There are two disturbing things about previously secret reports that emerged this week at an Ontario Labour Relations Board hearing into allegations by the English Catholic Teachers union that the government engaged in bad-faith bargaining.
The first is that the reports, which summarize more than 7,000 public submissions received during last year's education consultations, were secret.
The government spent close to a million dollars. Then-Education Minister Lisa Thompson boasted the consultations were the largest ever in Ontario, and promised the results would inform policy.
And yet the government repeatedly refused to release the reports. Why would the government want to cover up the findings of its own consultations?