MacLeod, though, is hopeful because the Liberals previously agreed to a motion asking Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk for a Pan Am Games audit. However, the governing Liberals have a majority on the committee and must support the motion for it to pass. Lysysk could also opt to audit the teachers deals of her own accord, but it would take a few time as work on her annual report, expected in December, is well underway.
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MacLeod, who is the vice-chair of the public accounts committee, says it “doesn’t look good” that the Liberals have given millions to a few of the same unions that spent millions on generally anti-Tory advertising during the last provincial election.
“I think it would be important that the auditor review those numbers and make sure the money wasn’t misappropriated, although I believe it has been”.
According to the spokesperson of Education Minister Liz Sandals, Alessandra Fusco, “school boards are funded by the province to deliver education across all four publicly funded systems and to manage one of the best systems in the world”.
The ministry has said that because those discussions were voluntary it was appropriate to pay for the unions’ participation – and this year it was necessary to help pay their costs to ensure a smooth transition to the new system.
But Sandals remained confident that should the auditor check her work, she will simply be vindicated in her net zeroes. The money was given to the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECT), the Association des enseignantes et des enseignants franco-ontariens (AEFO), and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
That was her commitment Tuesday when called on to explain why her government paid $2.5 million to teacher federations as compensation for the cost of two-tier bargaining – money paid without even a request for receipts. She is concerned the practice is more widespread than the government is saying.
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“This secret payment of millions of dollars to cover undisclosed union-side bargaining costs is an outrageous abuse of public trust”, said CTF Ontario Director Christine Van Geyn.
