do differently?
And if the answer is nothing — then the public is entitled to decide for itself what the record shows.
Sources: CCPA via ETFO — $6.3 billion education underfunding since 2018 TDSB Budget Appendix A — provided to TOG by Trustee Michelle Aarts, September 2025 PwC Financial Investigation Report, June 2025, page 61 Toronto Education Advocacy Network Fact-Check — https://linktr.ee/forpublicschools Bill 98, Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023 Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025 Putting Student Achievement First Act, 2026 TLC 2025-26 Annual Plan — torontolandscorp.com TLC Project Updates, June 2025 — torontolandscorp.com CELA Lead Contamination Report, 2026 — cela.ca CBC News, April 28, 2026 — School board supervisors won’t be allowed to speak with media TorontoToday, April 7-14, 2026 CBC News, April 1-13, 2026 Nova Scotia Regional Centres for Education — documented outcomes Alberta Bill 25, 2026 PPM 131, Ontario Ministry of Education Ontario Secondary School Diploma requirements — Ontario Ministry of Education Calandra school lands interview — CityNews, reported by Tina Yazdani GTA School Councils Facebook group — Model Schools documentation The Old Guardian — TDSB Governance Investigation, September 2025 — May 2026