YOUR FEDER ATION OCTOBER REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL P
resident David Mastin welcomed delegates to October Representa- tive Council with a call to action on Bill 33, noting that anything
we can do to put pressure on this govern- ment can help reduce the chances of the minister over-utilizing his powers to take over other local school boards. “We have a minister of education who has
openly called for eliminating elected school trustees. We all know that school board trustees aren’t perfect, but if this government is allowed to get rid of trustee elections that are scheduled one year from now, then none of us should be surprised if they then move to merge school boards or further centralize the administration of our schools,” he said. “Te time for building our power is now. Talk to members. Build those bridges. And when the call comes, be ready to stand up and fight for our working conditions and for the public schools we all deserve.” Te guest speaker at Representative
Council was Emis Akbari, executive director of the Atkinson Centre and professor and program coordinator at the School of Early Childhood at George Brown Polytechnic.
Reflecting on the centre’s most recent (2023) report on early childhood education, Akbari talked about the struggling national child care program and the fact the ECEs are the most underpaid and undervalued educators in Ontario, with the highest rate of attrition among education professionals. “Without
wages that respect and value ECEs,” she said, “the workforce will continue to suffer.” Representative Council participants took
part in facilitated discussion groups on bar- riers to the participation of Black members and how to engage Black members at the local level.
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42 ETFO VOICE | WINTER 2025
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