NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese is urging Dalton McGuinty to stop the havoc that declining enrolment is wreaking on Ontario schools.

“There are two possible solutions to declining enrolment and concomitant funding problems – we can allow schools to close and programs to be cut, or we can consider schools as community hubs and change the way we fund them,” said Marchese.

NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese calls for a moratorium on school closures until Kathleen Wynne holds her planned 2010 review on the issue.

The Minister of Education plans to appoint a working group to examine the impact of declining enrolment on Ontario schools in 2010. But enrolment decline and the resulting lack of funding are forcing many school boards to close down schools before the review takes place.

New Democrat MPP Rosario Marchese is introducing a bill to fight childhood obesity in Ontario by banning commercial advertising for food or drink directed at children under 13 years of age.

Marchese is pushing McGuinty’s Liberals to take action on what Ontario’s former Chief Medical Officer, Sheela Basrur called “a growing epidemic” by putting forward his bill modeled after the Quebec law, which has banned all advertising aimed at children since 1982.

NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese says Dalton McGuinty should start protecting students and stop looking the other way while Colleges and Universities charge tuition-related ancillary fees.

Marchese was referring to today’s ruling by Judge Joan Lax that the $200-million class action suit brought forward by students Amanda Hassum and David Roffey on behalf of Ontario college students should not proceed since it is the government’s responsibility to enforce its own regulations.

NDP Education Critic Rosario Marchese says the threatened closure of school pools and the proposed cuts to educational assistants at the Toronto District School Board are the direct result of the McGuinty government’s failure to properly fund Ontario’s school system.

NDP MPP Rosario Marchese says the McGuinty government’s long term care announcement shouldn’t be believed.

“The McGuinty Liberals had four years to address the many problems facing seniors in long term care,” said Marchese. “They ignored seniors and long term care advocates until they came face to face with a general election.”