Education Minister Lisa Thompson is defending the $140,000-a-year patronage appointment of a defeated former Progressive Conservative candidate to chair the agency administering Ontario’s standardized testing.

The Tories rewarded Cameron Montgomery, who lost in Ottawa-Orleans last June, with the plum post to chair the board of the Education Quality and Accountability Office, previously a part-time job that paid less than $4,000 annually.

“After 15 years of mismanagement and plummeting math scores under (former Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne’s) watch — and, quite frankly, her ideology — we have seen students failing,” Thompson said Wednesday.

“So we need to address this. We’re taking a very serious approach and we are fixing it by way of working with EQAO and having them find within an opportunity to hire an expert,” she said.

“Dr. Cameron Montgomery is an absolute perfect fit to be a permanent chair and help us get standardization right in Ontario.”

Thompson said Montgomery, a former assistant professor of education at the University of Ottawa, “has an amazing pedigree.”

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$140K-a-year EQAO job for failed PC candidate sparks criticism

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath blasts Premier Doug Ford for cronyism in appointments

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But NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Premier Doug Ford is just rewarding a political ally.

“He’s just been given a ticket to the Ford gravy train. Let’s face it, Mr. Ford keeps giving these tickets,” said Horwath.

“If the government had its priorities right, any extra dollars wouldn’t be going to Ford’s friends and insiders, so that he can manipulate the decisions that they make in the future, but rather should be going to children who have autism, whose parents need the support,” she said.

Indeed, the $140,000 to be paid annually to Montgomery, for example, is enough to cover treatment for “a couple of years” for a child with severe autism, Horwath added.

“The point is the government’s got its priorities wrong. If it’s somebody that Mr. Ford wants to do a favour for, somebody he wants to call on for favours in the future? Well, the bank is wide open,” the New Democrat said.

“If it’s parents struggling to find the supports they need for their children with autism, to try to help those kids to be able to connect with their parents and the rest of the world, well, those people are just not a priority for the premier.”

Interim Liberal leader John Fraser said “the optics are bad.”

“Doug Ford is bringing an old word back into the lexicon: patronage,” said Fraser.

“I don’t think the qualification should be: ‘I was a Conservative candidate in the last election so someone needs to take care of me.’”

In a release, Montgomery said he “will be working with the government and EQAO’s board of directors to ensure the agency can better meet the needs of the province.”

Former NDP education minister Dave Cooke, an EQAO board member for a decade and chair for the past three years before retiring in October, earned a per diem of $225. Last year he made $3,600 performing the duties.

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“It’s not a full-time job, and I don’t know how you make it into a full-time job,” said Cooke. “If he’s there every day I don’t know what (Montgomery) is going to do.”

The EQAO administers tests in Grades 3, 6, 9 and 10 to assess reading, writing, and math skills to help identify curriculum areas that need improvement.

Its daily operations are led by professional staff headed by a CEO, who reports to the board, which meets at least four times a year.

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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