Education minister grilled on school safety amidst fears of 2nd wave

Ontario is reporting over 300 new COVID-19 cases for the first time since early June, and with 112 of those new infections coming out of Toronto alone, Education Minister Stephen Lecce faced the fire from MP’s today at Queens Park.

Lecce was grilled by the opposition this morning during question period, specifically by NDP critic Marit Stiles.

One of her biggest concerns is safety for students and bus drivers on school buses. Stiles, as well as NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, both say may drivers don’t feel safe and maintains that there isn’t enough physical distancing happening.

“Will the Premier now then, since we’re in this crisis at this moment, provide for the funding and the directive to cap all school buses at 50 percent capacity,” Horwath asked Lecce, who continued to defend his government’s plan and the funding it has injected into it.

“(We) need to ensure that we can do three things. One, we can ensure they’re (school buses) cleaned more often, more regularized and more intensively than ever before. Two, we can reduce the amount of children on those buses and three, that we can ensure a masking protocol is comprehensive; the most comprehensive in this country.”

The government says it’s giving itself some time to introduce any needed legislature – especially if a second wave is upon us.