As a legislative committee met at Queen’s Park to study a government bill that would significantly water down the role of school board trustees, Education Minister Paul Calandra began grilling union leaders about his own legislation, leading to criticism that he was “rude,” “disrespectful,” and “inappropriate.”

On Monday, MPPs began public hearings on Bill 101, the law that would create the role of a Chief Education Officer in the province’s English public and Catholic school boards, entrusted with the power to set the budget and co-sign decisions made by trustees.

While trustees can hire the CEO, only the minister of education would have the power to terminate the position and resolve disputes, giving the government greater control over the boards’ governance.

While Calandra offered the committee his views on the necessity of legislation, MPPS were surprised when he promptly joined the government benches and began peppering two union leaders with questions.

“Let me ask you this. Are you a teacher? Do you think you’d be qualified to run a school board as a CEO?” Calandra asked Joe Tigani, the head of the Ontario School Boards Council of Unions, representing 57,000 education support workers.

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Calandra asked unions about key elements of the bill in an attempt, he said, to clarify whether they understood and supported the government’s intent.

“I’m a member of provincial parliament and if I want to ask questions of those individuals who have a difference of opinion, that’s the whole point of the committee process. You can’t silence somebody just because they happen to be a cabinet minister,” Calandra said after the committee hearing.

Opposition MPPs said they were stunned by the display.

“I have never seen anything like that. I’ve never seen a cabinet minister stay to ask questions, let alone a cabinet minister stay to attack people who have come to share their perspectives on this legislation,” said NDP Education Critic Chandra Pasma.

Green Party MPP Aislinn Clancy said she was “shocked” by Calandra’s approach.

“I think democracy means that we talk and consult with our stakeholders. We don’t grill them and make them feel bad and undermine their expertise,” Clancy said.

While Calandra said the result was “a lot more agreement than disagreement” with his bill, political critics took issue with his method.

“He wasn’t defending what he was doing. He was attacking other people, other people’s assessment of things, attacking teachers, basically challenging what people had to say with regard to the CEO. It’s totally inappropriate,” said Liberal MPP John Fraser.

Tigani, with the Ontario School Boards Council of Unions, who was in the hot seat at the time, called the minister’s approach “rude.”

“I think it was disrespectful. I was there representing 57,000 education workers, parents, most of those workers are parents, and I felt his tone, his demeanour was wildly disrespectful, he said.

The bill, which Calandra said will likely return to the Ontario legislature unchanged, is expected to pass in the coming weeks.

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