{
  "dataset": "Ontario education and autism accountability receipts",
  "description": "Dated receipts — findings, legislative facts, claims, and policy proposals — issued by OHRC, the Auditor General, Hansard, FAO, and others, each with its source URL.",
  "publisher": "End The Wait Ontario",
  "publisherUrl": "https://www.endthewaitontario.com",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "sourceOfTruth": "lib/data/accountability-receipts.ts",
  "statsSsotLastVerified": "2026-08-10",
  "dataAsOf": "2026-08-04",
  "receipts": [
    {
      "id": "ag-special-education-2026",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "auditor-general",
      "themes": [
        "special-education"
      ],
      "date": "2026-05-12",
      "title": "Special education funding has not kept pace with need",
      "finding": "The Auditor General reported that special education funding rose from $3.1 billion in 2019/20 to $3.6 billion in 2023/24 - growth of 17% against inflation of 15%, while board spending grew 21%. In 2023/24, 46 of Ontario's 72 school boards spent $398M more on special education than they received. At the boards examined, educational assistant absences went unfilled 49-72% of the time, and 18% of educational assistants were absent on an average day. Only 21% of classroom teachers surveyed said they could meet most of the special education needs in their class, and 87% said they sometimes, rarely or never had the resources to implement an Individual Education Plan. 39% of teachers surveyed had observed exclusions that were not documented. The audit made 15 recommendations: 13 agreed · 2 disagreed.",
      "issuedBy": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/specialreports/specialaudits/en2026/Ar_2026_SpecEd_EN.html",
      "whatItMeans": "This is the baseline, not the crisis. Every figure here describes the ordinary operating state of the system on a day when nobody is on strike. When bargaining is described as a fight about staffing, this is what staffing determines: whether a disabled child can be at school at all."
    },
    {
      "id": "fao-autism-services-2020",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "financial-accountability-office",
      "themes": [
        "autism-services",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2020-07-21",
      "title": "Most of the money announced for autism was not paid out that year",
      "finding": "The Financial Accountability Office reported that of 270 million dollars in childhood budget and one-time autism funding for 2019-20, 97 million dollars was actually paid to about 8,100 families during the year, while 174 million dollars was recorded as an accrued expense for about 25,100 children whose families had not received payment by March 31, 2020. The FAO also estimated that eliminating the waitlist would cost roughly 1.4 billion dollars per year, and that a 600-million-dollar program would leave about 22,900 children waiting.",
      "issuedBy": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://fao-on.org/en/report/autism-services-2020/",
      "whatItMeans": "Announced funding and delivered funding are different numbers. Families were counted as served in the province’s books before the money reached them. This is why we track paid enrolment rather than announcements."
    },
    {
      "id": "fao-mccss-2024",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "financial-accountability-office",
      "themes": [
        "autism-services",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2024-06-05",
      "title": "A $3.7 billion shortfall against what the ministry needs",
      "finding": "The Financial Accountability Office found that the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services was allocated about $3.7 billion less than required over 2024-25 to 2026-27, with annual gaps of roughly $0.7 billion, $1.2 billion and $1.8 billion. The FAO reported that a $600 million Ontario Autism Program budget funds full core service allocations for approximately 10,142 children.",
      "issuedBy": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://fao-on.org/en/report/fa2305-mccss/",
      "whatItMeans": "The waitlist is not an administrative backlog that better processing will clear. The province’s own independent financial watchdog costed the gap between what is budgeted and what the program requires, and it is measured in billions."
    },
    {
      "id": "bill-28-2022",
      "kind": "legislative-fact",
      "body": "legislature",
      "themes": [
        "labour-rights",
        "special-education"
      ],
      "date": "2022-11-03",
      "title": "Ontario overrode the Human Rights Code to impose an education contract",
      "finding": "The Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022 (Bill 28) imposed a four-year contract on education workers, prohibited a strike, and provided for fines of up to $4,000 per day for an individual and $500,000 per day for the union. It pre-emptively invoked section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the notwithstanding clause - and also overrode the Ontario Human Rights Code. The Act was repealed by the Keeping Students in Class Repeal Act, 2022 (Bill 35) on November 14, 2022, and deemed never to have been in force.",
      "issuedBy": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-28",
      "whatItMeans": "The accommodation rights that protect disabled students during a work stoppage sit in the Human Rights Code. In 2022 that Code was overridden by statute in this sector. It was reversed within two weeks - but it happened, and families planning for this round are entitled to know it happened."
    },
    {
      "id": "bill-124-courts",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "courts",
      "themes": [
        "labour-rights",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2022-11-29",
      "title": "The public-sector wage cap was found to infringe the Charter",
      "finding": "In Ontario English Catholic Teachers Assoc. v His Majesty, 2022 ONSC 6658, the Superior Court held that Bill 124’s compensation restraints infringed the freedom of association guaranteed by section 2(d) of the Charter and struck the Act down. The Court of Appeal upheld the finding of unconstitutionality in part in 2024 ONCA 101, released February 12, 2024, as it applied to represented employees. The government repealed Bill 124 in its entirety on February 23, 2024.",
      "issuedBy": "Ontario Superior Court of Justice; Ontario Court of Appeal",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc6658/2022onsc6658.html",
      "whatItMeans": "A measure applied across the public sector, including education, was found to breach a constitutional right and then repealed after years of litigation and remediation. It is the clearest available answer to the argument that legislating past a bargaining dispute is a cheap or clean option."
    },
    {
      "id": "bill-33-2025",
      "kind": "legislative-fact",
      "body": "legislature",
      "themes": [
        "service-delivery",
        "special-education"
      ],
      "date": "2025-11-20",
      "title": "The Minister of Education gained power to take control of a school board directly",
      "finding": "The Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025 (Bill 33) received Royal Assent on November 20, 2025. Among other measures, it expanded the Minister of Education’s powers to direct investigations into school boards on matters of public interest, to issue binding directions, and to vest control of a board’s administration - including financial management and asset disposition. These powers previously required approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council. The Act contains no provisions directly addressing special education.",
      "issuedBy": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-44/session-1/bill-33",
      "whatItMeans": "Decisions about how a board allocates special education staffing can now be taken further from the parents affected by them, and closer to a single provincial office. When your child’s support is cut, the question of who to escalate to has changed."
    },
    {
      "id": "bill-98-2023",
      "kind": "legislative-fact",
      "body": "legislature",
      "themes": [
        "service-delivery"
      ],
      "date": "2023-06-08",
      "title": "Provincial control over school boards expanded",
      "finding": "The Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023 (Bill 98) received Royal Assent on June 8, 2023. It expanded ministerial authority over school boards, including provincial priority-setting, director of education accountability requirements, powers relating to board real estate and asset disposition, and an integrity commissioner regime for trustee conduct.",
      "issuedBy": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-98",
      "whatItMeans": "Read alongside Bill 33 and the 2025 board supervisions, this is a documented sequence: successive statutes moving authority over boards toward the Minister. We report the sequence and the dates. What it adds up to is for the reader to judge."
    },
    {
      "id": "ag-agency-nurses-2023",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "auditor-general",
      "themes": [
        "service-delivery",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2023-12-06",
      "title": "Hospitals paid private agencies roughly three times staff rates for nurses",
      "finding": "The Auditor General reported that Ontario hospitals spent at least 170 million dollars on agency nurses in 2022-23, and that agency nurses worked more than 1.7 million hours, double the previous year. Hospitals paid agencies between 99 and 106 dollars an hour for an emergency department registered nurse in southern Ontario, and between 100 and 160 dollars an hour in northern Ontario, roughly three times the cost of a staff nurse. The audit also recorded 203 unplanned temporary emergency department closures at 23 hospitals between July 2022 and June 2023.",
      "issuedBy": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/news/23_newsreleases/nr_AR_emergencydepts_en23.pdf",
      "whatItMeans": "This is the documented cost of running a public service on staffing shortages instead of staff. It is the same pattern families see in schools when an unfilled educational assistant absence becomes a phone call home - except in health care, someone quantified it."
    },
    {
      "id": "ag-ontario-place-2024",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "auditor-general",
      "themes": [
        "public-money",
        "service-delivery"
      ],
      "date": "2024-12-03",
      "title": "A procurement found not fair, transparent or accountable",
      "finding": "The Auditor General reported that the estimated cost of the Ontario Place redevelopment had grown to about $2.2 billion, against a 2019 projection of about $424 million. The Auditor General found the procurement process was not fair, transparent or accountable, and documented direct communication between an Infrastructure Ontario vice-president and one bidder during the open call. The selected operator holds a 95-year lease.",
      "issuedBy": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.auditor.on.ca/",
      "whatItMeans": "Included because it establishes something about process rather than politics: the finding that a procurement was not fair, transparent or accountable came from the province’s own Auditor General. Families told there is no money for educational assistants are entitled to see where money did go, and how it was decided."
    },
    {
      "id": "ag-greenbelt-2023",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "auditor-general",
      "themes": [
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2023-08-09",
      "title": "Greenbelt site selection favoured certain landowners",
      "finding": "In a special report, the Auditor General found that the process for removing 15 sites from the Greenbelt was driven by the Housing Minister’s chief of staff, that certain developers with direct access to him received preferential treatment, and that affected landowners stood to gain an estimated $8.3 billion in land value - an estimate the Auditor General described as conservative.",
      "issuedBy": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.auditor.on.ca/",
      "whatItMeans": "We report this finding alongside the Auditor General’s special education findings from the same period, and draw no legal conclusion beyond what the Auditor General found in each. Readers can weigh the difference in scale for themselves."
    },
    {
      "id": "integrity-commissioner-clark-2023",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "integrity-commissioner",
      "themes": [
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2023-08-30",
      "title": "A minister was found to have contravened the Members’ Integrity Act",
      "finding": "The Integrity Commissioner found that the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing contravened section 2 (conflict of interest) and section 3(2) (insider information) of the Members’ Integrity Act, 1994 in relation to the Greenbelt land removals, and recommended that he be reprimanded. The Commissioner’s inquiry drew on evidence from 62 individuals.",
      "issuedBy": "Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.oico.on.ca/web/default/files/public/Commissioners%20Reports/Report%20Re%20Minister%20Clark%20-%20August%2030,%202023.pdf",
      "whatItMeans": "Recorded here exactly as the Commissioner framed it, with the sections named and nothing added. This is what an established finding of contravention looks like - and it is the standard every other entry on this page is held to."
    },
    {
      "id": "fao-serviceontario-staples",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "financial-accountability-office",
      "themes": [
        "service-delivery",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2024-11-01",
      "title": "Moving ServiceOntario counters into a retailer cost more than announced",
      "finding": "The Financial Accountability Office reported that total payments to Staples Canada under the agreement to operate nine in-store ServiceOntario locations came to about $11.7 million - roughly $1.5 million more than the cost the government had announced.",
      "issuedBy": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://fao-on.org/en/report/serviceontario/",
      "whatItMeans": "A small file with a large lesson: when a public service is moved to a private operator, the announced cost and the audited cost were not the same number. Worth remembering whenever a delivery change is justified by savings."
    },
    {
      "id": "fao-alcohol-expansion",
      "kind": "finding",
      "body": "financial-accountability-office",
      "themes": [
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2025-02-01",
      "title": "Accelerating alcohol retail expansion carried a $612 million price tag",
      "finding": "The Financial Accountability Office estimated the net cost of expanding Ontario’s beverage alcohol marketplace at about $1.4 billion to 2029-30, of which about $612 million was attributable specifically to the decision to accelerate the expansion rather than proceed on the original timetable.",
      "issuedBy": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario",
      "sourceUrl": "https://fao-on.org/en/report/alcohol-sales-expansion/",
      "whatItMeans": "Included for scale, not for outrage. The cost of moving one retail policy forward by roughly sixteen months is within the same order of magnitude as the annual special education funding increases the Auditor General found insufficient."
    },
    {
      "id": "union-underfunding-claim",
      "kind": "claim",
      "body": "interested-party",
      "themes": [
        "special-education",
        "public-money"
      ],
      "date": "2026-06-03",
      "title": "Unions say education has been underfunded by billions since 2018",
      "finding": "Ontario’s education unions assert that public education has been underfunded by about $6.4 billion since 2018, as reported by The Globe and Mail. The Ontario School Board Council of Unions separately states the figure as $6.5 billion in cuts since 2018. These figures differ from one another, and neither has been confirmed by an independent oversight body.",
      "issuedBy": "Ontario education unions",
      "claimedBy": "ETFO, OSSTF, OECTA, AEFO and CUPE-OSBCU; and separately OSBCU",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.etfo.ca/news-publications/media-releases/ontario-education-unions-serve-notice-to-bargain-2026",
      "whatItMeans": "We include this because it is central to the dispute, and we label it a claim because that is what it is. We are sympathetic to the underlying argument and we still will not present a bargaining figure as an audited one. Where an independent body has quantified something - as the Auditor General did on special education - we cite that instead."
    },
    {
      "id": "cardus-special-ed-funding-2019",
      "kind": "policy-proposal",
      "body": "policy-institute",
      "themes": [
        "special-education",
        "privatization-pathway"
      ],
      "date": "2019-03-20",
      "title": "A proposal to send special education funding to independent schools",
      "finding": "Cardus published \"Funding Fairness for Students in Ontario with Special Education Needs\" by Deani Van Pelt, Ray Pennings and Taylor Jackson. It proposes that students with special education needs attending independent schools receive either 75% or 50% of the per-pupil special education funding provided to public school students, arguing that \"services for a child's disability should be based on need and not on the school the child attends.\" Cardus costed the proposal at $78 million to $195 million per year at the 75% level, and $52 million to $130 million at the 50% level. The paper states that the 75% figure \"has also previously been proposed by Hepburn and Mrozek in their 2004 paper\" - the Fraser Institute's \"Let the Funding Follow the Children.\"",
      "issuedBy": "Cardus",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.cardus.ca/research/funding-fairness-for-students-in-ontario-with-special-education-needs/",
      "whatItMeans": "Students with special education needs are the specific population for which public funding of independent schools has been proposed in Ontario, at a costing well under a sector-wide programme. We previously read a sequencing strategy into that and have withdrawn it - the legislative history of every province that funds independent schools runs the other way. What remains is the composition problem: on Cardus’s own later count, only 57 of roughly 1,445 Ontario independent schools emphasize special education."
    },
    {
      "id": "cardus-alberta-diverse-sector-2020",
      "kind": "policy-proposal",
      "body": "policy-institute",
      "themes": [
        "privatization-pathway"
      ],
      "date": "2020-03-02",
      "title": "Special-needs students named as a route to expanding independent schooling",
      "finding": "Cardus published \"Toward a More Diverse and Resilient Education Sector\" by David Hunt, addressing Alberta. Among its recommendations for removing enrolment barriers, it advises government to \"target additional financial resources to expanding independent-school options for special-needs students,\" alongside a mobility benefit for low-income families and streamlined approvals for new independent schools.",
      "issuedBy": "Cardus",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.cardus.ca/research/toward-a-more-diverse-and-resilient-education-sector/",
      "whatItMeans": "This one addresses Alberta, not Ontario, and we flag that rather than blur it. It is included because it shows the same population named in the same role in a second province, by the same institute. Note that Alberta has funded independent schools since 1967 - the special-education designation there came long after general funding, not before it."
    },
    {
      "id": "cardus-naturally-diverse-2022",
      "kind": "policy-proposal",
      "body": "policy-institute",
      "themes": [
        "special-education",
        "privatization-pathway"
      ],
      "date": "2022-11-22",
      "title": "Fifty-seven of 1,445 Ontario independent schools emphasize special education",
      "finding": "Cardus published \"Naturally Diverse: The Landscape of Independent Schools in Ontario\" by David Hunt, Joanna DeJong VanHof and Jenisa Los - a typology of roughly 1,445 Ontario independent schools. As of July 2022 it counted 57 schools emphasizing special education, up from 45 in 2013-14. It counted 545 religious schools (37.7% of the sector) and 593 special-emphasis schools (41%), across 21 special-emphasis subtypes, of which the largest single group was Montessori at 155 schools.",
      "issuedBy": "Cardus",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.cardus.ca/research/naturally-diverse/",
      "whatItMeans": "This is the most useful number in the entire file, and it comes from an organization that supports funding independent schools. In each of the Ontario and Alberta proposals we identified, children with special education needs were the named opening case. They are served by roughly four percent of the schools that would benefit from the precedent - fewer than a third as many as teach Montessori."
    },
    {
      "id": "angus-reid-cardus-2026",
      "kind": "policy-proposal",
      "body": "policy-institute",
      "themes": [
        "privatization-pathway"
      ],
      "date": "2026-01-30",
      "title": "Public support nearly doubles when funding is framed around special needs",
      "finding": "An Angus Reid Institute survey conducted in partnership with Cardus, fielded January 27-30, 2026 among a randomized sample of 516 Alberta adults, found that 64% supported public funding for children with special needs attending an independent school. Asked more generally whether government should expand educational opportunities outside the public system, Albertans were divided - 39% in favour and 46% opposed.",
      "issuedBy": "Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus",
      "sourceUrl": "https://angusreid.org/alberta-schools-independent-public-funding/",
      "whatItMeans": "The same policy draws 64% support framed around disabled children and 39% framed generally. We are not alleging that anyone designed the framing for that effect. We are noting, from published polling, that disabled children are the framing under which this policy polls best - and that families should know their children are the most persuasive argument available for a policy that is not primarily about them."
    },
    {
      "id": "ohc-extra-billing-claim",
      "kind": "claim",
      "body": "interested-party",
      "themes": [
        "service-delivery"
      ],
      "date": "2024-04-01",
      "title": "Advocacy survey reports patients charged at private clinics",
      "finding": "The Ontario Health Coalition published a report stating that of 231 patients it surveyed, 120 reported being charged for medically necessary care at private clinics, most commonly in connection with cataract surgery. This is an advocacy organization’s survey of self-selected respondents, not a government audit or a regulatory finding.",
      "issuedBy": "Ontario Health Coalition",
      "claimedBy": "Ontario Health Coalition",
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/release-report-illegal-unlawful-and-unethical-case-studies-of-patients-charged-for-medical-care-in-ontarios-private-clinics/",
      "whatItMeans": "Reported here with its methodology stated plainly so readers can weigh it themselves. A self-selected survey is evidence of a pattern worth investigating, not proof of its scale."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "ago-ontario",
      "title": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario - reports",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.auditor.on.ca/",
      "publisher": "Office of the Auditor General of Ontario",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "fao-ontario",
      "title": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario - reports",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://fao-on.org/en/reports/",
      "publisher": "Financial Accountability Office of Ontario",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "oico-clark-report",
      "title": "Report re Minister Clark, August 30, 2023",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.oico.on.ca/web/default/files/public/Commissioners%20Reports/Report%20Re%20Minister%20Clark%20-%20August%2030,%202023.pdf",
      "publisher": "Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario",
      "publicationDate": "2023-08-30",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "oecta-v-his-majesty",
      "title": "Ontario English Catholic Teachers Assoc. v His Majesty, 2022 ONSC 6658",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc6658/2022onsc6658.html",
      "publisher": "CanLII",
      "publicationDate": "2022-11-29",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "ola-bill-28",
      "title": "Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-28",
      "publisher": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "publicationDate": "2022-11-03",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "ola-bill-33",
      "title": "Bill 33, Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-44/session-1/bill-33",
      "publisher": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "publicationDate": "2025-11-20",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    },
    {
      "id": "cardus-funding-fairness",
      "title": "Funding Fairness for Students in Ontario with Special Education Needs",
      "type": "advocacy-org",
      "tier": "tier-2",
      "url": "https://www.cardus.ca/research/funding-fairness-for-students-in-ontario-with-special-education-needs/",
      "publisher": "Cardus",
      "publicationDate": "2019-03-20",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04",
      "notes": "Authors Deani Van Pelt, Ray Pennings and Taylor Jackson. Source for the 75%/50% proposal and its costings, and for the citation of the Fraser Institute’s 2004 paper."
    },
    {
      "id": "angus-reid-alberta-schools-2026",
      "title": "Alberta Schools: Two-thirds say education system is ailing, but there’s no consensus on the cure",
      "type": "parent-survey",
      "tier": "tier-2",
      "url": "https://angusreid.org/alberta-schools-independent-public-funding/",
      "publisher": "Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus",
      "publicationDate": "2026-01-30",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04",
      "notes": "Online survey of a randomized sample of 516 Alberta adults, fielded January 27-30, 2026."
    },
    {
      "id": "ola-bill-98",
      "title": "Bill 98, Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act, 2023",
      "type": "ontario-government",
      "tier": "tier-1",
      "url": "https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-98",
      "publisher": "Legislative Assembly of Ontario",
      "publicationDate": "2023-06-08",
      "retrievalDate": "2026-08-04"
    }
  ],
  "counts": {
    "total": 19,
    "findings": 10,
    "legislativeFacts": 3,
    "policyProposals": 4,
    "claims": 2
  },
  "lastUpdated": "2026-08-04",
  "nextReview": "2026-11-04"
}