Behind closed doors, Doug Ford told MPPs that Ontario schools probably can’t reopen this year: source

Thestar.com
June 2, 2021

It looks like school’s out.

Premier Doug Ford has told Progressive Conservative MPPs that students and teachers probably cannot return to in-class learning this month because it would delay or derail the rest of Ontario’s reopening, the Star has learned.

“That’s what we’re facing,” Ford explained to Tory members during a two-hour virtual caucus meeting Tuesday.

While sources close to the premier said he wanted children back in classrooms for the first time since mid-April, public health officials warned him that can only occur if the broader opening of the economy is delayed.

“It can’t happen, unfortunately. The risks are too great,” a senior PC official, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, said before the caucus meeting.

On Monday night, the cabinet’s policy and priorities committee recommended that students continue learning online from home because the school year ends in a few weeks.

Cabinet will make the final call Wednesday, the same day Ontario’s stay-at-home order officially ends.

“This way we can still save summer sports and summer camps for kids,” the insider said, conceding the importance of mental health considerations.

That would allow Ontario, which has been under a state of emergency since mid-April, to begin the first stage of reopening the economy as early as this Monday.

By Friday, it should be two weeks past the necessary threshold of 60 per cent of adults having received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

With that hurdle cleared -- and daily case counts dropping -- the criteria set out by public health officials would be met for Ontario to safely enter Stage 1 a week earlier than the June 14 date previously set.

Such a move would allow restaurant patios to reopen, more retail shops to welcome customers inside at 15 per cent capacity, and groups of up to 10 people from different households to gather outside.

However, it would leave Ontario as the only province in Canada with all students learning remotely.

Pediatric occupational therapist Lori Burton said the possibility her elementary school-aged kids won’t return to class is “discouraging, sad and I am almost angry.”

Burton, who lives in Toronto, said “my three children -- and all children -- desperately need to get out of their bedrooms where they have been trying to do online school for so long and back into their classrooms, with their peers and teachers.”

A coalition of Kingston-based pediatric experts -- including doctors, nurses, psychologists and therapists -- is now appealing to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying “schools in Ontario have been closed more than any other jurisdiction in Canada” and that they are “deeply concerned that school closures are jeopardizing the immediate and long-term health, well-being and development of Ontario’s children and youth.”

They also said it appears Ford is prioritizing “business interests over the province’s duty to ensure children’s rights to health and education” and that Ottawa has a duty to ensure those rights are “protected and respected.”

According to confidential data obtained by the Star on Tuesday, elementary schools were the biggest source of COVID-19 outbreaks over 30 days ending April 20 -- with 365 -- ahead of workplaces with 338 and child care centres with 174. High schools were fifth on the list, but much lower at 64.

Dr. David Williams, the chief medical officer of health, regional medical officers, and members of the science table agree it is safe to reopen schools to in-class learning and that should happen first as restrictions ease, meaning everything else must be kept on hold.

Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s chief medical officer of health, said last Friday “our preference is that the restoration of in-person learning should precede the lifting of any other restrictions implemented to reduce COVID-19 transmission.”

The premier wrote public health officials and educators last Thursday seeking “consensus” on whether it is safe to have kids inside schools.

Ontario has already opened up outdoor amenities, like golf courses and tennis courts.

Harvey Bischof, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation -- which along with the province’s three other teacher unions urged the government to defer to the expertise of local medical officers of health on the issue -- said Ford asked for consensus, but now isn’t listening.

“From the outset, it seemed to us that Premier Ford’s consultation was a political manoeuvre to generate disagreement between different stakeholders that he could hide behind in keeping schools closed,” said Bischof.

“Now that a significant consensus around regional reopening has appeared, he needs to explain the basis for a potential decision to leave all schools closed and what exactly he is prioritizing if it’s not school reopening.”

Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the province’s COVID-19 science advisory table, said he supports allowing kids and teachers in classrooms on a regional basis because “schools are the only items on our menu that don’t trigger travel,” which is what happens when retail or outdoor dining reopen.

But Juni stressed last week there is “a calculated risk” to resuming classes in schools and said “you can’t add anything on top of that. If you want to open schools, you need to wait with patios, probably until the end of June, when we are in a position of going into the summer holidays anyway.”

The Hospital for Sick Children, CHEO in Eastern Ontario, and the Canadian Pediatric Society say it’s imperative that kids return to class because they have “suffered immeasurably over the course of the pandemic … the benefits of a few weeks in classroom cannot be overstated,” they wrote in an open letter to Ford.

Kim Moran, CEO of Children’s Mental Health Ontario, said the organization’s position “has been really clear from last year -- the schools should be the first to open and the last to close. And that means non-essential retail shouldn’t open before schools do.”

“I am going to remain hopeful,” she added.

Tory sources agreed mental health is a concern and note that once Ontario enters stage one of reopening, then up to 10 kids will be able to gather outside to play sports and hang out.

They argued that the forced closure of summer camps or another lockdown in July or August might have a greater cost for children and their families.

Sam Hammond, president of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, compared school reopenings to Monday’s Leafs-Canadiens’ game at Scotiabank Arena, where after lengthy deliberations, fully vaccinated health-care workers were allowed to attend in person.

“Ford and the (Ministry of Health) determined that it was only safe for 550 people who are fully vaccinated to attend the Leaf game tonight in an arena that holds 20,000,” Hammond said via Twitter on Monday. “Now they are deciding if 550 (education) workers and students, with maybe one vaccination, can gather in a school that holds 550 people.”