TORONTO – Steven Del Duca, Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, issued the following statement:
“As a father with two daughters attending a publicly-funded elementary school, I would love to see all of our kids go back to safe in-person learning as soon as possible.
Students and education workers have been shortchanged on the investments needed to keep their schools safe time and time again. Investments, for example, that would deliver smaller class sizes and better ventilation. Investments that Ontario Liberals called for almost a year ago.
Ontario families deserve a Premier and a Government that values publicly-funded education, and that has an approach that gives parents the peace of mind they need to send kids back at the same time in every region province-wide.
I am calling for Ontario’s local public health units to be given the opportunity to decide if schools in their regions should reopen this year. I know that our PHUs will work closely with their respective school boards to arrive at an appropriate local decision.
And I am urging Doug Ford to immediately reach out, and work with the education community who have been working on the front lines in our publicly-funded education system to plan for a successful and safe re-opening of every Ontario school for September. There is so much that needs to be done in this regard, and half-hearted half-measures will not be good enough.”
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