NDP MPPs Call on Ford to Reverse Cuts to School Language Programs

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP Shadow Minister of Education MPP Chandra Pasma (Ottawa West – Nepean), and MPP Tom Rakocevic (Humber River – Black Creek) stood with parents and education workers to demand that Ford and his Minister of Education stop making unilateral decisions and reverse the elimination of the international language program in the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

“Families in my community are frustrated and asking how a popular 50-year legacy program to teach international languages, was cancelled overnight, behind closed doors, and without a single conversation with anyone affected,” said MPP Rakocevic. “They didn’t tell the students, they didn’t tell the parents, and they didn’t even tell the language instructors set to lose the job they love. These cherished language programs must be reinstated.”

“Once again, we are seeing Ford’s Minister of Education and one of his handpicked appointees making cuts that hurt kids,” said MPP Pasma. “The Minister of Education claims that his takeover of school boards is going to make sure funds are going into classrooms. Instead, his supervisor is cutting language and literacy classes and firing frontline educators. Ford’s Minister of Education needs to stop playing with children’s futures and start listening to the people these decisions affect.”