The Paikin Podcast - Everything Political: Remembering Ken Dryden, Carney’s “Retreat,” and the End of School Trustees

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

On this episode of “Everything Political,” Steve Paikin and former MPs Martha Hall Findlay and Tony Clement remember Ken Dryden, his political career, and how he wasn’t in Parliament “to play politics.” Then, a look at Carney’s cabinet retreat and the Ontario government’s plan to get rid of school trustees. Special guest Jill Promoli, a trustee with the Peel District School Board, joins to make the case for elected school trustees.Follow The Paikin Podcast: TWITTERx.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAMinstagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKYbsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social

Well, hello, you too, and good to see you again. Let's just find out where everybody's coming from this week, and then we'll get on with our show. Martha, where do we find you this week? I'm in Calgary. Okay, and Tony, you? I felt the poll of William G. Davis, so I'm in Brampton. You're in Brampton, Ontario, a good place to be. Okay, well, given the developments that happened a few days ago with somebody that we all knew pretty well,

and that I think it's fair to say the country is morning four right now, we're just going to get to the introduction and let's talk everything political everything political everything political presented by the canadian bankers association happy to welcome back former members of parliament tony clement and martha i want to start with you because you actually almost 10 years ago ran against ken dryden for leadership of the Liberal Party, and I know you are one of many people over the past several days who have been considering not just this man's legacy to the country, to hockey, to literature, to documentary filmmaking, to so many other things, but also your personal connection with him over that time. What can you tell us? One of the best. I was and still am just a huge fan

of Candaridens, just a level of gentle is not actually the right word, although he came across as being a bit of a gentle giant, but he was nobody's, you know, he felt really strongly about some things, extremely principled, extremely decent, extremely passionate as a Canadian. And, you know, I've thought about this a lot. In that leadership contest, you know, history's history and things happened. But in retrospect, and I try not to do this, I try to just, you know, I don't regret things because that's not a terribly useful emotion. But in retrospect, I wished I'd actually put my support behind Ken when I had the opportunity.

Just on a principled level, he was just, you know, really outstanding. Not the most dynamic speaker, okay? So, you know, but one thing, just as a story that an awful lot of people aren't aware of, he was all of those things, but he was also really funny. And we would do, you guys know, you know, you have those photo ops, right? And you have the leader of the party and then you have a whole bunch of other people, whether it's cabinet ministers or shadow cabinet members or caucus, you know, kind of like the potted plants, right? And invariably, for whatever reason, I would always end up standing beside Kim. And so he's towering over me.

And the number of times, I think I just ended up standing beside him because this is what would happen. The number of times right before things got underway, he'd kind of lean down and crack a joke. And I would be, I swear, like, close to wetting my pants as the cameras were starting to roll for whatever it was, right? I just have such, such fond memories of Ken, both just on a personal level, but also just the respect I have for him as a person. Well, needless to say, you two were both liberals, so in the same caucus on the same side of most issues, Tony Clement was not on the same side of most issues as Ken Dryden, who was also who could be a very tough opponent on the other side of the floor when it came to question

period. Tony, what are you thinking of it at these moments as you think back on the life of Ken Dryden, the politician? Well, I'm actually, Steve, thinking first about Ken Dryden as Tony Clement, the hockey fan, if I may. And as a Habs fan, even more so, because he was such a part of the identity of the Montreal Kenedienne when I was growing up. Of course, part of those six Stanley Cups. And just a superlative. goaltender, except in one game where it was the New Year's Eve, 1975, Montreal Canadiens versus Central Red Army of the Soviet Union game, where Canada or Montreal, rather, outshot the Red Army team 38 to 13, and it was a 3-3 draw.

So I would have to say, you know, Tony, you know the funny thing, so many people say that's one of the greatest hockey games I would say it's a greatest game I've ever seen for sure well ken would never say that no ken never like that game because trechiat Vladislav trechak the russian goaltender outplayed him so badly and i had an opportunity i was at the vancouver olympics and i was in a room with trecac and i said you know my favorite hockey game of all time is that three three draw uh in montreal and i said i think you were the greatest goaltending I'd ever seen. And he went, duh, duh. You know, so that's the only game where I wouldn't give it to Ken. As a politician, you know, when I encountered Ken, of course, we had just been elected

in 2006 as part of the Stephen Harper government. And so Ken was in opposition. And I don't think he was very happy in opposition. I must say. I think he was pretty grumpy, if I can be so bold. And I always wondered, I mean, yes, he was in politics and yes, he got elected. I'm not sure the Coliseum of politics was the right place for him versus the arena of hockey. Just my contention, I suppose. No, Tony, I think that's a very fair comment. And to be sure, he as Paul Martin's social development minister bringing in the first ever national child care program, which he negotiated separate agreements with all the provinces on, only to see, for reasons we don't need to get into here, the Harper government basically canceled the whole thing, which would not have endeared your

government to him, Tony. But having said that, Martha, maybe you could pick up on that as well, because Tony's quite right. Ken hated being in opposition. He wanted to do things. He was a doer. He was a builder. He wanted to build Canada. And the notion that he was going to spend his time sort of throwing brickbats across the floor to be entertaining in question period. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, that just never was anything that animated his public life. And frankly, that was one of the things that so many of us admired him for was that that just wasn't, he wasn't there to play politics. He wasn't there to, you know, some people say, well, the rule of opposition is to oppose.

And, you know, many of us feel, no, actually, the role of opposition. is to play their role in helping good government in this country. Some people just think it's, I got to oppose, I got to oppose. And Ken was never of that view. And I would say the coliseum of politics in opposition, no, not something that he would have appreciated very much because he absolutely was a doer. I'm going to get things done. I want to get things done.

The passion that he had for this country. I mean, talk about Mr. Canada, right? but he wanted to exercise that passion and he wanted to get things done. What he did in negotiating with all of the provinces, it was a huge accomplishment to do that for daycare programs. Honestly, as a woman, in particular as a woman, but as a Canadian, that would have been an incredible thing to have had in place. He was devastated when it was all taken apart.

He felt so strongly about that. I wouldn't mind going back to a comment you made just a few moments ago, Martha, about the fact that he was not a particularly dynamic speaker. And, you know, performance is important in politics. Let's just, you know, we have to be blunt about that. Of course, you know, love of country, caring about people, caring about issues, an interest in policy. Of course all that matters. But, but in this day and age, and even when he was in public life 20 years ago, 25 years ago, you know, performance skills matter. and the fact is, you know, Ken ran for leader, but Martha, he was never really able to bring those speeches and electrify a crowd. No.

How much did that affect the outcome of that convention? Because, of course, on paper, he's an ideal candidate in so many ways. Well, I think that's why a number of us did not necessarily support him. You know, when the time came to determine who you were going to support, for me, if I had done that, it would have been purely out of affection and respect for Ken, the person, not because there was any thought that he could really rally the country, let's be honest. On paper, absolutely. But there were a number of speeches during that leadership contest where it was pretty painful. But there was one in Toronto that I would just remember so vividly. It was it was

Ken, being Ken, a bit pedantic. But when he finished, all the other leadership contestants, we were all sitting in the in the front row. So this was the one where it was Michael Ignati, and Bob Bray and Stefan Dio and, you know, assorted other folks and Gerard Kennedy. You, Carolyn Bennett. And we were all seated in the front. And we as his opponent, like his other candidates, on that particular speech, when he finished, we all just instinctively leapt to our feet to applaud him, which wasn't something that normally happened after a kind of driving speech. And it was just, it was really heartwarming because we all just had tremendous respect for him. Tony, I've got to remind you of a moment when he was in opposition, and I don't remember who the minister was that he was going after, because frankly, all I remember about that moment was Ken was asking an incredibly penetrating, dramatic for him, question, which started very calm and then actually grew to a bit of a crescendo.

and at the very end of the question, in a very unkindredden-like way, he said, you know, your vision of Canada is a pinched, narrow, ungenerous vision, you should resign. And he sat down, and I think everybody was in shock. I don't know if you remember that. I do remember that, yeah. Yeah. What did you think when you saw that? Well, that was pretty shocking.

I think I was heckling him about the three-three draw in the Monday. Forum. That was the kind of the way I sort of... Did you really do that? Yes, I did. Yeah. I did. Sure. I'm a jerk. What can I tell you? But the, no, I don't remember the context. I don't even remember the apply. But I do remember his intervention. And it was rather uncharacteristic and withering, I would have to say. And so, yeah, I agree with Martha that he had passion for, I'm not going to say politics. I think he had I agree with you. He had passion for the country. And a better country is what he wanted. And I read the game, like I suppose we all did, his wonderful book and how he described hockey and intertwined it with politics.

The thing about that particular book was him describing what it was like to be on the ice at the forum when the results from the Quebec. election were coming in at the Patsi Quebecois was in those days, in those days, like, you know, it was on transistor radio. It wasn't on your cell phone. And people were cheering as the Parti Quebecois was getting closer and closer to government, which was not in sync with what was going on on the ice. And he wrote about that. And that never left me that he could describe that. And that, of course, was a seminal moment for both Quebec and for Canada. I think I remember him being very concerned that there were so many people in the forum who were cheering the results of that election and then noticing that there were a lot of other

people in the crowd who were decidedly not cheering about the results of that election. And I think in the middle of this game, the notion that a very split Quebec and a very split country is about to percolate out there. And he's thinking about that in the middle of an end. NHL hockey game. That's right. As he would, Tony, don't, sorry, go ahead. No, I said as he would think about that in the middle of a hockey game. That's, that's Kenne. That's right. As one would. As, as he would, yeah. I was just going to say, Tony, don't, don't take this personally, although you probably will a little bit. But that word that Ken Dryden used pinched is a word I have often

used to describe that era in our Canadian government. And the first time I heard amused it, I thought, oh, that's perfect. So that is a bit of my thoughts on that government, but it's not you personally talking. No, no, no. And he had a way with words. There's no question about it. There was something missing,

but generally he knew his way around the English language and used it as quite a good little weapon or a way to convince people just like Winston Churchill did, you know. I was very, excuse me, I was very fortunate to have a lot of interactions with Ken over the years, oftentimes as a guest on the agenda. Other times, we emailed a lot. We emailed each other a lot on stuff. And when I wrote my book about John Turner, I did ask him, because he had some interactions with John Turner over the years.

I asked him about some of his experiences with the former prime minister. And one of the things I've often wondered is, Ken insisted that before he would be available to run for public life, that he needed a really solid career, be it in whatever. I mean, clearly, as a hockey star, as a lawyer, as a guy who was involved in some business for some time, as a president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, you know, he wanted to be able to bring a variety of experiences to public life before he got in. But of course, Martha, what that meant was that by the time he got in as a liberal MP, the liberals were really coming to the end of their time in public life.

and had he gone earlier, he might have had a much more successful time in politics. As it was, he waited a long time to get in. And by then, the liberals were just about done and he only had two years in government. Yeah, no, that's something Ken and I have in common. Our political timing is everything. Timing is everything. What can I say? Timing is everything.

Yes, indeed. Well, I know I'm going to speak for everybody here when I say, God rest his soul. He was on the agenda in the last week of June. he was unable to come into the studio to do an interview because he said his back was just so bad he couldn't leave the house so he joined us from his home in midtown Toronto on a satellite and I you know I thought okay he's got a bad back but the notion that three months later he would be dead of cancer never occurred to anybody and you know he was a very private guy at the end of the day and he certainly kept that news private and I think it's one of the reasons that the outpouring

for him is so dramatic and intense right now because my god 78 years old that guy was always thinking about his next mission for the country the next project the next plan the next thing he wanted to accomplish and i know he must have had something on his to do list i just um i'm very sad about the fact that we won't get to see what he had up his sleeve as the next act anyway god rest your soul can dryden and rest in peace my friend indeed all right all right let's talk some federal politics here because the prime minister had what they don't want to call a cabinet retreat in Toronto last week. They want to call it some kind of off-site working meeting or something like that. And Tony, I guess I want to go to you first on this because I

my hunch is people want to know whether these off-site cabinet meetings, which are meant to be, I guess, somewhat more informal than when you meet in Ottawa. What do they like? Is anything really accomplished? Is it a chance just for the gang to get away and sort of know each other better or are decisions really taken? Take us behind the scenes because I'm sure you had some of those when Stephen Harper was Prime Minister. Yeah, we had we had though I was at least 10 of them for sure. Most of them were at Meach Lake. I think one was at the Citadel in Quebec and maybe there was one in, oh, there was one in PEI and I kind of convinced the Prime Minister to have one in Inuvik, actually.

I thought that was important to have the cabinet meeting in the far north. But the rest of the time, they were at Meach. And they were quite intense, actually. I mean, we had relaxed clothing on. We weren't in business suits. But there was quite a dense agenda where we would have presentations on the economic picture. when we were at war in Afghanistan, we would have detailed reports, you know, and kind of assessments of what was going on in Afghanistan, for example.

So those are war and peace kind of discussions. We would have detailed polling analysis. I don't mind telling you. And we'd have, then we'd have to agenda set for the upcoming session of parliament. so you'd have a report from the House leader, report from the Senate leader, and what was going to be the main topics of debate in terms of bills coming forward. So the answer to your question was, at least my experience, Steve, was it was quite substantive. And, you know, those were very important discussions.

Martha, do you think it's useful for the cabinet to get out of Ottawa meet in other locations around the country? Yes, I do. I think for a number of reasons. One, it just gives a message that, you know, parts of the country that normally feel like their flyover parts are, in fact, on the radar. So I do think that's important. I think it depends on who the leader is. And, you know, Tony, I think your cabinet was a much more effective cabinet in its way because Prime Minister Harper included you. in decision-making.

I don't think that's necessarily been the case for the last 10 years, but I think Mark Carney is very much of that other school. I think he is, you know, I think just some of the picks that he made in terms of who he wanted to be in his cabinet, he didn't make those picks so that he could just, you know, make decisions and not listen. And so I suspect that this cabinet, I think was it called a planning forum.

I do think they're useful. He has some important people around them. He has some very thoughtful people around him. You know, Tim Hodgson and with Natural Resources Canada has a wealth of, you know, stuff to bring in terms of natural resources. And, you know, so, I mean, kind of be crazy not to actually be engaging and having their input. So my suspicion is that it was very good. And I do think going across the country is useful because they can always. always take advantage of those other opportunities, whether it's, you know, doing a fundraiser

for local MPs or local candidates, engaging, you know, I don't think this happens enough, but, you know, there's nothing wrong with having the occasional town hall, right, to just say, hey, what do you think? I'd like to see more of that, especially if they're going to do things across the country. But no, I think it's worth it. Can I was a frightening bubble sometimes? Can I, totally? Yeah, can I just ask you guys your react? I know this is a very much. minor thing and who really cares. But I thought it was a little bit bizarre on that Project

2025 thing. I was just going to ask you about that, Tony. What did you think about the original invitation going out to this organization, which was involved in Project 2025, which, of course, many people believe is the manifesto for the Republican Party under Donald Trump. And the notion that I guess people made a stink. And then they either disinvited them for. from coming up or another explanation I heard was that, you know, people down in the states said, what the hell are you going up there and talking to them for? That's a bloody waste of time. So I don't know. What did you make of the whole thing? I don't want to put too much into it because I think that that would be a mistake as well. But I think the liberal government is

still grappling with how to deal with Trump and the United States. The first, the first iteration was, was they hired, they hired some Democrat, $30,000 a day or something like that, to tell them how to speak Republican. You remember that little story over the summer? Which is crazy. Yeah, which, what? You know, and then going from that pendulum to project 2025. So to me, that seems to indicate. And again, I don't want to put too much into it because it's just these little, little things along the way.

but it does seem to bring evidence out that they haven't quite figured out what to do with Donald Trump and what to do with the United States, which is kind of scary because they're the ones in charge right now and they really do have to get a handle on this sooner rather than later. Martha, what did you think? Well, this is partly a plug for some of the work we're doing, but I think you would know we have Carlo Dade has joined the School of Public Policy recently. be a big, big announcement of a major new North America initiative. And a big part of Carlos thrust is that we have to have a much better understanding of

the United States and vice versa, but that it's not the same country. It's not, it just isn't. There have been massive changes. It's not just one guy. It's not just Donald Trump. And so just even a couple of hours ago, I said, so, you know, we were talking about the fellow from the Heritage Foundation not coming and the invitation and how some liberals were aghast that this guy be invited.

And Carlo's answer was, they should have invited these guys up 10 years ago because we need to understand. We may not like it. But this is part of, I think, the political problem that we have is we're too willing to spout our own partisan stuff and unwilling, not willing enough. to actually engage with what are some of the real drivers? I mean, if you haven't been paying attention to what the Heritage Foundation has been doing for at least 10 years, more, you know, you'd be missing an awful lot of what's going on,

which is an awful lot of people in Canada have been, you know, surprised at this. But if more people have been paying attention and, in fact, inviting people like that up to come and talk about what's going on, I would argue we'd probably be in a better position right now. Case and point to that, Martha, I was in Washington, D.C. last December, so before the inauguration, and I received, I was at a conference, but I received an invitation by the Heritage Foundation to be part of a roundtable discussion, mostly on the concept of lawfare. And I didn't know what that term really meant until I went there. and basically the idea being that a lot of the political decisions are being made by the courts and that Republicans have to be smarter than they had been previously on being prepared for court injunctions and court actions by the Democrats so defensive but also offense as well.

And lo and behold, a year later, basically a lot of what's going on in Trump's America now is Trump does an executive order and then it's a court battle. It goes one way on district court, another way in court of appeal, but it's all lawfare now. And that's true of the Democrats as well as the Republicans. Let me jump in here and get one quick comment from both of you on what I guess was the big news to emerge from this thing we're not supposed to call a cabinet retreat. And that is, I guess that all of the regulations that were initially put in place by the Trudeau government,

as it related to electric vehicles are no more. You didn't like the carbon tax? That's gone. You don't like the EV regs? That's gone now, too. Tony, what do you make of the fact that the prime minister has decided that it's going to cost more than a billion dollars to fulfill this promise? And therefore, it's on the back burner.

Yeah, I thought it was more of a suspension. I could be wrong rather than a complete, I guess they haven't. There's no order in counsel that I've seen where they actually repealed it. So it is a suspension. you just anticipated my good on you. So thanks for that. I was going to say that this is a step in the right direction. It's not fully repealing these EV mandates and requirements, but it is at least removing the pain point that was going to come next year on that. And I think it's quite realistic. There was no way Canada was going to meet those targets in any event. So I think this is just a recognition of reality. reality. But to the extent that the Carney government recognized reality, how can I be against that? So good on you, Prime Minister Carney. Tony is anticipating my question later on in the segment we call good on you, where we've gotten into the habit of praising somebody from the other

party. And okay, Tony, we got yours now. Martha, what do you think about all this? the EV mandates were never going to work and so there are an awful lot of us who right from the beginning were okay we appreciate the desire to deal with climate change we appreciate the desire to do this but Canadian industry being mandated to only sell electric vehicles without any concept of the cost without any concept of whether the manufacturers could in fact do this

without any concept of where the world was going in terms of EVs. I mean, ask European manufacturers. The Chinese make really good EVs, and they make them really cheaply, right? So if there's a desire for Canadian manufacturers, North America manufacturers, to get into this space, let's talk about what that means if it's worth it, if that's what we really want to do. But the arrogance to think that that would have any impact on climate change, I mean, Canada is not an island in this space, right? And this idea that Canada should do things that are harmful to our economy, do not make business sense,

all with a view that somehow some activity in Canada is going to solve global climate change is, to me, it's the height of arrogance and frankly misleading on the part of the politicians who are putting that in place. We felt the same way in terms of trying to pretend that our oil and gas, industry should be shut down, which many were actually advocating, just a total shutdown, keep it in the ground, would also make any difference in terms of climate change. It wouldn't. If we shut down our industry tomorrow, the Russians would take up the slack. And frankly, I don't think that that makes a whole lot of sense for a whole lot of reasons. But this idea that we should sacrifice Canadian economic common sense or, you know, Canadian economic prosperity

is a problem. So I think good on Mark Carney for actually recognizing that. My hope is that there's a lot more attention being paid to what does Canada need from an economic prosperity and economic productivity perspective rather than making these decisions based on ideology? That happened to have been one of them. So good on a government that says maybe we should change our minds

when we get the data to support that. Can I just say, though, I was in the House of Commons in opposition for four years with the Trudeau government, having been elected in a majority government. And their mantra for 10 years was good climate policies makes for good economics. That was their argument. I think that was Mark Carney's argument. So are we in a parallel universe all of a sudden? Or what's going on?

I think we were in a parallel universe then. The other example, Tony, because. it kept saying that it would be good economics, all the jobs. Well, okay, having been a solar power user for almost 30 years, it doesn't actually create a lot of jobs. The jobs are in the manufacturer of the panel. A couple people do the installation and boom, you know, replacing batteries. But you kept hearing people say this and you'd say, no, the evidence does not support that. The other thing that was a real problem with the EV mandate was this assumption that we were all going to be electrified in a very short period of time, nobody actually did the numbers of

how much electricity we would need, or whether we could generate that much electricity, or whether we could transmit that much electricity. I mean, it was just bonkers. So, you know, good on the current governments for saying maybe we need to rethink this and actually use real evidence and real planning. So hopefully the cabinet planning forum has helped with some better planning. Bonkers, of course, being a technical term in the environmental field that we appreciate Martha Hall-Findley using. Gang, as you know, this everything political segment is sponsored by the Canadian Bankers Association,

and they've got a public service announcement that they want me to pass along, because it's about an issue that should be of importance to all of us watching or listening to this. So here we go. Parliament's coming back into session next week. Some provincial legislatures are as well. And if you're listening to this or watching it, there's a darn good chance you've just done the back-to-school ritual as well. well, packing lunches, buying new shoes for the kids, the works. It's that time of year when everything starts up again. The routines may be back, but so are the risks. And some of them never really left. Scammers, for one, from fishing texts, and we're talking P-H-I-S-H-I-N-G,

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information, essential information on how to spot scammers and stay safe online, here's the website to go to CBA.ca.ca slash scams. That's CBA.ca.ca. slash scams. I'm tempted to ask either of you or both of you, if you ever have been subjected to fishing scams and found yourself in business with a chic from Nigeria or something like that. But maybe we'll that for the next time. In any event, through the magic of digital, I have now clicked a button and am delighted to welcome for our third segment on everything political. Jill Promoli. Now, Tony, you're going to like Jill in particular because, of course, you represented a writing in Peel region once upon a time. And Jill is a school board trustee on the Peel District School

Board. Peel for those outside Ontario. That's Brampton, Mississauga, Caledon, one of the biggest catchment areas in the whole country. And the reason we wanted to have Jill on is because rumors abound right now in the school board community that they're about to be legislated out of existence. And we want to find out the impact of all of that or what it would mean or whether it's a good idea. And I know you two, Tony and Martha, have been members of parliament in the past. Jill as a trustee actually has a role that goes back prior to Confederation. There were school trustees before there were members of Parliament. And so, Jill, welcome to the program. It's good to see you. And why don't you start by telling us, why don't we start with this? If we legislated school

board trustees out of existence tomorrow, what would be lost? Before I dive into that, I have to give a couple disclaimers, because I think a lot of people don't realize that trustees are very limited in the way that we're able to speak about our role in the work that we do and various other things. So first, yes, I'm an elected trustee, but I am not speaking on behalf of my board. I am just here talking today. So I do not speak on behalf of the Peel District School Board. There are certain areas of the conversation I may not be able to participate in. All of you feel free to speak freely, and I will speak as I'm able. And also, while I am otherwise politically engaged and active, my role is nonpartisan, strictly nonpartisan at the school board. And so the work that we do

there has nothing to do with party politics. So there we are. So your question was what would be lost if there were no longer school trustees? So we are locally elected during municipal elections. And so we are the voice of our communities. So in Peel, for example, we are elected by two wards, except for the case of Ward 5 in Mississauga where it's just one one trustee for the one ward. And we go and we represent our communities and the schools within our communities. And And we speak for the schools, we speak for the parents, we speak for the concerns of the communities around anything that may be concerning the schools. And so if there were no longer that role present, then that branch between the community and the needs of the schools, of the students, that goes away. There's no longer that accountability.

There's no longer somebody that you can call up who you have had a say in whether or not they're there to do that work. to do that work for you. So you sort of lose that, that direct opportunity to talk to someone who, whose only role is to work on your behalf, on the behalf of students, on behalf of the schools in your community, and to work for the betterment of education and strengthening the opportunities and the support that we have there for kids. So that's, that's the immediate thing that goes away.

Okay. Tony, I think I should go to you next because you were a member of the Ontario legislature, and therefore education was certainly a part of what your government was responsible for and had to think about. And I wonder, A, if when you were in Mike Harris's government, they ever thought about getting rid of school boards altogether, or B, you as a conservative, what you think about the role of trustee plays in a broader education system? Well, you might recall, Steve, that when the Mike Harris government was first elected, one of the first things they did was pair back the role and responsibilities and the pay of the school board trustees, which was very controversial at

the time, as you can imagine. So our position going into the election that we won, the Common Sense Revolution election of 1995, was the school board trustees were responsible for palatial buildings and overreach and too much spending, not enough focus on the actual education of the kid. And so we rolled that out over the first couple of years of the mandate to reduce the pay, to reduce the scope. Who got more authority in this system? The Ministry of Education. Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think you could argue both ways on that.

But that's the reality of how it worked. The Ministry of Education had the ability to do the collective bargaining. with the public sector, well, the school unions, which I believe before that was with the school trustees. So there was a lot of divide and conquer going on at the time with these various school boards and by the unions. So I think that was one of the big changes as well as just reducing the role in responsibility. I think, if I recall correctly, there was some caucus members who said,

don't we just go all the way and, you know, eliminate the school boards entirely, but that appeared to be a bridge too far for Mike Harris and for the education minister. We had a series of them, Liz Whitmer, I think was the first one, and Dave Johnson, these names from the past, I suppose. But I think that that's kind of how it went. We bid off the half loaf, not the full loaf, but at the time, those were radical changes in the way school trustees. were performing their duties. I want to give Jill a chance before I get Martha in here to respond to what I know she hears all the time. And that is the complaint, and Tony, you've just referenced it, the complaint that it only takes a couple of

really bad high-profile decisions by school board trustees in terms of spending. And the most famous example being one board that apparently decided it was a good idea to go to Milan, Italy, to look at sculptures and art, which potentially could be. be, I guess, brought to Canada and displayed in schools in Canada, or anyway, I'm not sure we got to the bottom of that. Yeah, but Jill, maybe you could help us understand your view on what a couple of bad apples can do to the whole barrel. Yeah, I think that's, it's really unfortunate. One of our, one of our two responsibilities is actually the fiscal management of the school board. So we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to get every dollar possible into the classroom to make sure that we're best serving the students.

And I mean, I can tell you one of the toughest parts of our responsibility is the budget. And that is one of the most important things that we do at the school board is to oversee the distribution of the funds that are delivered to us from the province. And so when you see something like that, that's tough. Because I'm something that I say all the time and even my kids repeated at this. point is needs before want. Do you take care of what's most important before you think about anything frivolous? And I think you always have to be doing that regardless of what the conversation is, but particularly when you're talking about public dollars and meeting the needs of children. So I don't think that you're going to find many people who would argue in

favor of spending that kind of money on trips and artwork. That said, we have 72 school boards across the province. And so I think if you do see that there is a situation where somebody has made bad decisions, you need to recognize that that situation, but not necessarily throw out an entire, wait, hold on, maybe recognize that not everybody should be painted with the same brush. And there's a lot of people who are just in this work because they genuinely care about children and they want to make sure that kids are getting the best possible start. they're not here because this is some big fancy job where you get very rich and you're going to get all kinds of, you know, most people don't really know what we do. Most people don't really

think that there's much value to us until they need their school trustee. And then that's when our phone doesn't stop ringing. And, you know, this is kind of a strange little job sometimes, but it's an important one. And so it's unfortunate to see it sort of cut down this way when I can tell that I haven't stopped working in the last number of weeks just with a number of calls coming in from parents who really deeply need help. Okay, well, tell us this then. How many hours do you think you work a week

and how much money do you get paid to be a trustee? Oh, good question. Okay, so this varies from board to board. Now, I think our roles here in Peel are probably one of the largest because we have the second largest board in Canada, but we also are limited to only 12 trustees. So I represent 28 schools where a trustee rule is meant to be about 15 hours a week.

Some weeks are quieter and some weeks I just don't stop. Like I've already got a stack of emails before I wake up in the morning and I wake up early. I'm still taking phone calls at 10 at night. It's kind of wild depending on the time of year. So I think it's hard to sort of put an actual average on it, but I would say 15 is not correct. now because we represent the most students per trustee here we're earning about $27,000 a year but it slides down from that so there are trustees who only earn $5,000 a year and there's more people in that position than in our position because as I said we're the board that has

trustees representing the most students for trustee well I remember in 1995 Mike Harris did cap it at $5,000 if I recall okay Martha come on in here and tell us what you think about all this Well, I have a couple of different perspectives, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, I, I, so appreciate what you're saying trustees are needed for. I think the question then really is, people need that, but does that need to be in a separate trustee, in a separate board that is multiplied 72 times across the province? Or can that be set up in a ministry or something else? It isn't replicated 72 times. And so I would, I would point out, I actually give. Frank McKenna credit for this, but I think I'm wrong. I think New Brunswick consolidated all of its school boards into one organization. But it was actually before Frank arrived, I think. I kind of hope not because I always thought that was one of the great things that Frank did in New Brunswick. But I thought that was really impressive.

And one of the reasons I thought it was really impressive was because my mom had actually been a school board trustee in Great County for three terms. So nine years total. And this is Great County, Ontario? This is Great County, Ontario. Okay. And she, she was very much, you know, on the side of teachers. She felt so strongly about the best thing was, you know, smaller class sizes, do right by the teachers. You know, the whole concept of the money should go into the classroom, right?

But she would have stories of negotiating a new collective agreement. and 72 school boards, but then you had the privates, you had the elementary's, you had the, like, it multiplied itself over and over. And she said, we would do one collective bargaining, but frankly, it could have just been one, because each time you ended up, the school board at the county next door would do their negotiation, and then we would pretend to have a negotiation, but everybody knew you're going to end up in the same place. So she actually became very frustrated. She felt that there was just an overload of administrative effort. Yes, Simco County has a massive school board building. Like every time anybody drives by it, it's like, really? But I think that the challenge of the repetitiveness,

the lack of economies of scale, the lack of being able to do things. I mean, and we're only one province. Ontario is only one province. And the whole concept of elected, I think, is really important. But then we elect our provincial ministers. We elect our provincial politicians. And so I would say that, you know, as voters, we get the right to do that.

I would just take the opportunity to point out one of the additional problems of individual school boards in a context of provincial direction. I am not going to say that I support what Alberta is doing. with respect to books, but I can tell you that the Alberta position on books was taken to a total extreme by the Edmonton School Board. And people are saying, you know, banning Maya Angelou and Margaret Lawrence. And I mean, that is not what Alberta was planning on doing. And that one school board has gone ahead and done that. And I think that's an example of, wait a minute, that's not actually what people are electing people for. Anyway, I know as a former liberal, that's probably a non-traditional position,

but I watch my mom deal with a lot of this stuff, and I learned a lot from her. Okay, a lot to respond to there, Jill. So take it away. Hi, neighbor. I'm from Bruce County originally. So I know that area very well. And I know how huge that area is that the Blue Water School Board covers. It is massive.

And, you know, when you're trying to think about this, the best way to balance the needs across such a large geographical area. But that's not even one of the really large ones. When we're looking north, those are some big, big territories. And that makes it very challenging to make sure that you're finding the right way to meet the needs of all the students. So when we're looking at some of the school boards that are a little bit more central here in our part of Ontario, where you're able to put more of them together, there's already

those challenges where we find, like here in Peel, we're very different from Toronto. We're very different from Holton, which is right next door. the dynamics that we face are not going to be the same just because geographically things are actually surprisingly different. When it comes to our infrastructure, when it comes to our demographics, you find a lot of those things that may seem subtle and maybe not a big deal on the surface. But when you're talking about 150,000 students and their families, those things become very important because we are talking about

all the individuals who rely on us to make the best decision for their kids. And we have to be very careful that we're not just trying to dump everybody into the same bucket and assume that what works in one spot is going to work for everybody. So I take your point that maybe sometimes it seems like, well, do we need this much? Well, sometimes I think if people look at the system and think, well, does it need to be this complicated? Yes, actually, I think sometimes it seems complicated because it is because we have two million students and we have to make sure that we're finding ways to best meet their needs across a huge, province, an amazing province. I love Ontario. But it is incumbent on us to find ways to

not overcomplicate it, but also recognize that there are some things that we can't oversimplify without sacrificing the support that our students are going to need. So, but, you know, I think it is always important for us to look to examples of other provinces where they have made some changes and how they've worked. And sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. And I think one of the biggest factors for us here on Ontario is our size. We're a big province with a lot of people and a lot of very diverse needs. So that's something to keep in mind. Now, you met what else? Oh, with the collective bargaining. So most of the collective bargaining discussions have reverted back to the province, right? So we're not seeing the same sort of difference between

board, board, board at this point, because that is something that has become more centralized. So, you know, fair point. Like you don't want to have, I think there's always, always finds ways that you can find to make things systematically a little bit simpler. And like, I don't think that we should always just look at something and say, well, we've always done it this way, so we never have to touch it. I think there's always ways we can make things better. Let me jump in here, Jill, and just say that I want to express my appreciation for you coming on here and giving us some sense about both what you do, how you're remunerated in doing it, and, you know, how things may unfold in the days ahead. We're obviously going to

keep an eye on this. One of our traditions here is to finish off each Paken podcast by giving a good on you to something that happened in politics during the past couple of weeks that maybe didn't get enough attention because, you know, we do like to focus on the death and destruction as opposed to some of the more constructive things. Tony's already done his. He is giving the prime minister a good on you for putting on the back burner the EV mandates, which the prime minister has said we can't afford right now and don't make sense to do right now. Martha Hall-Finley, why don't you come in here and give us your good on you? Well, Steve, I'm going to break a little bit with the tradition, which is hard because we

haven't had these, too many of these yet. But in light of what just happened, my good on you is going to be for Kendry. And technically, we were in the same party, but I don't think this is a partisan comment at all. I think good on you for having brought the sense of decency and and dignity and passion for the country that he just exuded. And if I can, maybe a good on you to those who are in politics now or are thinking about politics, a sort of like an in-advance good on you,

following in that tradition or taking on some of that approach to the political circus, good on, good on Ken and good on those who want to do how they do it more the way he did. Nice. Jill, you want to join us for a good on you? I absolutely do. So one of the other hats that I wear that we obviously are not talking about today, I do a lot of work about advocating for better public health measures.

So I was absolutely thrilled to see the expansion of RSB vaccination coverage in Ontario. I think that's really important. The more that we can provide access and affordable access or free access, to vaccination, the more that we are going to see people protected as we're going into this season when there's so many illness, so much illness that's going around. That's how we keep people safe, how we save lives, how we protect the health care system. So kudos to the provincial government for taking that step because I think that we just need to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated. And I hope that what we see along with that is a robust vaccination

campaign just remind everyone how important it is to go and get whatever vaccines they're eligible for you got a thumbs up from martha hall finley on that one jill promoli from the peel district school board we want to thank you for coming on the pagan podcast this week tony and martha we'll see you again a couple of weeks in the meantime if you've got comments we are always here at the pagan podcast at gmail dot com that's the pagan podcast at gmail dot com look forward to hearing from you in the future that's it for this week peace and love everybody Thank you.