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Here’s the full transcript from Hansard:

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is to the Minister of Education. For the past 48 hours, my inbox and the phone calls to my office have been very much focused on the lack of security systems in place at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board elementary schools. More than anything, though, I’m concerned about the children and not only their safety, but how they’re reacting to this. In fact, my own 10-year-old daughter this morning told me she was having lockdown practice today in a school that no longer locks. This is ongoing not only in Ottawa but, as you know, also in Halton. When the former Liberal leader—when you were a parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Education, you increased the school safety supports in 2012 in wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. It was also during labour strife, but it had widespread support. Now, three years later, student safety has been reduced to a bargaining chip, and I want to know, are you going to fix this before Thanksgiving weekend? Hon. Liz Sandals: Speaker, we obviously share their concern about the safety of the children in the schools, and certainly we, too, agree that it has been a big concern for parents to make sure that their children are safe in their schools. I did call on the president of OSSTF to rethink that part of the strike action that they are taking, with respect to the monitoring of the buzzers and the screens and making sure that we have safe access to schools and safe entry to schools. We are absolutely working on that. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Supplementary. Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Minister, that’s not enough. Yesterday, in a neighbouring community to mine, in Kemptville, where the member of Leeds–Grenville is the MPP, there was a man wielding a knife outside of three schools, which went into lockdown. Their school board isn’t affected; the kids that I represent are. They’re expecting more from our government. These kids in elementary schools in eastern Ontario and the rest of Ontario have been going through labour strife since 2012 with Bill 115. This is ongoing for three years and now they are fearing for their basic safety in the nation’s capital. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The Associate Minister of Finance is warned. Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I am asking the government to take this seriously. I would ask the government to ensure that, before the kids in my constituency and elsewhere in this province go back to school tomorrow and for the Thanksgiving weekend, you resolve this issue. I do understand that you called upon the president of OSSTF. I actually went one step further and had the conversation and asked directly. You need to do the same. Will you do it? Interjections. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Be seated, please. Be seated, please. Thank you. Minister. Hon. Liz Sandals: We have certainly been in touch with the directors each day in terms of how they are handling this situation, what protocols they have put in place, and obviously, the directors are reporting back to us on the steps that they are taking to secure the schools. But I must challenge some of what the member opposite is saying. What she has reported accurately during her questions is (1) that lockdown drills are continuing, as they always do at this time of the school year, and (2) that when there was an actual threat to safety, the lockdown procedures were immediately implemented by the schools in question to ensure the safety of the children. So I think she needs to actually listen to her own question that when there is an imminent threat, that threat is dealt with— Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Yes, we should just scare children? That’s what we should to? Just frightening them, that’s what they’re doing. But you don’t have kids in school, so you wouldn’t know. Interjections. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Excuse me. Order. Interjections. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): Order. The member for Nepean–Carleton is named. Ms. MacLeod was escorted from the chamber. Mr. Todd Smith: Wow, that’s pretty sad. Double standard, Speaker; come on. That’s pretty sad. The Speaker (Hon. Dave Levac): The member is seeking himself to be removed? The Minister of Education is warned.

“Interjections” is Hansardese for “jerky heckling” and is customarily not transcribed. Clearly things got heated, though. As you see, MacLeod wasn’t ejected for asking about the issue, but for expressing her dissatisfaction with the answers she got in a manner the Speaker considered inappropriate.

The union that represents school clerical and support workers has chosen, as a pressure tactic, to not man the buzzers in schools that are equipped with them — causing schools to leave their front doors unlocked because it’s not practical to keep letting people in otherwise.

It’s an obvious loser of a decision. It probably has negligible effect on actual student safety, which is surely what they were thinking when they did it. Only half of Ottawa’s schools have these buzzer systems; the others just keep their front doors unlocked. Intruders wandering into schools are not a common occurrence.

But it still looks like the support staff’s union is choosing to put children at risk. The union’s line is that the decision to leave the doors unlocked is up to administrators and boards and it’s not their responsibility, which nobody believes. Teachers might as well go on strike and say it’s not their responsibility the schools are closed. Nobody would buy that, either.

(I have two kids in a school where they’ve deactivated the buzzer, incidentally.)

For the opposition, it’s a gift. They can blame the union for doing it and the government for not stopping it. It’s not at all clear from MacLeod’s question what Sandals ought to do differently — speak more sharply to the union president, I guess. Or give in to the union’s demands so they can sign a contract and end the job action. Wait, no, that doesn’t seem right.

Sandals is probably better off applying Napoleon’s advice to never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake.

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

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