December 1st, 2025

PASMA: Minister of Education is playing political games with students’ futures

QUEEN’S PARK — Following the Minister of Education’s announcement that he is seizing control over another school board and sweeping aside the right of parents in Near North to have a say in decisions affecting their children, NDP shadow minister for education MPP Chandra Pasma (Ottawa West – Nepean) released the following statement:

“Parents in Parry Sound, North Bay, and Mattawa – and frankly across Ontario – deserve transparency, accountability and real involvement in decisions about their children’s education. Instead, the same minister who's harmed children across the province with funding cuts and who attacked the right of parents to have a say in their children’s education has now put himself directly in charge of schools in the Near North School Board.

“This Minister and the MPPs who represent North Bay and Parry Sound have repeatedly ignored parents and refused to meet with them. Instead of transparency, accountability, and consultation, today families are getting the opposite.”