Newsroom Ready: Carney takes stage to herald beginning of Stampede
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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Her autistic son gets help from school support staff. Quebec's budget cuts could take it away
When Karine Desruisseaux's son was diagnosed with autism and ADHD earlier this year, she said his school's support staff was crucial in giving him the help he needed to thrive. "She takes care of the whole school when kids have issues they need to walk through," Desruisseaux said of the educational specialist who's been helping her seven-year-old son, Ben. Now, she worries the province's cuts to education could take that away. Two weeks before the end of the school year, at a time when school boards and school service centres are normally finalizing their budgets, administrators were told by the Education Ministry to reduce their spending by $570 million. While most administrators said it was too soon to give a breakdown of where and how the cuts would be applied, they warned of devastating consequences and said parents are right to be worried. Last year, the English Montreal (EMSB) and Lester B. Pearson (LBPSB) school boards, who together serve around 60,000 students on the island of Montreal, adopted balanced budgets of $438 million and $402 million, respectively. WATCH l Parents fear cuts to education will impact most vulnerable kids: Under the new government directive, the EMSB and the LBPSB are each expected to slash about $30 to $32 million from their annual budgets, according to Joe Ortona, president of the Quebec English School Boards Association. "That is an enormous amount," said LBPSB chairperson Judy Kelley. "The way that we're being asked to cut is really beyond anything that we've ever imagined the government would ask us to do." 'We just don't have that money,' school board says Kelley explained that school boards usually have to invest more than what the government earmarks for support services for students with special needs. "So that is where we would have to say, 'look, we just don't have that money, we don't have that discretionary spending,'" she said. In an email to CBC, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), the largest service centre in the province, said it was still in discussions with the government but that it would respect its 2025-26 workforce plan, which confirms regular positions for the coming year. "However, until further notice, positions left vacant following their posting will remain unfilled, absences will not be replaced, and project positions will be terminated," the email reads in French. Meanwhile, the Fédération des employées et employés de services publics (FEESP–CSN), which is made up of 37 unions representing around 35,000 support workers, painted a dire picture for the upcoming school year. The FEESP-CSN said that before the cuts were announced, the EMSB, for example, would have seen a net increase in the number of attendants for students with disabilities and special education technicians (TES). Now, it says the staffing plan calls for the elimination of 15 attendant positions against the creation of one new position, and the elimination of 16 TES positions against the creation of six. Cuts to support staff will impact all students According to Desruisseaux, any cuts to these services in terms of hours or positions not being filled would have ripple effects and impact everyone. For Ben, who has been learning to read by spending one-on-one time with a special aide and whose educational specialist has helped him regulate when overstimulated, it would mean potentially falling behind in his learnings and being more distracted and disruptive in the classroom. "Even if your child doesn't have special needs, the teacher needs those specialists to be able to do their job in class," Desruisseaux said. "And if you're thinking, 'well, I don't have any kids, I don't care.' Well, those kids will take care of you in the future." Danielle Desrosiers, another parent, is concerned about her daughter Carly. At age 10, she was diagnosed with nonverbal learning disorder and now, at 23, attends the Wagar Adult Education Centre, part of the EMSB. Her hope for Carly is that she will be able to find long-term employment and not have to rely on social assistance for the rest of her life. Desrosiers reiterated the same fears expressed by Desruisseaux and worried how a lack of funding often impedes vulnerable students from becoming contributors to society. For her part, Kelley said under the current scenario, the cuts could also affect sports programs, extracurriculars, enrichment programs and other programs aimed at keeping kids in school. "You have students who don't necessarily have academic concerns, but they may have engagement concerns," Kelley said. If those programs are cut, "then where are they left?" Calls growing for government to backtrack The office of Quebec's Education Ministry did not respond to CBC's request for comment but the minister has remained steadfast in his demand for school boards to meet their budgets. Still, some hope there's time to change the province's mind. A petition launched at the National Assembly is calling for the province to cancel the cuts. Meanwhile, two unions representing school support staff have filed a joint complaint with the Quebec ombudsman. In a news release, the unions state that cuts to the education system over the last year "have caused a major disruption in the system's ability to meet its legal obligations to students." As for parents, they say they will continue to plan protests and make noise on this issue so that students don't lose the services they need.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US stocks rise as investors prepare for Trump's tariff deadline
US indexes have risen over the last week as investors wait to see whether President Donald Trump can secure deals with partner countries ahead of his tariff deadline. Over the last five days, the Dow Jones has risen 3% to 44,094.77, the Nasdaq 2.83% to 20,369.73, and the S&P 500 2.37% to 6,204.95. Futures on Tuesday morning were tracking very marginally lower, although Wall Street showed buoyed investor sentiment on Monday. Stocks were notably boosted after Canada said it would rescind a planned tax on US technology firms and resumed trade talks with the United States. On Friday, US President Donald Trump had said he was suspending those talks to retaliate for the tax, calling it 'a direct and blatant attack on our country'. US stocks have bounced back on hopes that Trump will reach deals with other countries and avert trade wars that could stifle the economy and send inflation higher. Many of the administration's announced tariffs have been postponed and are due to come into effect again on 9 July. The EU, for instance, is working to avoid a proposed 50% tariff. The bloc may accept a 10% baseline duty on many of its exports but is seeking carve outs for goods such as alcohol and automobiles. On Wall Street, Oracle's 4% rise was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500 on Monday. CEO Safra Catz said the tech giant was 'off to a strong start' in its fiscal year and added that the firm had signed multiple large cloud services agreements. Related President Trump says he'll set unilateral tariff rates within weeks Beijing confirms that it has signed a trade agreement with the US GMS' stock jumped 11.7% after the supplier of specialty building products said it agreed to be acquired by a Home Depot subsidiary in a deal that would pay $110.00 (€93.39) per share in cash. Hewlett Packard Enterprise rallied 11.1% and Juniper Networks climbed 8.4% after the firms said they had reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice that could clear the way for their merger, subject to court approval. Bank stocks were also solid after the Federal Reserve said on Friday that all major banks were financially strong enough to survive a downturn in the economy. JPMorgan Chase climbed 1%, and Citigroup gained 0.9%. In the bond market, Treasury yields fell ahead of several major economic reports later in the week. The highlight will be Thursday's jobs report. It's often the most anticipated economic data of each month, and it will come a day earlier than usual because of Friday's Fourth of July holiday. In early European trading on Tuesday, Germany's DAX was flat at 23,908.82, France's CAC 40 slid 0.16% to 7,653.59, the UK's FTSE 100 jumped 0.22% to 8,780.60, while Italy's FTSE MIB dropped 0.48% to 39,601.38. The STOXX 600 benchmark ticked up 0.05% to 541.64, while the STOXX 50 fell by a modest 0.05% to 5,300.45. In Asian trading, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.05% to 40,062.35, the Shanghai Composite index rose 0.32% to 3,455.37, and South Korea's Kospi rose 1.05% to 3,104.19. Hong Kong's stock market was closed on Tuesday, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.1% to 8,550.70. In other dealings, Brent crude slipped 0.42% to $66.46 per barrel by around 7.45 CEST on Tuesday, while WTI dropped 0.4% to $64.85 per barrel. The US dollar slipped 0.29% against the Japanese yen, while the euro remained roughly flat against the dollar. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Russian President Vladimir Putin dismisses transport minister Starovoit
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin fired his transport minister on Monday, according to a presidential decree, removing Roman Starovoit from his post after just over a year in the job. No reason was given for Starovoit's unexpected dismissal. He was appointed transport minister in May 2024 after spending almost five years as governor of Russia's western Kursk region. A few months after vacating that role, Ukrainian troops spilled over the border into Kursk as Kyiv launched its biggest incursion into Russian territory since the start of the war in 2022. Starovoit's predecessor as transport minister, Vitaly Savelyev, became a deputy prime minister. According to the Vedomosti daily newspaper, Starovoit's replacement could be his deputy minister Andrei Nikitin, who was formerly governor of the Novgorod Region. Prior to serving as a regional governor, Starovoit had worked in the transport sector, leading Russia's federal roads agency Rosavtodor for six years.
