FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3 December 2025
QUEEN’S PARK, ON. – Today, MPP John Fraser, Ontario Liberal Parliamentary Leader and Critic for Education, issued the following statement in response to the delayed release of EQAO results and the government’s announcement of a new education advisory body:
Parents and educators deserved the truth in September — not December.
The EQAO results are poor. Half of Grade 6 students and 42 per cent of Grade 9 students are not meeting the math standard, and French-language boards are showing decline.
There was no good reason to hold this information back. If we are going to put students, parents, and educators through EQAO, the least they deserve is timely results.
Families lost two months they could have spent getting their children the help they needed. If a Grade 9 student struggled in math in June, their parents and their school should have known in the fall, not halfway through the school year.
After seven years in government, the Minister’s response is to blame school boards and appoint two unnamed officials to an advisory body, each one paid $1,500 a day — a half-million-dollar salary — with no commitment to act on its recommendations.
The Minister actually said that class sizes don’t determine success today. He made it painfully clear that he refuses to focus on the real problems staring him in the face.
Schools are not safe places to learn. There aren’t enough adults in classrooms. Class sizes are too large. Special education is underfunded. Mental health support is missing.
Convening this advisory board is just another delay tactic. Instead of spending $1500 dollars per day paying advisors, the Minister should be focused on the $1500 of per student funding his government has erased since 2018.