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Officials’ denialism is fuelling school violence in Canada
Provincial auditor general’s report blows the lid off rampant violence in Nova Scotia’s educational system
One of Canada’s leading experts on teen mental health, Tracy Vaillancourt, cut to the heart of the matter in responding to a recent report by Nova Scotia auditor general Kim Adair on the alarming rise in school violence in the wake of the pandemic. Speaking on a Halifax newscast, Vaillancourt aptly described the underlying problem — “the suppression of information” — by schools and provincial ministries of education.
School violence is now rife across Canada. For almost a decade, widely-publicized school incidents, periodic parent outcries and regular alarms raised by teachers and educational assistants have failed to register with authorities. Suppression of serious incident reports and officials’ denialism has spawned an underground network of informants, most notably the Ontario-based @Teachers_Unite and the relentless watchdog @NovaScotiaSchoolEyes.
Adair’s June 11 report may well prove a dam buster. With the steely determination of an accountant, the auditor general lifted the lid on the staggering extent of school violence in the Nova Scotia education system. From 2016-17 until June of 2023, reported violent incidents rose from 17,000 a year to 27,000, an increase of 60 per cent. Teachers and educational assistants experience violence daily, and a “lack of leadership” has allowed it to mushroom in many schools.
