The Ben Mulroney Show - Ontario's public education plans becoming more clear

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

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Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine. And it's good for your eyes too. Because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Specsavers.ca to book your next eye exam. Eye exams provided by independent Optometrists. Happy Friday everybody and if you're American, happy Independence Day. Thank you so much for joining us here on radio, on podcast platforms, on a streaming app, or possibly on YouTube, wherever you find us.

We say thank you for joining us here on The Ben Mulroney Show. Last night, just normally on Fridays, I tell you what I'm going to watch on the weekend, but we've got such a jam packed show. We're not going to get to that this week, but I will start the show by saying yesterday, I watched a movie on Amazon Prime with my kids called Heads of State. And it starred John Cena and Idris Elba as the president and the prime, the president of the United States and the prime minister of England, respectively, as they go on a mission.

People try to kill them and they go essentially on the lamb, trying to solve a crime as to who's trying to get them. And there's a whole conspiracy they have to unwind. It's not a good movie, but it's a fun movie. And look, there is a movie for everybody. We'll start the show. We'll back into the show today. We're not going to turn up the anger to 11

at the top of the show. But my contention is, so when I did my morning show on another network, one of the first things I said is, look, if we ever do movie reviews, I don't want to just have a movie reviewer come on and tell us if a movie is good or if it's not, because that is entirely subjective. And that doesn't help somebody unless you know exactly who the reviewer is you don't have a point of reference so if that guy tells you it's bad well you don't know what he thinks is good so I said look I have no problem with a reviewer coming on and

saying I like this movie or here's why it was good or here's why it was bad but what I want to do is I want to have an element in each review that says, if you liked this movie, then you're going to love that movie. If you're the type of person who liked Transformers, then you're going to love this. You know, if you're the type of person who loved Armageddon, which I loved, then you're definitely going to love this movie. Because that Because there's a hand for every glove. And our job on that show was not to judge the likes or dislikes of our viewer, but was to help guide them to whether or not they should see a movie.

And so this movie, Heads of State, it's not a good movie, but it's a fun movie. If you like quips and if you like those actors, and if you like seeing action sequences, and the fact that it's free on Amazon Prime, and you don't have to leave your house, those are the reasons to see this movie. And for an action comedy, it's actually pretty long.

It's almost two full hours. Normally those movies come clock in around 90, 100 minutes. So anyway, govern yourselves accordingly. It may be fun. It looks like it might rain over the weekend here in Toronto. So if you're looking for something to do indoors, that doesn't cost you anything. If you're already paying for prime, then enjoy it. All right. If you are a parent

in Toronto or anywhere in Ontario, then you've been paying very close attention to the Ontario government's takeover of four school boards in this province for reasons stemming from financial mismanagement to bad decision making just at the board level that has led to just head scratchingly odd decisions and perhaps a lack of direction and forgetting what their mission is, which is to support teachers and educate kids. And we've been wondering, what does this overhaul mean? Paul Kalandra, the education minister,

came on our show and announced that for the secular school boards that they took over, a number of changes were gonna alter what the trustees were actually able to do and what they were now no longer able to do. But what was it going to mean on the ground for the actual curriculum? Well, we're finding out now that Ontario is pressing pause on overhauling the curriculum. So it was set to change this fall, and there were a number of introductions to, say,

the grade 10 curriculum. They plan to revise grade 10 history to include enhanced mandatory instruction of essentially a Ukrainian like a war crime perpetrated by Russia on Ukraine, the Holocaust, Black Canadian histories, and to add financial literacy. Kindergarten play-based approach introduced in 2010 was being revamped in favor of a back to basics focus on reading, writing and math. I have been a proponent and I've said this, now this is a general statement

of taking it down to the studs and starting over, because you can't just paint over what I think are shameful decisions and unfortunate decisions, irresponsible decisions by the trustees over the course of years. In a lot of cases, you gotta go back and look at the decisions they've been making for years

and question all of them. And if it means taking the thing down to the studs and starting over, then that's what it means. They've been down such an irresponsible path for so long that as a parent with kids in the system, I feel that they've done a disservice to our kids and to the teachers and to the frontline teachers and workers within the schools of the public system,

that yeah, it's not as simple as just saying, okay, stop your work and we're gonna pick it up from here. No, no, no, we to go back and look at their work over the course of years. So just for a little bit of context, here's what trustees at, say, the TDSB can still do. They are still allowed to forward constituent emails to the director of education.

They're allowed to redirect phone calls to the board's main line. And they can continue to identify as elected officials in a personal or community context, but not officially represent that they are on the board. That's it. That's all they're allowed doing. Here's what they're no longer allowed doing.

In terms of governance and decision-making authority, all governing authority has been transferred to the provincially appointed supervisor. So essentially, all those trustees, all that power is collected in one individual. And we talked about that last week. They cannot direct or influence board priorities,

thank goodness. They're not allowed to issue public updates or newsletters to their communities. They're forbidden from using their TDSB email accounts to communicate with constituents. They can't participate in events as official trustees. They've been blocked from accessing TDSB administrative offices and internal systems.

They cannot escalate issues within the board. They're discouraged from acting in an official capacity. They essentially have been fired. Oh, and also their $25,000 a year honorarium, kaput, gone, vapor. That money doesn't exist. They cannot avail themselves of it. So for all intents and purposes, these elected officials have been fired and they've been, can we say castrated? We're going to say castrated. And look, there are some, I don't know their names, but some of them have said,

I will continue to identify myself as the democratically elected representative of blah, blah, blah. But think about what I just said. I don't know that person's name. I pay very close attention to municipal politics. And I don't know that the election for trustee gets the attention it should get,

especially given the cock-up system that they've put us in. I don't remember in my entire life of voting in municipal politics. I don't think a single candidate for trustee has ever knocked on my door, ever. Because I would have talked to them. And I promise you, I would today, given what's going on. Not that they are gonna get elected anytime soon. But that to me, so you can say you're democratically elected, but how many people actually knew who they were voting for

or what you stood for? That is a big distinction that needs to be highlighted. It is not, it is never a priority. It should have been a priority, but the people running never made themselves a priority. They could have treated that election as city councilors do or people running for city council. If you truly believe that the role you're playing is central

and you believe that you can bring something to the role, then you should act as if it's an important job, not just skate by and hope to God that name recognition or the fact that you might be first on the ballot because of, I guess, alphabetical reasons might garner you an advantage. So this to me is a very big deal. We're gonna keep paying attention to what is happening in our schools.

But in our next segment, we're joined by Anthony Fury. He's a columnist and former mayoral candidate, friend of the show. And he's gonna join us to talk about why we care, why we should care about these changes, what they're going to mean for our kids, for our schools, for our teachers, and whose voices get heard in this new paradigm.

So don't go anywhere. Much more to come right here on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney Show and the Ontario government audited the TDSP along with a number of other school boards across this province. And what they uncovered shocked me. And I cover this stuff for a living and follow it very intently as a parent of three within that school board. And to learn that they were making

ideologically driven decisions, that they were making financial decisions that were putting that organization further and further into the hole and to get themselves out of the hole, they were selling off assets. I don't remember ever getting an email telling me that that was part of their financial roadmap.

All of this over the course of years was a bridge too far for the Ford government and they finally decided that adult supervision need to be brought into this equation and they have for all intents and purposes, fired the board and put one person in charge of the TDSB alongside a different representative for three other school boards in this province.

And what this means for our teachers, for our schools, and more importantly, most importantly, for our students, our kids and students, were joined out by Anthony Fury. He is a columnist and former mayoral candidate, But most importantly, for our students, our kids and students, we're joined now by Anthony Fury. He is a columnist and former mayoral candidate, oftentimes heard right here at this very microphone. Anthony, welcome to the show. Good morning, Ben.

Great to be here. So I think this conversation is an important one because I asked Paul Calandro when he made the announcement, given how much of a change in the dynamic, like you're going from an elected school board to a single appointed person, could we be looking at a hard reset of education in this province? Could we be changing the entire way that we deliver education across this province? And he said, he told me, and I'm paraphrasing, but all options are on the table. How do you see it? Yes, I see all options on the table. And I think they should be and I celebrate that fact. It's long overdue. Ben, like you, I'm the parent of three kids in the Toronto District

School Board. I am really concerned about what's going on there on a number of fronts, financial accountability, financial mismanagement, ideology being pushed across multiple levels, bureaucrats who seem more focused on politicized antics than doing the core jobs, which should be academic excellence. And yet, at the same time, we see standards declining, test scores are going down, and schools are becoming increasingly violent, not just in ways we traditionally think of

teenagers running amok and so forth, but younger ages becoming more violent and there's a euphemism the school board uses dysregulated in their behavior such that it's becoming an unsafe and unpleasant environment for the students and also for a lot of teachers. One new phenomenon we're experiencing Ben is teachers just walking away from their seniority saying, you know what, I'm done. I know I got eight years to retirement or 10 or 12, but I don't want to do it anymore. It's just not a nice place to work. So it's not good for anyone. And bravo to the Ford government for wholesale change. I want to note that this has been done before school boards basically placed into receivership. So it's, it's not that big of a

deal. The only big deal is that it was, it was so troubled that it required this in the first place. So let's hope we get some good solutions. Yeah, absolutely. Like this to me is the medicine required to deal with the illness. And the illness, it was self-evident. I mean, look, you're a parent in the school board. So you've seen, I'm sure as I've seen, the dedication,

the passion that the teachers on the ground bring to their job. And it occurred to me a while ago, when you put all of the conditions together in your head, the narrative becomes clear. You've got teachers who probably escalate request to the board saying, I need X, Y or Z to further the education of the kids in my class.

And they plead poverty, right? They plead poverty, sorry, we can't help you, we don't have the money. But then help you, we don't have the money. But then you realize why they don't have the money. And their reaction when they were first told, hey, you have a $50 million budget hole you have to fill, their first instinct wasn't to look inward at inefficiencies, waste, redundancy.

Their first instinct was to say, well, maybe we'll close the schools, maybe we'll close art programs, Maybe we'll close art programs. Maybe we'll do those things. Like they don't look at themselves as part of the problem. They look at, okay, well, what can we cut from the kids rather than what can we cut from our own budgets? And when I put all that together in my head,

I said, this isn't a front. It's an affront to me, not just as a taxpayer, but as a parent who has entrusted my kids to this group of people who seem hell-bent on perpetrating a system that benefits them and benefits their ideology and their worldview rather than my kids and the teachers who educate them. Yeah, and we could find millions of dollars by cutting out a lot of the politicized antics at the board, bureaucrats who have high-level positions

that are just focused on these divisive DEI-type things. We need to get a lot of that out of the school system and just focus on excellence for all and giving all the kids the opportunities they need to thrive. There's a lot of talk about equity and equality and inclusion in the school board rhetoric, but the truth is that they are failing

the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged students because, Ben, the school board is, but the truth is that they are failing the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged students because then the school board is in such disarray that more and more parents are leaving and they're opting for alternative methods, private schools, or if they're in the public school, they treat that like daycare and then they pay for private education on the evenings and weekends. But if you are not in a position to pay for that, you're stuck with the poor quality stuff. And that is inherently fair. That is inherently inequitable.

So they're even failing to live up to the idealized version of their political nonsense. I think it's not just the trustees who need to be sidelined and they have, it's the directors of education and the people immediately below them, the sort of deputy heads of departments who are allowing this stuff to fester without speaking out. Well, yeah, I mean, listen, there's some controversial recent decisions that we could use as examples

as to why this change needed to be made, why a level set, why a reset needed to happen. You know, there was a motion by trustees to request a mandatory DEI certification for Ontario teachers. I don't know why. And trustees fast-tracked a strategy to address anti-Palestinian racism, a definition that I don't believe anybody asked for, that it seems entirely political

in its motivation and motives. There are a lot of opponents to that, myself included. Trustees revamped admission for elite elementary schools. Oh, it's the story of the Rosedale Heights School for the Performing Arts, where as a way to get in, they used to have not necessarily an audition process, but a demonstration that you wanted to study in an environment that was artistic. And they changed it to a lottery system, and thereby sort of eliminating the drive

that should have been essential to the students who were there. And when the principal who spoke out against that voiced his issues, they wanted to turf him. And then lastly, you know, the trustees approved extended paid administrative leave for principals accused of misconduct costing millions. And also endemic to that is lack of transparency. I mean, those are just a few examples, but this stuff happens every day. And lost in this is when they're focused on stuff like that, they're not educating our kids.

Yes. And one of the challenges and one of the root causes of this is when they're focused on stuff like that, they're not educating our kids. Yes, and one of the challenges and one of the root causes of this is that the school board system is a politicized system, inherently. We vote for the trustees and they end up setting the policies. And this has become something where just the radical far left people

get involved in this politics and they use it as sort of a breeding ground and a launch pad to go on then to run for MPP and whatnot. It's been their little fiefdom for too long. And I think more sort of, I don't even want to just say conservative-minded parents, just common sense parents, you know, regular folks have said, oh, well, I don't really need to be involved in all of this. You know, I'm busy doing other things in my life, which is fine. But people are beginning to wake up and realize, oh, hold on a second. I haven't been in the game Other people have and they've taken over this system and they've used it for their radical agenda

And my message to parents of whatever political background is get in the game or get involved in the school system Get involved in the school board pay attention to who's actually running for trustee A lot of these people are radical nut jobs who should not be running for office and shouldn't be holding for office. Right now there's a by-election to replace Jennifer McKelvey. Nathan Sean is a candidate in that. I think he's pretty much the front runner. He was the chair of the school board. Do you want someone who's been helping destroy our school system go on to continue destroying the city of Toronto? No way. And Ben, when I ran for mayor, I talked about straightening out the school board system and people said, well,

that's not the job of the mayor. It's not a municipal thing. I said, look, I know that. But when I'm out knocking on doors all throughout Toronto, this is actually one of the top issues people bring up. And they're not savvy about levels of government. So I just say, fine, if you're telling me at the door, you're concerned about your kids's education, I will be your advocate. I will relay those concerns. Yeah, Anthony, I want to get one last question in for you. And if you believe that what's good for the goose is good for the gander, if we've been asleep at the switch being too trusting of the board, then how vigilant do we as parents need to be over this new dynamic, over these new appointed people who are overseeing everything? No, it's a great point. We need to get in the game from A to Z. So we're not saying,

okay, everything's done now. You make a great point. We want to pay attention to the process that's going on and encourage good results from Minister Kalandra and Premier Ford, but also hold them to account on the process and make sure that this is not a simple gesture or it's not one ideology for another, that we're actually getting what we need here for the benefit of the kids of all walks of life and for the staff and for the parents as well. Well, thank you very much. I love talking to involved parents.

And you're right. This is not a left right issue. This is about making sure that our kids, when we put them in the system, come out educated and ready for the real world, devoid of whatever ideology an adult wants to imprint on them. Let them figure that out for themselves.

Let them decide what kind of person they want to be. And the best way to do that is to educate them in the purest sense of the word. So Anthony Fury, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your passion. Thank you so much, and enjoy your weekend. Thank you, my friend. Take care.

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and time now to turn the microphone over to you at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. The trustees at the TDSB are out. They've been told you have been behaving in a manner unbecoming of what is required to educate our kids and to support our teachers. So you're out of the mix and it's now your turn to weigh in. I want to ask you, what do you expect from this new paradigm? Are you glad this happened? Are you nervous? Are you apprehensive? There are some who feel that because this was a change that

was made by the Ford government, that as Anthony Fury said in the previous segment, that the fear might be replacing one ideology with another. I am cautiously optimistic. I'm actually more than cautiously. I'm aggressively optimistic. I have been watching with great interest one ideology with another. I am cautiously optimistic. I'm actually more than cautiously, I'm aggressively optimistic.

I have been watching with great sadness and concern over the past few years, an increasingly activist temperament surrounding the schools and the education of our kids. I didn't like it. And I'm glad that that seems to more or less be cut out of the equation. We'll't like it. And I'm glad that that seems to more or less be cut out of the equation. We'll have to see what replaces it. But it's upon us. It's incumbent upon us

to be voices in this debate to help influence the new players in the arena. Well, let's welcome George to the conversation. George, thanks so much for calling in. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Happy Friday, Ben. Good morning. I remember you to happen like they say the fish rocks at the head, you got to go for the top. Yeah, in our circle of friends, we got great teachers, they're educators. Yeah. And the last 1050 years, let me get together. They're so scared to teach to speak up. They've been tortured and they can't teach

the way we grew up being taught. They've been buried. Get rid of these, thank you, Carmen. I don't know what they are. These evil people running the scruples. Yeah, George, I thank you for your call. The line was a little bit rough and scratchy, so we're gonna end it there.

But you do bring up a good point that I wanna pick up and carry out with us. I have heard from teachers as well, that there was under the TDSB, almost a fog of intimidation, that if you didn't fall in line, you were gonna hear about it. You were going to get pushback.

If you said, hey, I don't like this anti-Palestinian racism definition that's been foisted upon us. Like, I don't like it. I'm a Jewish teacher. I've got Jewish students. My contention on that point was it was ill-conceived. It was politically motivated. Because if you believe as I do,

that racism is an issue with the racist not those receiving the racism then the issue is then you have to look at the racist and ask yourself have you ever met a subtle racist have you ever met a nuanced racist have you ever met a racist who says oh you know what I like most Muslims but it's the Palestinians I don't like that doesn't happen that that is not a real thing if you are a racist if you don't the Palestinians I don't like. That doesn't happen. That is not a real thing. If you are a racist, if you don't like Muslims, you don't like Muslims, and there's no exceptional special situation for one Muslim over another. And to create that is because you are politically

motivated and you're using my kid's schools to leverage that definition. I have a real problem with that, and I hope to God that goes the way of the dodo bird. I am completely against Islamophobia. I'm completely against racism in any form, but to create a special exceptional version. Like I'm waiting, if the TDSB was around, it was only a matter of time before they came up with anti-Iranian racism, because they didn't like how the war was being prosecuted

in the Middle East, which is not your lane. Janet, welcome to the show. You're a retired teacher. So you have a very particular view here. Tell me what it is. Oh, well, my view is, is that the Ministry of Education has to decide what's being taught in the schools and the trustees in Toronto have had too much power and people have not come out to vote for the trustees general election and i just heard what you said about choosing one group to be about they have to have a policy that you're not allowed to criticize

that group so what i thought i did retire fifteen years ago we had everybody from all over the world and nobody that's allowed to uh... criticize someone else and we were a family. And if we want our schools to reflect what Canada's supposed to be, you know, then you can't just choose one group.

But I have found that the trustees now, they tried to censor somebody when she was in my writing, Alexandra Lucas, I think her name is, and Luca, and it was disgusting. This was about three years ago, so if you to look at it, you could see it on Anyway, I believe that the Ministry of Education has to get involved because if all the parents are saying it on your shows that We want to get back to the basics and you want children to have an education So I think this is a good move and it's not just financial

I've heard stories about and in our school. If to fix a toilet that was dripping, you know, thousands of dollars like ridiculous. This was a private company, right? And you know that business people watch where the buck is spent. And there's a lot of waste. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I support it. Well, thank you, Janet. And thank you for all the hard work you did educating our kids.

I appreciate it. Let's move on to Mike. Mike, thanks so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. Thank you, Janet. And thank you for all the hard work you did educating our kids. I appreciate it. Let's move on to Mike. Mike, thanks so much for calling into the Ben Mulroney show. All hail the Mulroney legacy of keeping the public's best interest in mind, each in his own unique specialty. Well, thank you very much, Mike. I appreciate it.

I tip if I were wearing a hat, I would tip it to you. I lived through your father. I remember the entire 1970s. And good for you. He'd be proud of you, bud. Thank you. Thank you, bud. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right.

Let's focus on education. What's your take? First and foremost, I'm from Simcoe County. I do not live in the city of Toronto, nor have I ever. But I am so happy to see teeth finally being gnashed at the school boards in the right way. I hope it trickles down to the teaching level. My youngest is 21.

My oldest, 24. They've now half a dozen years and won only three past the public school system. But during their education at the public school level, so a few years ago, I actually received a formal letter from the Simcoe County District School Board CC to the local trustee asking me to stop interfering with the curriculum, because I was teaching my children to do long division at home. They told you don't help your kids at home. Don't help them do homework.

The wording they used was, please stop interfering with our curriculum. You're making it impossible to deliver the information we're required to deliver by our whatever you call it curriculum. Sure. Okay. I mean, so I know I laughed and laugh. I went in, I sat with the teacher, with the principal, I put a piece of paper on the on the desk with a pencil. I said, divide 34 into 626,000. I want to see who can do it in this room. None of them could do it. Of course not. And they probably turned off your microphone. Hey, Mike, thank you very much. I hope you have a great weekend. We've got time for a couple more. Hey, Stanley.

Oh, we got Stanley. Stanley, welcome to the show. Hey, yeah, thank you, Ben. I like to say this is long overdue. We've generated kids that are going to go out in the real world and don't have any common sense education. These are the kids that are going to grow up and run government for us, uh, companies, and they've been brainwashed. So, I mean, this is long overdue. I hope Doug Ford and his teams goes in their heart and cleans all those directors. It's not the teachers, it's not the schools. It's the people, like you said said, been given this power to destroy the next generation. Yeah.

I think we should actually find out more about them, the next people we hire, what their beliefs are, what their ideologies are, how to fill out an application. And my hope is, like, I don't know what the next iteration beyond this takeover by the provincial government is gonna look like. I don't know whether we're gonna have trustees again,

or it'll be a different system. But the one thing I do hope comes from this Stanley, is that people like myself and yourself and parents whose kids are in the TDSP, feel like they feel a responsibility to investigate those who want those positions, whatever those positions might be. Because I think for far too long,

we were too trusting of this belief that people went into those jobs because all they want to do is educate our kids. That's not the case. We now see they were activists, they were political, and we cannot allow that to happen again. Thank you very much for the call. We gotta run. Yeah, that's real. The Walking Shwarma is crispy, saucy, and made to move.

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