The Department of Justice has been cited for abuse of process in bullying witnesses in a contract dispute. Federal lawyers ordered witnesses to appear for questioning on four days’ notice with “all relevant documentation” in what Ontario Superior Court called a fishing expedition: ‘They constitute an abuse of process.’
Canada, unlike Zimbabwe, has no federal department of education, to which Professor Jennifer Wallner of the University of Ottawa comments: And your point is – ?
Parliament regulates the minutiae of labels on fertilizer bags; the price of mozzarella; the CDs they play at Radio CJLR in Meadow Lake, Sask. Yet in 152 years legislators have never set any federal standards on basic elementary and secondary education. Critics lament the fact. Professor Wallner argues this does not mean standards don’t exist.
“Provinces can work together,” Wallner writes; “When we compare the provincial education systems to one another, all ten show remarkably strong similarities in investments, achievements and substantive policies.”
Learning To School delves into the genius of the federation through the prism of schooling. The conclusion is plain: Canadian education standards do just fine in Parliament’s absence, and provinces have been leaders in the classroom since the 19th century.
Learning To School does not varnish the knotholes in the system. True, Canada spends less on education as a percentage of GDP than Finland, Belgium or New Zealand. True, the ratio of teachers to students is lower here than in just about every industrialized country except Korea, Mexico and Turkey. Yes, the provincial ratio of spending per student varies as much as 35 percent, from a low of $6,200 a year in Prince Edward Island to a high of $8,400 in Manitoba – though Wallner notes this is improving all the time. In 1945 the gap was more than 200 percent; in 1900 it was twice as bad, when British Columbia outspent Québec by a ratio of 5 to 1.
For all these flaws Learning To School concludes Canadians do not fare too badly: “While Canada seems to invest slightly less in education than other advanced industrial nations, its educational attainments are strong, with high marks on international tests and elevated completion rates in secondary and tertiary education. Without a central authority, moreover, the Canadian provinces support their respective elementary and secondary systems with similar levels of investment.”
How is this possible? Simple, says Wallner: teachers and parents. “Teachers, for example, have similar interests with regards to salaries, benefits and professional working conditions regardless of where they live,” resulting in de facto standards on curricula, class sizes and other factors. And parents from coast to coast “consistently demand and expect high-quality education programming from their respective provincial governments,” Learning To School concludes.
Just as provinces have pretty much the same minimum wage, the same highway speed limits, the same regulations on landfilling, so provinces have adopted comparable standards on elementary and secondary schooling. Their record is impressive.
Nova Scotia created the first effective department of education in 1864 with all others following, though Québec took nearly a century. Public school curricula have been standardized since 1910; British Columbia created the first funding pool between rich and poor districts in 1933; Alberta established the first three-year university degree program in education in 1942.
Learning To School turns conventional wisdom on its head. Without any federal leadership or Act of Parliament, Canadians built a modern, effective school system – even without a Zimbabwean Ministry of Education.
By Holly Doan
Learning To School: Federalism And Public Schooling In Canada, by Jennifer Wallner; University of Toronto Press; 432 pages; ISBN 9781-4426-15892; $37.95
The patent office in Access To Information memos says it is powerless to halt scammers targeting Canadians who file records with the agency. Authorities counted hundreds of cases of trademark owners targeted with fake demands for exorbitant fees on official-looking invoices: “It should not be the entire responsibility of taxpayers to expose these scams.”
Cabinet yesterday said it will increase the federal minimum wage for the first time in twenty-three years. The labour department has acknowledged employer resistance to a $15 hourly minimum in federally-regulated workplaces: “Employer organizations cited negative economic consequences for small and medium-sized businesses.”
Cabinet yesterday said it will take “ambitious climate action” but did not commit to maintaining a current 12¢ per litre cap on the carbon tax. The Throne Speech opening the 43rd Parliament mentioned “climate change” and “climate action” seven times: “We are inextricably bound to the same space-time continuum and on board the same planetary spaceship.”
An Ontario tribunal has rejected a complaint that electronic Smart Meters make people sick. A private Conservative bill mandating health warnings on wireless devices lapsed in Parliament in 2015: “When it comes to cancers, I’m not a physician so I can’t comment.”
CMHC yesterday budgeted less than $3 million for the start of a new equity loan program for first-time homebuyers. Mortgage brokers have predicted little take-up of the plan due to restrictions on borrowers: “You are limited.”
The Commons yesterday for the first time in 152 years elected an Italian-Canadian Speaker. “Grazie,” said five-term Liberal MP Anthony Rota, son of immigrant parents from Calabria: “Noi non potemo avere perfetta vita senza amici.”
Nearly eight in ten Canadian parents say their children recognize McDonald’s, according to Department of Health research. Staff commissioned surveys with families nationwide in advance of a national kids’ food ad ban: “We noted stronger evidence of widespread brand recognition beginning at an early age.”
CBC-TV advertising revenues have declined by more than half in five years amid a shrinking audience, according to financial records. One CBC executive earlier told MPs it “requires visionary talent” to manage marketplace downsizing of the Crown broadcaster: “Unfortunately we are in a downsizing environment.”
The Privy Council in confidential pre-election focus groups polled Canadians on a catchier name for pharmacare, according to Access To Information records. Cabinet has set no deadline to implement a proposal by its own advisory panel to enact a universal $15.3 billion-a year prescription drug plan: “‘Universal pharmacare program’ sounds made up.”
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the firing of a curt human resources manager cited for rude emails. Coworkers complained the federal employee was needlessly abrasive: “I can be honest in a not so nice way.”
The Department of Environment in a climate change bulletin said this past summer was cooler in much of the country than in the 1950s. Data followed election claims the planet was “burning”.
The Department of Natural Resources yesterday said it will look at the viability of paying Canadian homeowners to move off flood plains. A million waterfront homes nationwide are rated at high risk of flooding, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada: “We cannot move a million homes.”
The military in newly-declassified Cold War files drafted plans to round up more than 8,000 suspected Communists and keep them under armed guard at barbed wire camps. In Calgary, subversives were to be housed in a downtown office building. A camp in Nanaimo was to be have eight-foot fences: ‘Troops assigned to guard Communists should know how to deal with inquisitive civilians.’
