Ontario Liberals sitting on TDSB report

In mid-March, Education Minister Liz Sandals announced, with a splash, the (latest) panel to tackle the dysfunctional Toronto District School Board (TDSB) — this one to look at whether it had outgrown its shelf life.

The seven-member panel, costing $150 per diem daily per member and headed by Barbara Hall (fresh from her 10-year cozy $167,341 sinecure with the Ontario Human Rights Commission) was to report by end of June — latest end of summer — on a possible new and more effective model to govern the board.

The task force followed on the heels of a 34-page report on the embattled board by respected educator Margaret Wilson, which was delivered in January.

A source told me back when the latest panel was struck that it was really done to find a way to get rid of education director Donna Quan, who is said to be a controlling micro-manager and has much to do with the “culture of fear” at the board noted in Wilson’s report.

With school set to start Tuesday, however, the task force members and Sandals’ office remain pretty much tight-lipped about the report’s status — a report I calculated back in March could easily cost taxpayers $75,000 or more.

A well-placed source told me last week that Premier Kathleen Wynne, not Sandals, is the problem — that she decided to shelve the task force report for now because she doesn’t want to pursue any immediate action and doesn’t want anything like this coming forward during the federal election...