From: James Ryan [mailto:j.ryan@oecta.on.

ca] Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2013 11:54 AM To: Council of Presidents; OTBUPresidents; Provincial Office Subject: FACE Request

Yesterday the following message was forwarded by FACE to all directors of education to be distributed to the Local FACE Team which includes the respective OECTA president(s). Provincial office staff were requested to investigate this matter in order to provide a complete picture for our members. This position paper was tabled last year by the same local riding youth group and at that time the Ontario Liberal Party distanced itself from the paper. The paper has surfaced again but the difference this year is the voting feedback that is currently underway. To counter the organized One School System vote, I am requesting that units engage your membership (and other catholic school supporters) to vote for the continuation of the catholic school system. The process for voting is outlined below.

In addition, Government Relations staff are lobbying senior Liberal party members on our serious concerns on the handling of this policy paper. I would request that you add your voice to ours and contact your local Liberal MPP(s) and inform them of the serious flaws and outright bias contained in the policy paper. In addition the Catholic community is uncertain of the Ontario Liberal Partys position on public funding for catholic schools.

Your assistance with this effort is greatly appreciated.

James Ryan President

_________________________________________________________________

From: Roger Lawler [mailto:RLawler@ocsta.on.ca] Sent: September 30, 2013 8:12 AM To:

Good morning Over the weekend, the Ontario Liberal Party opened a new web page entitled "Common Ground: Ontario Liberal Party". The purpose of the site is to solicit ideas to help shape the party platform for the next election.

One of the discussion/suggestion areas is Education. Within this area and the are entitled "Fair and Just Society" there are two proposals - one for merging Public and Catholic school boards to save up to $1.6 billion. The other calls for One School System to save money and end discrimination. In the one instance (copy enclosed) the group uses the Federation of Urban Neighbourhood paper and their $1.6 billion figure as reality. The Federation paper is far from reality and we know that the money follows the student. (If one really wanted to save $1.6 billion in education, you would have to witness a decline in enrolment of 145,000 students at an average of $11,000 each)

Your action and the action of your board team, staff, colleagues is needed. What we are asking you to do is to:

1. Google "Common Ground: Ontario Liberal Party" 2. Sign up in order to participate 3. Go to the Education discussion section (the index is on the left side of the screen once you get into the discussion area) 4. Click on "Education" 5. Scroll down until you find the discussion on "One School System" and the other discussion on "Merging Public and Catholic school boards". 6. The discussion asks you to vote for or against the idea 7. Please vote that you DISAGREE with the policy suggestion. 8. It is optional, but I have elected to follow the discussion so I receive emails on their

discussion.

Currently the Catholic voice is absent apart from a comment I left. I would truly encourage you to enter the site and speak up for Catholic education. I would also expect that from now until the actual election campaign there will be more policy discussion opportunities in all parties; discussions that we need to ensure through the Catholic community that we are present. All of us need to make our voice count. As you will see from the enclosure much of the argument they use to encourage the ending of public funding for Catholic schools is dubious and problematic. We need to have our voice present to counter-act problematic arguments.

I would also request, in closing, that you forward this email to the Board Chair, Unit Presidents and Diocesan representative. Cheers.

Roger Lawler Project Manager FACE