Ontario spends nearly half a billion dollars to push DEI and race ideology in schools

Under Premier Doug Ford’s watch, Ontario has quietly poured nearly half a billion dollars into reshaping its schools around a DEI agenda and pushing race-based ideology onto students.

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Under Premier Doug Ford’s watch, Ontario has quietly poured nearly half a billion dollars into reshaping its schools around a DEI agenda and pushing race-based ideology onto students.

Since Ontario launched its “equity” education overhaul in 2017, programs rooted in Marxist-inspired critical race theory and other DEI-rooted practices have been embedded throughout the public education system.

Government memoranda show that since 2017, hundreds of millions have flowed through special funds like the Priorities and Partnerships Fund and its successor, the Responsive Education Programs. The true total may be higher once administrative and professional development costs are included.

Teacher training delivered under these mandates often describe education as a form of “social transformation” and urge staff to challenge “white supremacy culture” in curriculum and assessment.

Collectively, the programs reveal a consistent pattern of spending tied to the province’s anti-racism and “decolonization” agenda — language closely aligned with far-left political theories rather than traditional academic goals.

The province’s Education Equity Secretariat, created in 2017 to lead what officials described as a “systemic transformation,” was backed by an initial commitment of over $7 million to implement the Education Equity Action Plan.

That funding launched pilot projects and board-level equity networks designed to embed culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy — education jargon for critical race theory — across Ontario schools.

By 2024–25, the Ministry of Education was spending roughly $30 million per year on related equity-based programs. These include training teachers in “anti-oppressive” and “culturally relevant” pedagogy, subsidizing board-level human rights and equity advisors, and supporting de-streamed Grade 9 classrooms designed to eliminate what the ministry calls “systemic bias” in academic placement.

The government has also created specialized funding streams based on race and identity. The “Graduation Coach Program for Black Students,” launched as a small pilot in 2019, has grown to $5.47 million annually. The program places staff hired for their “lived experience” to mentor black students and “dismantle systemic barriers.”

Similar programs have been developed for Indigenous students, including the “Indigenous Graduation Coach Program” and the “Rapid Response Northern Schools Team,” together costing nearly $9 million in 2024–25.

In addition to those targeted grants, the “Indigenous Education Grant” within Ontario’s core school funding has expanded to over $100 million today. The grant funds Indigenous languages, land-based learning, and cultural programming. New programs such as the $3.14 million “Indigenous Languages Revitalization Fund” and $4.8 million “Indigenous Graduation Coach Program,” further add to that total.

De-streaming Grade 9—another policy rooted in the 2017 plan—received $3 million annually for “culturally responsive” teaching support. Boards are required to provide training and resources tied to the racial and other identities of students. The language in government memos explicitly directs teachers to use “anti-racist” and “anti-colonial” political theory and activism in their classrooms.

Taken together, these programs represent a sweeping realignment of Ontario’s education system around equity ideology. Between the launch of the Education Equity Action Plan and the 2024–25 school year, the province will have spent approximately $445 million on equity-driven programs — a figure projected to exceed $500 million by 2026 as ongoing initiatives continue.

Despite the scale of the investment, the programs remain largely hidden from public scrutiny. The funding details are buried within technical memoranda issued to school boards each year, not easily accessible to the public.

No province-wide evaluations have been released demonstrating whether these identity-based interventions have improved student outcomes.

True North contacted the ministry about the total spent on equity-based and identity-focused education programs since 2017 and whether these initiatives align with the Ford government’s “Back to Basics” education agenda, given their grounding in critical race theory and culturally responsive pedagogy, and whether race-exclusive programs are consistent with public education’s commitment to neutrality and equality.

The Ministry did not respond.