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11/27/2024

BASE FINES SET AT $500,000 FOR REPEAT OFFENDERS
Ford government setting base fine of $500,000 for repeat offence
The province will slap a minimum $500,000 fine against companies with repeat worker safety violations under new legislation to be unveiled Wednesday.
If an employer has more than one serious injury or workplace death within a two-year period, the $500,000 base fine will be mandatory, Minister of Labour and Immigration David Piccini is set to announce.
“One of the frustrations we've seen is that even in the case of egregious offences, some courts are not imposing fines anywhere near the maximum available amount — $2 million,” Piccini said in a statement to the Star.
“These measures, if passed, would impose tough penalties, and are part of our government's approach to cracking down on crime.”
“A fatality can never, absolutely never, be the cost of doing business,” Piccini also told the Star.
The changes will be a part of the Ford government's sixth Working for Workers bill, expected to be fast tracked and passed before MPPs break for the holidays.
Previous worker bills have nixed doctor notes for short term absences, mandated clean washrooms and ensured there are menstrual products on construction job sites.
The proposed bill would impose the new minimum fine for companies convicted twice or more under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, where one or more workers was injured.
A spokesperson for Piccini said
that a steelworker died on the job June 2022, and that was the third fatality in less than two years. The company was fined $240,000, which is “unacceptable.”
“We know the vast majority of employers are doing right by their staff and customers, and are driving the economic prosperity of our province.
“But for the bad actors that harm their workers and repeatedly violate health and safety laws, there are consequences,” Piccini said.
The health and safety act sets out a maximum fine, but there is no minimum.
The proposed fine is believed to be the highest minimum in Canada.
In Quebec, a first offence will net a $15,000 fine, and in Newfoundland, $2,000, the labour ministry said.
Someone convicted under the act for serious injury or death can also face up to a year in prison, and those on corporate boards can be held liable.
On Tuesday, Piccini also announced the government will include job protections for up to 16 weeks for parents who adopt children or use a surrogate, and that will also be included in the upcoming legislation, which will align with federal employment insurance changes for adoptive parents.
The province is also introducing provisions that will safeguard a person's job for 27 weeks if they need to take leave for a serious illness.
It is also mandating different sizes for personal protective equipment to better serve workers with all body types after surveys found that about half of women say theirs does not fit properly.
“Our government has a clear mission: ensure Ontario continues to be the very best place to live, work, and raise a family,” said Piccini.
In 2017, Fiera Foods, an industrial bakery where five workers died there or at one of its other factories while on the job over a roughly 20year period.
`` We know most employers are doing right by their staff and customers … But for the bad actors that harm their workers and repeatedly violate health and safety laws, there are consequences.

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11/22/2024

ELIGIBLE BUSINESSES TO GET SLICE OF WSIB SURPLUS

Premier says some refunds could be as much as $70,000
The province estimates more than 280,000 businesses could be eligible for the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board refund.
Businesses will get a financial boost — as well as a break on fees — after the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board posted a $2.5billion surplus for its 2024 fiscal year.
“This includes delivering $2 billion in surplus funds back to Ontario businesses through the WSIB, which is a direct result of the agency's new approach to strong financial management,” Premier Doug Ford announced Thursday during his speech at the Ontario Chamber of Commerce's annual economic summit.
“For a small business, like a bakery with fewer than five employees, this could mean a refund of up to $2,300,” Ford said. “For a small construction company with 50 employees, the refund could climb to $46,000. And for a growing company with 100 employees, the refund could reach $70,000. That's money these businesses can reinvest back into their workers and into our economy, creating more jobs and opportunity.”
The premier also announced that the average premium rate for businesses will drop to $1.25 from $1.30 per $100 of insurable payroll, saving them a total of $150 million a year, “lowering premium rates to the lowest level in half a century, all without reducing workers' benefits.”
Since taking office in 2018, the government has reduced these rates by more than 50 per cent in total — saving businesses a total of $18.6 billion.
While businesses welcomed the move, New Democrat MPP Lise Vaugeois (Thunder Bay—Superior North), her party's WSIB critic, said
the announcement does nothing for workers and called it “disgusting.”
“Injured workers have been pushed into poverty over many, many years by this government” and previous ones, she said. “Are they putting any money into workers' pockets? Zero.”
The latest news, she added, also does nothing to address “deeming,” which can drastically reduce a worker's WSIB payments.
Deeming is when the WSIB determines an injured worker is able to do a job and then cuts their compensation based on those potential wages — even if they have not found employment.
“They just take it off — it's entirely arbitrary,” Vaugeois said. “They deemed that that is a job you could have, so you are just being lazy by not getting it. It doesn't matter if your back is broken.”
Among the other measures Ford announced included $400 million for workers' mental health, as well as injury prevention, care and recovery, and a $1,000 bonus for employers who have WSIBapproved health and safety action plans in place. The mentalhealth care is provided in partnership with hospitals including those in the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, Barrie and Ottawa.
The onetime rebate is available to employers who have had a clean record since 2020, and the government estimates more than 280,000 could be eligible. The funds are to be sent out next February.
In 2022, the province provided similar rebates totalling $1.5 billion.
“I'm proud that our strong financial position is allowing us to help businesses and contribute to the economic prosperity of Ontario while also investing $2.5 billion every year to help people recover and return to work by covering healthcare costs and income replacement,” said Jeff Lang, CEO of the WSIB, in a written statement.
The WSIB provides support and services to injured workers, as well as replacement income as they recover.
“The Ontario government is doing the right thing, putting more surplus funds back in the hands of businesses where they belong,” said Julie Kwiecinski, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business's director of provincial affairs in Ontario.
The Ford government is also doing away with the $150 fee for apprentices taking their first qualification exam.

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05/11/2024

Changes to workplace safety rules prompted by milestone of worker's death
This week marks a milestone anniversary in which we honour the life and legacy of Jeleel Stewart.
Despite decades of being written out of our history, we remember those who have paid the ultimate price for the prosperity we enjoy in Niagara-on-the-Lake.
On a beautiful sunny morning in May, 2007, a crew of Jamaican men were hustling to load trucks at a busy nursery on Niagara Stone Road. A bang, a flash of metal, and one man’s life was altered forever. A forklift slipped, crushing the hand of Jeleel Stewart, a 33-year-old employee of the nursery. He remained conscious during the entire three-hour surgery that followed as doctors attempted to reattach severed nerves and tendons.
The following three months he was in severe pain and despair, as day after day he sat alone in a bunkhouse. He could not afford the expensive phone plan to stay in touch with his wife and family. He had only been in Canada for two months and was still paying off his airfare and related work fees. He had no money for groceries for himself or his family back home. Jodie Godwin and I had visited him and his family in Jamaica just three months earlier. We empathized with the extreme anxiety that his family was now feeling with their beloved husband and father so far away.
For the first eight weeks he received no financial assistance, so Jodie and I saw to it that he had meals. We raised funds to send grocery money to his family, ensuring they wouldn’t go hungry as well. He experienced serious depression because of the pain, isolation, and fear for his future. He was sent home in August with the assurance of continued physiotherapy and compensation. The compensation was inadequate, but at least there was the hope that therapy would help recover the use of his hand.
He received a letter stating that Workplace Safety & Insurance Board’s new deeming policy had come into effect. His compensation and therapy were being terminated, based on the fact that employment was available at a Niagara gas bar that he could perform with one hand. It was the beginning of a 14-year nightmare and battle for justice.
Jodie and I continued to visit Jeleel on subsequent trips to the island and witnessed the family’s constant struggle to simply survive. We were committed to caring for them until WSIB corrected their “mistake.” Often the Stewarts had to choose between having enough to eat or sending the children to school.
His declining health was directly related to the accident, and without the necessary therapy, his pain increased dramatically.
Watching his family suffer and go without necessities eroded his self-respect. On several occasions he had to fight overwhelming thoughts of su***de, but the strength of his wife Suzan, intense love for his children and faith in God kept him hanging on by a slender thread.
In Ontario, meanwhile, the deeming process was considered a great success, providing massive bonuses for WSIB’s CEO and top executives. Eventually the resulting cuts for compensation to injured workers created a $1.6 billion surplus, which was refunded to employers in 2022.
Despite the claims that farmworkers enjoy the same rights of Canadians, the lived experiences of those injured show that it is not true. Regardless of country of origin, injured employees have been repatriated, their plight ignored since the inception of the program in 1966. WSIB is counting on the fact that injured workers will give up or die before they receive justice.
MPP Wayne Gates ( NDP) has been the lone exception, introducing Bill 57 in 2019 to end the policy of deeming. It passed the first reading, but the government chose not to move forward. “Injured workers deserve better,” he states. “We should be providing the support they need, not punishing them when they are acting in good faith.”
Institutions which have historically possessed the power to bring change — agricultural lobby groups, churches and politicians — have instead turned a blind eye.
Experiences of injured farmworkers have been written out of our history. Jeleel Stewart, a man who was known for his joy, his vibrant faith and exuberant love of life
became a mere shadow of his former self. By mid-2023 his life was confined to a shabby, underfunded hospital ward, relying on his wife’s daily visits for feeding.
He passed away in the hospital this past January at the age of 51, just a few weeks before his scheduled hearing at the WSIB tribunal.
He had shared the words “Never lose hope” when we visited him 10 years ago. It has been a painful journey witnessing his pain firsthand, but we choose hope and believe that justice will come.
There has been a shift in recent years, largely due to the ripple effect of growing public awareness. The injustices inflicted as a result of injury and work-related illness are gaining the attention of academics and researchers who are gathering the data. Courses in the politics of food are being taught in colleges and universities prompting further action.
Rhea Bhullar, a local resident, recently graduated from Western University majoring in media, information and techno culture. A course on the politics and representation of food inspired her to dig deeper in her studies. She chose Jeleel Stewart’s story and the devastating impact on his entire family as the focus of her final project.
Using copies of his story from the last print edition of The Local, she constructed wall-mounted sculptures as part of a curated exhibit at the university. A new generation is discovering how to unearth this chapter of history, to use their privilege, resources and creativity to bring hope for the future.
I passed by the site of the accident today. The evidence of one of the largest nurseries in Canada has been bulldozed, and all that remains is the dust swirling in an empty field.
The legacy of Jeleel Stewart, however, remains, and we refuse to lose hope. Let us not give up on this family.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

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03/03/2024

‘How cards are stacked against tenants’
Landlords caught breaking eviction rules get off lightly, recent cases show
Toronto Star3 Mar 2024VICTORIA GIBSON AFFORDABLE HOUSING REPORTER
SOURCE: ONTARIO MINISTRY OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS AND HOUSING TORONTO STAR GRAPHIC
More than two years after a pair of Markham tenants left their home so their landlord’s family could move in, their suspicions were confirmed by Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board — the eviction notice, it ruled, had been a “guise.”

Within months, the landlord had re-rented the townhouse for a higher price — enough to net them more than $14,000 in additional income within a single year. The board rejected the landlord’s defence that they’d found the home unsuitable after moving in.

But the punishment ordered ultimately fell short of the potential profits, with a fine of $4,800 plus $6,853 in tenant compensation, according to the November 2023 ruling.

Across Ontario, a growing number of tenants have accused their landlords of giving them bogus eviction notices, for reasons like personal use and renovations. But a Star analysis of two processes meant to punish and deter badfaith activity shows landlords caught breaking the rules are often handed far milder punishments than are available, and can quickly recoup their losses.

This trend has played out despite the province vowing stiffer consequences, with new legislation in 2020 that raised the maximum fines for housing law offences to $50,000 for individuals, up from $25,000.

Over a recent one-year period, from the start of November 2022 to the end of November 2023, the Star identified 11 rulings at the Landlord and Tenant Board where a landlord was caught giving an eviction notice in bad faith. Most were for personal use, only to list the property for sale, advertise it as a short-term rental or ink a new lease. None were given a board fine of more than $10,000. In all six cases where evidence showed pre- and post-eviction rents, the landlord could have recouped the cost of their punishment by the hearing date by charging the higher rents.

An LTB spokesperson confirmed their punishments haven’t changed since the province raised the maximum fines, saying any fine over $35,000 was beyond its jurisdiction. If a tenant hoped to see their landlord charged to the full extent of the new laws, the board says they’d have to take their case to the provincial Rental Housing Enforcement Unit — a more discerning body, which receives tens of thousands of calls each year, and prosecutes up to a few dozen cases.

But here, again, data shows actual fines are more modest. Of 17 convictions reached in the 2022-23 cycle, the steepest fine was $20,000. The provincial Housing Ministry would not disclose a full list of fines despite repeated requests. Collectively, however, the fines ordered across all 17 convictions totalled $121,800, the province says — meaning an average fine of $7,164.

“This is simply another example of how the cards are stacked against tenants,” said David Hulchanski, a housing and social policy expert with the University of Toronto. He sees the situation as similar to the growing wave of car thefts in the GTA: if the potential payoff exceeds the risk, the problem can balloon.

“That’s why the number of cases keeps going up: more and more people realize you get away with it.”

Adjudicators with Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board know — and often point out — the profits that landlords are able to secure by skirting the rules.

In one November 2023 ruling, an adjudicator ruled against the landlord of a property near Ottawa who had given their tenants a personaluse eviction notice after unsuccessfully negotiating a rent hike. Once the tenants left, the home was re-rented for $500 more per month, or $6,000 more per year. By the time the tribunal made a ruling, more than two years had elapsed.

“I find that the Landlord harassed the Tenants into vacating the rental unit over the course of seven months, for the purpose of re-renting it for a higher price … This is an abuse of process and a blatant disregard for the Act. Therefore, I find that an administrative fine of $500 is reasonable in this case,” it said.

The board also ordered tenant compensation of just over $7,000, allowing the landlord to have recouped their losses by the time of the ruling.

A year earlier, an adjudicator fined a Windsor landlord who gave their tenant a personal-use eviction notice, only to offer them back the unit at a higher price.

“After the landlord pays the tenant’s rent differential and expenses, the landlord would be ahead $1,453.09 after one year,” that ruling said. That amount wouldn’t provide adequate deterrence, the adjudicator wrote. They decided to fine them less than $50 more, ruling a $1,500 fine “appropriate.”

The Star reached out to multiple adjudicators involved in these files; none answered, with a tribunal spokesperson responding that they would manage inquiries. In a written statement, the tribunal said its adjudicators were “independent decision-makers with the exclusive authority to make decisions.”

“To preserve adjudicative independence, the LTB cannot comment on specific adjudicative decisions,” wrote spokesperson Veronica Spada.

The cases included real estate professionals who re-advertised their properties themselves. In one case, an elderly blind man kicked out for renovations watched his home be advertised as short-term rentals, and was still trying to secure housing by his hearing date.

Shaun Harvey, a paralegal who represented the Markham tenants, believes the current fines are low enough that some landlords can justify them as a tradeoff for longterm profits — especially when they have long-time tenants paying below market rents.

“In less than two years, they will recover their money and start making a huge profit. And in my opinion, this is a huge failing in the law.”

The number of no-fault eviction filings has been on the rise in Ontario, growing from 3,913 applications in 2019 to 5,508 in 2022. This increase has come alongside a rising number of tenants alleging wrongdoing by their landlords.

The province has vowed to address this mounting concern. In 2020, it brought forward legislation that doubled the maximum fines for Residential Tenancies Act offences from $25,000 to $50,000 for an individual and from $100,000 to $250,000 for a corporation. Those kinds of fines have to be sought by from the province’s enforcement team through the courts, the LTB says.

Every year, according to the province, the enforcement unit receives about 14,000 to 18,000 calls. The housing ministry says most cases are closed after the involved parties are “educated” about the rules; a small number are prosecuted.

In 2022-23, the ministry says 17 of its 21 prosecutions resulted in convictions. Since few are announced, it’s unclear how many are related to bad-faith evictions. But none of the penalties came anywhere near the new maximums, which can apply to any offence committed on or after July 21, 2020.

In a pair of recent convictions the government did announce, against the owner and management company of the same building, the fines for an offence after that cut-off date were substantially lower.

According to the case summaries, a tenant was given an eviction notice for “extensive repairs and renovations,” then denied their legal right to return. Instead, the home was re-rented for more than double the prior rent. The owner was fined $15,000 plus a victim surcharge, and the management company was fined $12,000 plus a victim surcharge, the two releases say.

U of T’s Hulchanski argues the system needs greater transparency in order to identify any enforcement issues.

“Where is the sunlight so people can see what is happening?” he said. “Regulations don’t mean much if they’re not being enforced — and they’re clearly not being enforced.”

The province has doubled down on its strategy of boosting fines for rule-breakers, passing new legislation that would raise the maximums to $100,000 for individuals and $500,000 for corporations — a move a spokesperson for Housing Minister Paul Calandra said would make the provincial punishments the “toughest in Canada.” As of mid-January, the changes had yet to be enacted.

However, advocates, policy experts and some other elected officials believe it’s still a system replete with loopholes. Many believe far more cases are playing out quietly than are reported to bodies like the Landlord and Tenant Board.

“There’s a variety of tenants who don’t have time, and I don’t blame them, to suddenly become a private investigator,” said Benjamin Ries, executive director of South Etobicoke Community Legal Services.

Ries believes the current rules incentivize landlords to get longstanding tenants out, as landlords can raise rents by any amount between leases. To tackle bad-faith evictions, he believes more preventative measures are needed.

It’s an opinion shared by some at Toronto city hall. Paula Fletcher, councillor for Toronto Danforth, is among city officials who have recently proposed an extra level of scrutiny during the eviction process, inspired by a move in Hamilton.

In cases where a landlord wants to evict a tenant for renovations, the councillors have asked staff to report back on the possibility of requiring a special renovation permit from city hall.

While Fletcher hopes such a move limits renovictions, she doesn’t believe the city can compel proof in own-use eviction cases. That process, she said, fell under provincial jurisdiction.

While stressing there are fair reasons to allow landlords to move their families into a property or renovate, she believes the rules are increasingly being seen as a workaround. “They’ve now become loopholes … That’s the part where the oversight is not in place by the province.”

When asked about the Star’s findings and Fletcher’s concerns this week, the government responded in a brief email that it would be inappropriate for the ministry to comment on court decisions, and offered no further comment beyond information shared in previous weeks as the Star reported this story.

Among details, the prior emails noted that tenants did not have to leave voluntarily when given an eviction notice. “If a landlord gives a tenant notice to end the tenancy, the tenant does not have to move out unless and until an eviction order is issued by an adjudicator,” the government wrote in January.

Fletcher said if a landlord can get caught wrongly evicting a tenant but make up their penalties in profit, there’s a case for closer scrutiny.

“That’s not even a slap on the wrist,” she said. “There are no consequences.”

‘‘ This is simply another example of how the cards are stacked against tenants. That’s why the number of cases keeps going up: more and more people realize you get away with it.

DAVID HULCHANSKI A HOUSING AND SOCIAL POLICY EXPERT WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

02/18/2024

Court quashes paternity claim
Man who sexually assaulted mother ‘not worthy’ of fatherhood, judge says
• Toronto Star
• 18 Feb 2024
• MORGAN LOWRIE
A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled that a man can never again try to claim paternity of a child he fathered during a sexual assault.
Justice Carl Lachance ruled this week that the man must also pay more than $155,000 to support the child until adulthood.
“The defendant is not worthy to be recognized as the father of this child,” the judge wrote in the decision dated Thursday.
The ruling states that the man, whose name is redacted, sexually assaulted the child’s mother in 2019 when she was 17, resulting in her becoming pregnant and giving birth in 2020. Her assailant was arrested and later received a 63-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to several charges.
After a judge ordered a DNA paternity test against her will in 2022 that showed a genetic match, the child’s mother went to court to obtain a declaration that the man not be recognized as the father.
A media report on the case prompted the Quebec government to table legislation permitting a mother who is the victim of sexual assault to refuse parental rights to her assailant, or to have them revoked. That law came into effect last June.
In his decision, Lachance wrote that it’s not in the best interest of the child to allow the man to seek parental recognition given his violent actions, his criminal history, and what his parole reports have deemed a high risk to reoffend.
The judge said granting paternity to the man would force the mother to have contact with him in order to arrange visitation or make decisions requiring parental authority, which he said would be “unbearable.”
The man withdrew his paternity claim in November, which the judge deemed a “strategic attempt” to leave the door open for future claims.
“We cannot condone nor tolerate that the assailant uses a procedural technique to escape an unfavourable result in the hopes of being able to take it up again later,” he wrote, adding that the possibility of a future claim had left mother and child with a “sword of Damocles” hanging over their heads.
He ruled that the man could never “at his own initiative” seek to be recognized as the father, although he said it would be possible for the child to make the request when older.

01/01/2024

New Ontario laws and regulations come into effect on New Year's Day
TORONTO — Several new Ontario laws and regulatory changes are set to come into effect on New Year's Day, including daycare safe-arrival rules and penalties for inappropriately accessing patients' personal health information. As of Jan.
Canadian Press about 8 hours ago

Several new Ontario laws and regulatory changes are set to come into effect on New Year's Day, including a daycare safe-arrival policy and penalties for inappropriately accessing patients' personal health information. Children's backpacks and shoes are seen at a daycare, in Langley, B.C., on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

TORONTO — Several new Ontario laws and regulatory changes are set to come into effect on New Year's Day, including daycare safe-arrival rules and penalties for inappropriately accessing patients' personal health information.
As of Jan. 1, 2024, the province will require all child-care operators to develop a policy outlining what steps they will take to closely monitor when a child does not arrive or is not picked up as expected.
The changes are intended to prevent the rare, but horrendous deaths of young children inadvertently left in hot cars.
Safe arrival systems have long been in place in schools, where children are as young as three or four when starting junior kindergarten, but not in child-care settings, where children are younger and more vulnerable.
Other new regulations taking effect on Monday will allow Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner to fine individuals or organizations who inappropriately access or share a patient's personal health information.
Several changes to the tow-truck industry are also set to come into force, including new customer rights.
Those will include the right to provide consent to tow a car, where it will be towed, access to the vehicle after the fact and rights related to invoices and payments.
The province will also take over the tow-truck licensing regime from municipalities and will require certification of all towing operators and vehicle storage companies.

12/15/2023

A Brampton landlord says he's out at least $30,000 — so far — because the tenant at one of his properties has refused to pay rent or move out.

12/11/2023

When Cana­dian gov­ern­ment offi­cials first con­sidered requir­ing migrant farm work­ers to work for a spe­cific employer, they rejec­ted the idea because they said it would amount to slavery. “It would be con­trary to the whole Cana­dian belief in...

11/26/2023

Chad Bélanger was left with a broken neck, ribs, collarbone and sternum, a bruised heart and lungs, a concussion and PTSD following a crash caused by a truck that crossed a solid double yellow line to pass another vehicle in northern Ontario. His New Democratic member of provincial parliament, Guy ...

10/31/2023

Caste now recognized in Ontario rights code
Protections will extend to housing, jobs and contracts
Toronto Star31 Oct 2023REANNA JULIEN STAFF REPORTER
The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has officially recognized caste as a basis of discrimination under the province’s Human Rights Code.

In a press release last week, the OHRC said its goal is to recognize the rights and legal obligation of individuals in order to prevent discrimination based on caste — a mostly South Asian practice of assigning one’s social status at birth.

The statement comes seven months after the Toronto District School Board voted in favour of asking the OHRC to provide a framework navigating oppression related to the caste system within public education. The statement outlines what the caste system is and its impacts on life, before explaining what the Human Rights Code covers and its limitations. Although the recognition is a major step for those within the Dalit community, a group deemed outside of (or beneath) the four-tiered system, some say there is still a long way to go.

Vijay Puli is the executive director of the South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network, an organization advocating for Dalit rights in Canada. He said the news has been a long time coming for the community. As a Dalit himself, Puli said that this new level of protection is one of the best things he can give his children.

“With the constant caste discrimination, we lived in a lot of insecurity,” Puli said. “Now we feel more secure, like there is something to protect us and our families.”

Casteism affects every aspect of a person’s life and can result in “social and economic exclusion and inequality for persons said to be of ‘lower’ caste,” the commission said in the statement.

There are also limits to the code. Specifically, protection is restricted to “housing accommodation, employment, vocational associations and contracts” — something Puli worries about, as he recalls instances of casteism at temples throughout the GTA.

Although the policy doesn’t directly address caste discrimination within public education, the commission says awareness and training for staff and students would also be necessary to prevent an increase in caste-based discrimination.

According to the statement, school boards also have an obligation to protect students and school community members under Ontario’s Education Act, and the Provincial Code of Conduct for the education sector.