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The following letter to the editor was received by JSC for publication from Christine Cooper, former Caledon resident and political blogger.
Christine is currently Co-Producer, along with MJ Nabuurs, of the popular podcast The ReSisters: No Ostriching Here.
Right near the end of the school year, Doug Ford’s government announced the complete shuttering of all outdoor education programming. Every single bit of it, including the iconic Ward’s Island Science and Nature school.
More than 40,000 school children (mostly urban) access those programs yearly and over the decades more than 100’s of thousands of Ontario’s students (both primary & secondary) have been a part of learning about nature conservation, farming, wildlife, water, the birds, bee and butterflies, protecting our planet for sustainability and resilience and a whole bunch of other stuff through those programs.
It’s all gone. All of it.
I’m hearing that the upkeep and the aging infrastructure is too expensive and there is NO money to pay for this upkeep or these programs.
Today I opened one of the last actual print publications that we get in my hometown from the Springwater News and saw this full-page print ad (see image below) placed by Doug Ford’s government and paid for by the Ontario taxpayers.
I have read that Doug Ford’s government spent almost $112 MILLION on ads in the 2024-2025 fiscal year alone.
So let me see if I understand this government’s priorities: There’s NO money for the outdoor educational programs that have been happening in Ontario for more than seven decades but there’s HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for Doug Ford’s self-aggrandizing and his ongoing propagation of fear mongering.
What is it going to take for the electorate to snap out of their comas and dial in to what is happening here in Ontario?
Christine Cooper
