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Ontario’s Education Minister didn’t exactly dictate terms for the Liberal government’s surrender to teachers unions on Tuesday, but she announced the process through which the province will eventually lay down its arms.

There is, to be fair, a lot of sense to what Liz Sandals had to say about correcting the current flawed process. Having the government not take a direct role in negotiations, despite the fact that it, not the school boards, provides the actual money for the contracts, only created the illusion that the government does not ultimately decide who gets paid what. Of course it is the Education Ministry that makes that call, so it should be a central part of the bargaining process. Making it formally so is all to the good.

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But McKenna says they were purely political decisions and the costs should not have to be borne by Ontario taxpayers.

McKenna says she’s not worried about setting a dangerous precedent of trying to hold political parties financially accountable for their actions in government.

She says people want the Liberals to own up to what they’ve done and pay back the money they’ve wasted.

No Canadian political party has hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank, but McKenna says the Liberals should pay off the $950 million tab over time.

Both the Tories and New Democrats have warned electricity rates in Ontario will have to rise to cover the cost of the Liberals’ decisions to kill the two gas plants.