Hanes: Painful cuts to education a betrayal of principles
The only thing hotter than classrooms earlier this week on the scorching last day of school for many Quebec students, was the blistering war of words between Education Minister Bernard Drainville and teachers' unions.
The Fédération autonome de l'enseignement and the Centrale des syndicats du Québec roasted the government over $570 million worth of cuts to education announced on the eve of the summer holidays. Both said they no longer have confidence in the minister.
Drainville for his part said on social media that he had 'no lessons to receive' from unions who went on strike in late 2023, depriving 400,000 Quebec students of classes for 22 days over a seven-week period when the Christmas break was factored in.
It was certainly a departure from the usual end-of-the-school-year pleasantries.
But it's a sign of the shock among school boards, services centres, administrators, teachers and support staff — not to mention parents and pundits — over the scale of the budget cuts they'll be scrambling to implement before classes resume in a few fleeting weeks. People are using terms like 'impossible,' 'devastating,' 'draconian,' 'unreasonable,' and 'knife in the back' to describe the impact of a crunch some say will actually be closer to $1 billion.
This was a bit like dropping bad news you want swept under the rug on a Friday afternoon hoping no one would notice. Except everyone did.
It's a show of contempt for the educators who had already prepared their budgets, made their plans and were firming up their staffing decisions for next year when the axe fell. So instead of a well-deserved break, administrators will have their work cut out for them this summer trying to figure out what to cut — or perhaps more accurately, whom.
The exercise promises to be painful. It's $100 million for Quebec's nine English school boards; it's $32 million for the Lester B. Pearson School Board; it's $240,000 for one east-end Montreal school in a disadvantaged neighbourhood.
Behind each dollar is a human being who does critical work supporting teachers and helping the most vulnerable students. These include psychologists and teachers' aids, speech pathologists and behavioural technicians. The work of teachers is about to get that much harder next fall without these professionals.
Behind each cost reduction is a student who will lose critical services, from newcomers learning the language to youngsters with disabilities to children who come to school hungry.
Drainville also had the nerve to warn administrators not to touch services for students when adhering to the new bottom line. As if that's even possible.
Officially, the government claims it's not slashing the budget, only slowing the rate of growth, to 2 per cent annually from about 7 per cent in recent years. But that doesn't change the outcome — or the fact schools, boards and service centres had been counting on more money than they'll be getting for the coming year.
Private schools haven't been spared, either. Those that receive subsidies from the government but charge tuition are warning parents they, too, will have to review their budgets over the summer, which could lead to either a reduction in services or increases in fees.
'Like many of our counterparts, we denounce the precipitous and unreasonable character of these cuts, transmitted a few days before the end of the school year,' one private college that is receiving $900,000 less in subsidies than it did last year wrote to parents in a missive as summer holidays began. '
True they have other sources of revenue. And some people question why private schools should get any public funds at all. But the reality is these schools are still a pillar of Quebec's education system. Without them, the Quebec government would have to spend even more.
So the compressions writ large underscore how a government that has long pledged education has betrayed its principles.
Quebec may have a record $13.6-billion deficit this year and its credit rating may have been downgraded by one agency. It may be shaking the piggy bank to find loose change wherever it can.
But it's short-sighted to mortgage the future of the next generation. A government that truly cared about its children wouldn't make them pay the price for today's adult problems. But that's exactly what is happening. Quebec's financial predicament is being foisted onto the shoulders of kids and the fallout down the road won't be pretty.
Struggling children will be left behind and all students will feel the effects when their teachers have to devote more time and energy to those in difficulty.
Teachers will burn out or leave the profession, exacerbating the shortage of qualified instructors already bedevilling the system.
These were the issues at the heart of the strike during the 2023-2024 school year. These are the support staff teachers gave up pay and took to the streets to fight for — on their own behalf and for the sake of their students.
Drainville threw all that back in the unions' faces when defending the cuts that undo the promises and progress that resulted from that labour conflict.
Now it looks like those hard lessons will have to be learned all over again.
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