The “notwithstanding clause:” a tool for autocracy
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The “notwithstanding clause:” a tool for autocracy

William Paul  – 2025-12-01
Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith has been busy these past couple of months, invoking the “notwithstanding clause,” to protect legislation affecting schools, labour and families. Over the past few years, premiers have come to see the “notwithstanding clause” as a handy tool to avoid court challenges to legislation. But it’s undermining democracy and the problem is getting worse.

“Please Hold: Your child’s future is important to us”

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-11-14
Ontario teachers aren't looking for bonuses or huge salaries. They're looking for safe class sizes, support and humans working with kids in classrooms. Paul Calandra's plan for a call centre, if it supplants elected trustees, will only push those wishes further from reach.

Fordwatch 3: The saga continues

Susan Atkins  – 2025-10-30
Forgetting is a basic ingredient in any government’s recipe for holding on to power. That’s why School Magazine has kept a tab on the efforts of this government to act for itself and its friends.

Here is Fordwatch 3 and hopefully there won't be a Fordwatch 4. If you’ve forgotten headlines, stories and details, just click on the Fordwatch links for a reminder.

From Trump to Ford to Smith: the attack on public education

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-10-29
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invoked the notwithstanding clause to override Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms  in order to  force Alberta  teachers back to work, it wasn’t just an assault on Alberta educators — it was a warning to all of us.

Bill 33 and police in our schools

Kathy-Ann Murray  – 2025-10-23
Police in schools is not safety. This is surveillance. This is policing—not protection. And this is exactly what Bill 33 threatens to expand across Ontario.

Opinion: Ontario’s culture war on schools threatens democracy

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-10-18
Lately, we’ve witnessed a series of disturbing events at the Toronto District School Board: A September 26 professional development day devolved into a fear-mongering police presentation. Islamic Heritage Month calligraphy workshop for 2,600 students was abruptly cancelled- the list goes on.

Anthem in Arabic? TDSB had no need to apologize

William Paul  – 2025-10-14
We move bit by bit towards the hijacking of verifiable information by increasingly autocratic governments that make us question what mistakes we might have made. As falsehoods are manufactured into truth we are ever ready to apologize not because, but in case we have made the mistake of honesty.

Who really created this crisis?

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-10-12
Everywhere we turn, working people are being told to “tighten your belts." Parents are told to be patient while classrooms overflow, child-care spaces disappear, and wages fail to keep up with the cost of living. But when we look at the real numbers, a very different story emerges.

TDSB under supervision: Special needs kids face a bureaucratic maze

William Paul  – 2025-09-18
With over 40 000 special needs students in Toronto District School Board (TDSB) schools, you can understand why parents worry about navigating a system which appears opaque. Until the Ford government replaced TDSB trustees with an appointed supervisor, they at least had someone to whom they could turn for help dealing with the bureaucratic maze.

Pedagogies of repression: Ford, Trump and the war on education

William Paul and Henry Giroux  – 2025-09-16
Fascism thrives not only on brute police power, prisons or economic violence but also on culture and pedagogy. Culture has increasingly become a site in the service of pedagogical tyranny. It works through erasure and repression, through memory stripped of its critical force and dissent silenced in the name of order.

It’s dark without trustees; parent organizing is the light

Katrina Matheson  – 2025-09-11
Students and families across Ontario urgently need transparent mechanisms that identify student needs and inform funding decisions according to high standards for human rights, academic achievement, and a diversity of opportunities for an incredibly diverse population of students. In this temporary moment of darkness, I'm betting on parent involvement to get us there. 

Ford’s power grab: How Bill 5 and 33 threaten Ontario’s democracy

Jennifer Huang and Filomena Ferraro  – 2025-09-07
If Doug Ford continues to pass legislation like Bills 5 and 33, Ontario will face further erosion of democratic institutions, reduced transparency, and a government that serves wealthy developers over the public good, just as we have seen in the United States.

Back to school. Back to the fight

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-08-31
Bill 33 doesn’t build one new classroom, hire one more social worker, or fix one broken window. What it does do is lay the groundwork for privatization — and that’s why we can’t let it pass quietly.

Ford’s school board takeover: a real estate heist disguised as education reform?

Nigel Barriffe  – 2025-07-09
The school board takeovers are right in the Ford government’s playbook. Starve the system. Blame everyone else. Change the rules. Sell off public assets. And reward developer buddies. It’s happening again — this time with our schools.

The only thing that’s ever stopped them is organized, vocal, public pressure. That’s what we need now.

Why is Ford really hijacking school boards?

William Paul  – 2025-07-04
Paul Calandra accuses boards of losing focus and mismanagement. This is coming from a minister of the government that brought you Highway 413 and the Greenbelt scandal - for whom mismanagement is a watchword .