Raj Dhir
Executive Director and Chief Legal Officer, Ontario Human Rights Commission
June 21, 2020
Dear Mr. Dhir,
I wrote to you on June 9, 2020, after reading the letter you wrote on behalf of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) to Education Minister Stephen Lecce on June 5, 2020 about the Peel District School Board (PDSB) Review.
I wrote to you to express my concerns about trustees refusing to remove themselves from hiring panels for all employees, except for directors of education, in the PDSB, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB), and in other school boards across the province.
Today, I am writing with other significant concerns including the PDSB’s decision to launch a Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit against the community agencies that have been speaking out in support of Black students.
This letter is rather lengthy. Please bear with me while I explain.
In June/July of 2019, I conducted a survey of English-speaking school boards in the province, and the survey shows that trustees sit on hiring panels for vice-principals and principals in 23% of the school boards in Ontario that responded, and on hiring panels for superintendents in 77% of the school boards in Ontario that responded. (The response rate was 53% so the number is likely much higher.)
It was not enough that Minister Lecce removed trustees from hiring panels for all employees, except for Director of Education in the PDSB. Trustees should have been removed from hiring panels for all positions, except Director of Education in all school boards across the province.
In fact, trustees should have been removed from hiring panels for Directors of Education as well. School board trustees rarely hire racialized people into these positions. The vast majority of Directors of Education in Ontario are white.
There is a gender imbalance on many senior leadership teams in school boards across the province as well, with some senior leadership teams heavily skewed toward men. The vast majority of superintendents in the province are white as well.
In 2012, I contacted the Ontario Public Supervisory Officials’ Association (OPSOA) to gather data. According to the OPSOA database, there were 299 superintendent members of OPSOA at the time. (This number represents those who had chosen to renew or become OPSOA members. Some superintendents were not members.)
According to OPSOA, 158 of those 299 superintendents were female and 141 were male. This appears to be good news, from a gender perspective, until you look at the next set of data.
Local school board data collected from individual board websites showed that gender imbalances (slanted toward men) existed in 21 of the 60 English school boards across Ontario. This meant that 35% of the English Public and Catholic boards – or over one-third of Ontario’s English school boards – had senior administrative teams that were gender imbalanced, favouring men over women.
There were even 4 boards that had an alarming gender imbalance – heavily slanted toward men with no ability to balance gender in one or two hires. The Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board (KPRDSB) was one of those boards. The other three boards were the District School Board of Niagara (DSBN), the Grand Erie District School (GEDSB) Board, and the Halton District School Board (HDSB). There is no way to determine the ethnic make-up of superintendents because that data is not collected.
There is also an inconsistent application of trustee sanctions across the province, which contributes to systemic race and gender discrimination.
For example, some trustees are barred from school board meetings indefinitely, while other trustees aren’t barred from school board meetings at all, even if they espouse xenophobic or racist views.
Former Trustee Larry Killens was barred from all school board meetings in the Rainbow District School Board (RDSB) until the end of his term for attempting to help parents, while the York Region District School Board (YRDSB) did not bar Trustee Elizabeth Terrell-Tracey from school board meetings even though Trustee Terrell-Tracey had made xenophobic comments.
The YRDSB’S Integrity Commissioner was asked to intervene, and the YRDSB eventually put a slew of sanctions on Trustee Terrell-Tracey, including barring her from private, public and advisory meeting, even though it was evident that there was no mechanism in the Education Act that allowed this type of sanction.
I know this because Trustee Larry Killens from the RDSB filed a complaint with Ontario’s Ombudsman. In a letter dated February 11, 2019, Jean –Frédéric Hübsch, Counsel at the Ombudsman’s Office, wrote to Mr. Killens:
“Our Office spoke with the School Board and the Ministry of Education about this concern and their interpretation of the relevant legislative provisions. Both [the RDSB and the Ministry of Education] provided our Office with different rationales for why the board of trustees was entitled to impose this ongoing sanction.
“After reviewing these responses, our Office escalated our concerns about this sanction to senior officials within the Ministry of Education. During our December 2018 meeting with the Ministry, we noted that the Education Act did not plainly state that trustees could be barred from meetings indefinitely, and that the legislation should clearly provide for this outcome if that is the intention. We noted that the apparent lack of clarity could lead to inconsistent application of sanctions. We also noted that recent case law in the municipal sector indicates that sanction provisions are generally narrowly construed.
“When asked about the status of consultations on trustee conduct matters that had been announced in March 2018, the Ministry stated that it intended on pursuing this avenue but declined to provide a timeline.
“We explained that our Office is committed to monitoring the Ministry’s response to our concerns and that we may follow up with the Ministry if the concerns are not addressed.
“…we have spoken with senior officials at the Ministry of Education about the interpretation of the Education Act’s penalty provisions for trustees. We will closely monitor this issue going forward and may follow up with the Ministry if required.”
Trustee Killens appealed the Ombudsman’s decision, and on March 6, 2019, Wendy Ray, General Counsel at the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman wrote to Mr. Killens again:
“As you are aware, our Office has found room for improvement in the School Board’s conduct processes, as set out in past letters to you and to the School Board. More recently, we have suggested to the School Board that it engage an independent third party, such as an integrity commissioner, for future formal conduct matters. It is up to trustees to decide to implement my suggestions...
“…Our review did identify concerns with the sanction imposed on you by the board of trustees following the conduct process. The relevant provisions of the Act may be open to different interpretations. The inconsistent interpretations we received with respect to the sanctions set out in the Education Act resulted in our meeting with senior officials at the Ministry of Education. As explained to you in our earlier correspondence, the Ministry has said it intends to pursue consultations on trustee matters. We intend to monitor this closely and continue our efforts to promote consistent and accountable school board governance across Ontario through engagement with the Ministry.
“We will continue to pursue concerns arising from our review at the provincial level…”
This response is significant because it demonstrates that:
trustees can refuse to act on the Ombudsman’s recommendations;
trustees are not following Bill 177 and the Education Act;
senior officials at the Ministry of Education were told by legal counsel at the Ombudsman’s Office that the Education Act needs to change, and it hasn’t been changed;
to date, there have been no Ministry consultations on this matter.
This leads to my third reason for writing.
The Ontario Ombudsman can’t force the Ministry of Education to change the Education Act and there is no political will to solve this problem. Ministry Lecce tells the public that he and his government are determined to confront all forms of racism, discrimination, and hate all the time. For example, Minister Lecce issued this statement on June 8, 2020, after he released the Huggins’ report:
“We are determined to confront all forms of racism, discrimination, and hate, against all minority communities in our province. For too long, too many kids have been left behind due to systemic frameworks that perpetuate racism. This is unacceptable and must change…
“…We cannot and will not sit idle, while families and students continue to feel isolated, victimized, and targeted. It is clear that we must continue our work to confront racism - specifically anti-Black racism - within our schools across the province. Our Government will continue to drive change, demand improvement, and stand-up for students who face hate and racism."
Minister Lecce and his Government aren’t confronting all forms of racism, discrimination, and hate, against all minority communities in the province. They aren’t confronting racism – specifically anti-Black racism – within schools across the province. Minister Lecce isn’t driving change, demanding improvement, and standing up for students who face hate and racism. Minister Lecce is only addressing the issues in the PDSB, and he isn’t addressing those concerns properly.
A review of Minister Lecce’s Twitter account shows he mostly tweets out information about other Government portfolios or “fluffy” stuff. For example, Minister Lecce recently tweeted about talking to Normal Powell about last year’s basketball victory, “planting” ‘stay inspired’ signs, restarting family visits in long-term care and seniors homes, birthday wishes to Caroline Mulroney, supporting the human shirt campaign, re-opening childcare, taking action to protect commercial tenants from being locked out or having their assets seized by their landlords during Covid-19, the night he won the election, and accidental outfit matching.
Charles Pascal, former assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Education, called Minister Lecce’s behaviour “stage craft.” Mr. Pascal is currently a professor of human development and applied psychology at OISE/University of Toronto. He ought to know!
Minister Lecce is a communications expert and nothing more. Yet Minister Lecce is in charge of one of the Government’s most important portfolios!
Shree Paradkar, a journalist with the Toronto Star, pointed out that the situation in the PDSB is “a train wreck sliding on it own debris.” That was before the Huggins’ report, before major demonstrations at the Board Office involving thousands of people, before Director Joshua announced the hiring of Dr. Avis Glaze as a Special Consultant and then walked it back, before the trustees asked the Ministry of Education to appoint a Supervisor, and before the media revealed that Director Peter Joshua, Vice-Chair David Green, Associate Director Mark Haarmann and Superintendent Gayle Solomon-Henry have taken legal action on behalf of the PDSB.
On October 29 and 30, 2018, four months after Premier Ford was elected and Minister Lisa Thompson was named Minister of Education, I wrote to MPP Lorne Coe (Whitby). Mr. Coe replaced Patrick Brown as the Conservative party’s education critic in January 2018. Mr. Coe is the current Chief Government Whip for the Conservative party.
Over the course of several emails, I told MPP Coe that a crisis was brewing in education in Ontario, and the Ontario government needed to intervene. I explained that two different high profile school board reviews (TDSB and YRDSB) had pointed to a culture of fear, silence and retribution in the education system as well as a dysfunction and deficit of leadership capacity on both the administrative and elected sides of the organizations and systemic discrimination.
I also explained that Elizabeth Terrell-Tracey had made comments perceived to be discriminatory and xenophobic during her election campaign for trustee in the YRDSB. Ms. Terrell-Tracey was elected anyway, and in spite of mounting public concerns and after exploring several options, the YRDSB announced there was nothing the school board could do to remove Terrell-Tracey from office because no such mechanism exists in the Education Act. (This was before YRDSB decided to bar Ms. Terrell-Tracey from private, public and advisory meetings.)
Mr. Coe replied to me on October 29, 2018 saying he would forward my email to Education Minister Lisa Thompson for her review and response.
Minister Thompson did not respond.
On November 1, 2018, I wrote to MPP Coe again. Kathy Beattie, Mr. Coe’s Constituency Office Manager, responded to me on November 19, 2018 saying that MPP Coe had hand delivered my correspondence to Education Minister Lisa Thompson in the Legislature the previous week.
Minister Thompson still didn’t respond.
I filed a complaint with the Office of the Ontario Ombudsman on March 25, 2018. After 10 months of telephone calls and evidence submissions, an Investigator with the Ombudsman’s Office wrote to me to say that the Ombudsman’s Office had completed its review of the concerns I had raised and would not be taking any further action regarding my complaints.
In her letter, the Investigator cited the reasons given not to proceed with my complaint: the Ombudsman’s Office does not have the authority to reverse school board decisions, or substitute their views or decisions for those of a school board.
On January 11, 2019, I responded to the Investigator, and copied Premier Doug Ford, Education Minister Lisa Thompson, Deputy Minister of Education Nancy Naylor, and Assistant Deputy Minister Patrick Case and others on my letter. I also sent a copy of the letter to every MPP in the province asking them to hand deliver the letter to Minister Thompson in the Legislature.
In this letter, I pointed out that:
Trustee Gordon Gilchrist from the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board had written a letter to the editor of his local newspaper in 2008 that many deemed to be racist.
The Board of Trustees had removed Trustee Gilchrist from the board’s Program Committee, but they had allowed him to continue to sit on other committees and to continue to be involved in the hiring panel for dozens of superintendents and directors.
In 2016, Trustee Gordon Gilchrist made disparaging comments again, this time against members of the Alderville First Nation youth band.
The Board of Trustees censured Trustee Gilchrist again and removed him from the board’s Expulsions Committee, but they continued to allow him to sit on the Board’s Program Committee and to be involved in the hiring of superintendents (even though they were about to hire a superintendent to oversee the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework).
Trustee Gilchrist had sent me an email expressing “an attitude of disdain for the Islamic cult and all it stands for,” after a Muslim girl was appointed as Student Trustee.
Trustee Gilchrist said her appointment was causing him “some grief,” and he was considering his own “course of action.”
Trustee-elect Elizabeth Terrell-Tracey had made comments perceived to be xenophobic, racist and hurtful prior to being elected as trustee, and the York Region District School Board said they were powerless to force her to resign.
The Superintendent of Equity at the York Region District School Board, Cecil Roach, had written a scathing letter to senior staff, blasting the York Region District School Board for refusing to properly deal with complaints of racism and expressing concerns about speaking out for fear of reprisal when Trustee Nancy Elgie had used the “n” word to refer to a Charline Grant after a public meeting, and the Board of Trustees didn’t invoke the Code of Conduct against Trustee Elgie, and when a principal had posted anti-Muslim comments to her Facebook page and the Director of Education mismanaged the situation.
I also pointed out to the Ombudsman that:
The Ministry of Education's Operational Review Guide for Ontario District School Boards 2010 explicitly states that trustees are not to sit on the hiring panels of vice-principals, principals and superintendents because it’s contrary to Bill 177, the Student Achievement and School Board Governance Act, Bill 177.
Trustees are to sit on the hiring panels for directors of education only.
Margaret Wilson, a former Registrar with the Ontario College of Teachers and former Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Education, had pointed out in her 2015 review of the Toronto District School Board that:
o Many of the Toronto District School Board trustees “interfered” in operational decisions on a regular basis.
o One area in particular in which trustees interfered was in the promotion, appointment and transfer of vice-principals, principals and superintendents.
o Trustees had final say in who was promoted and transferred during these deliberations, and this resulted in trustees having substantial control over the professional careers of applications.
o A special assistance team and an Ernst and Young audit had already told the Toronto District School Board trustees that this was not “best practice.”
o These comments were based on the Ministry Operational Review Guide for Ontario District School Boards, 4th Edition (September 2010), which states: “Trustees do not sit on hiring panels (exception: hiring the director of education) but provide policies to govern staffing and recruitment.”
I received the following responses to my January 11, 2019 letter:
MPP Tibollo's office forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Dunlop hand delivered my letter to Minister Thompson at a caucus meeting;
MPP Monteith-Farrell's office sent my letter to Minister Thompson's office with a covering letter requesting that Minister Thompson respond directly to me;
MPP Thanigasalam’s office forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Kernaghan's office delivered my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Lalonde's office emailed my letter to Minister Thompson;
MPP Crawford's office forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office and followed up with me on February 15, 2019 saying that the Ministry of Education had acknowledged receipt of my correspondence and would be responding to me directly.
Minister Thompson still did not reply.
No one from the Ministry of Education replied, either.
On February 15, 2019 (the same day MPP Crawford’s Office confirmed that the Ministry of Education had acknowledged receipt of my correspondence and would be responding to me directly), Education Minister Lisa Thompson told Global News, in an article called ‘Ontario government looking to merge certain regional school boards: sources’ that ”there has been “more than a decade of mismanagement and lack of oversight in the education system.”
Minister Thompson obviously knew there was a problem, and she still didn’t respond to my letter.
On February 21, 2019, the Investigator from the Ombudsman’s Office contacted me again.
In this letter, the Investigator stated that:
The Ombudsman is an impartial officer of the Ontario Legislature, independent of the government and all parties;
The Ombudsman does not advocate for complaints or represent the interests of public sector bodies;
The role of the Ombudsman is to enhance governance by promoting transparency, accountability, and fairness in government and the public sector.
The Investigator concluded her letter by saying that I might wish to share my concerns with my local Member of Provincial Parliament, that as my political representative, my MPP would be the appropriate avenue of contact.
The Investigator wrote this even though she knew I had already written to every MPP in the province!
In another letter to the Ombudsman, this one dated February 24, 2019, I explained to the Ombudsman’s Office (with a copy to Premier Ford, Minister Thompson and others) that:
Boards of Trustees are responsible for conducting the performance appraisals of Directors of Education and renegotiating their employment contracts;
Therefore, Directors of Education would not go against the wishes of the trustees and remove them from hiring panels, and this was a huge part of the discrimination problem.
The Investigator from the Ombudsman’s Office replied that her office was reviewing my letter.
I wrote to the Ombudsman’s Office again because they were taking so long to reply, and on June 25, 2019, I received a letter from Judy Wong, Manager of Investigations with the Ombudsman’s Office, stating, “Further communications received from you will be placed on file but not acknowledged.”
I wrote to Indira Naidoo-Harris about the systemic issues I was seeing (when Ms. Naidoo-Harris was Education Minister), and I received a response from Assistant Deputy Minister Patrick Case on April 11, 2018. (Note: this was under Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal Government.)
In the email, Mr. Case wrote that he was writing on behalf of Minister Naidoo-Harris and he stated, “I hope that this letter gives you some confidence that the Ministry and indeed, in general, the leadership in publicly funded education have no interest in maintaining present day imbalances and that we are working assiduously to end and correct the process that lead to those imbalances.”
I mention this because, less than two months later, Premier Ford was elected and Education Minister Lisa Thompson cancelled the Ministry of Education’s planned professional development sessions to school boards on equity. Minister Thompson also cancelled curriculum re-writes to boost Indigenous education and the previous Liberal government’s pledge to make Indigenous courses mandatory in high school.
Premier Ford then slashed millions of dollars from the Indigenous Culture Fund, repealed the Far North Act, cut 15% in overall funding for Indigenous affairs with no new money to deal with claim settlements, and did not attend Saskatchewan’s summit with Indigenous leaders, even though all other provincial premiers were there.
On July 15, 2019, I filed a “disclosure of wrongdoing” with the Office of the Integrity Commissioner against Education Minister Thompson for gross mismanagement in the work of the Public Service and for contravention of the Education Act, the Student Achievement and School Board Governance Act, and the Ontario Human Rights Code.
In my disclosure, I told the Integrity Commissioner that I had repeatedly written to Minister Thompson and other Education Ministers about systemic discrimination in education, and I knew Minister Thompson was aware of the problem because I had written to every MPP in the province, and seven of them had hand delivered my letter to her in the Legislature, forwarded my letter via email, or hand delivered my letter in a Caucus meeting.
I explained that Minister Thompson was also aware of the problem because of her comment to Global News.
On August 26, 2019, the Honourable J. David Wake wrote to me to say that he had carefully reviewed the information I had provided about discrimination and governance issues at school boards in Ontario, but he did not have authority under the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 to accept my information as a disclosure of wrongdoing.
Mr. Wake said he could not find a connection between my former role at the Ministry of Education in and around 2012 to 2015 and the alleged wrongdoing between 2018 and 2019.
This wrongdoing has been happening for a very long time. There was a connection. I believe Mr. Wake did not take the time to see the connection. (Or those who act as gatekeepers in his Office didn’t recognize the connection, the urgency, or the enormity of the situation.)
I contacted the Inquiries Officer at the Integrity Commissioner’s Office who had handled my file and asked what steps I should take next. The Inquiries Officer said that she was unable to suggest alternative courses of action, but I might wish to consider seeking legal advice on this matter.
I had already sought legal advice and was told by both my professional association – the Ontario Principals’ Council – and my own lawyer that nothing could be done.
We are dealing with systemic discrimination in school boards across the province, and nothing can be done?
I asked the Inquiries Officer if the Integrity Commissioner was able to write to the OHRC and suggest the OHRC become involved, and the Inquiries Officer said the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 does not provide a mechanism for Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner to share concerns with the OHRC.
Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner can’t approach the OHRC unless the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 allows him to do so?
The OHRC’s website says that stakeholders or other partners are able to identify opportunities to help the OHRC identify potential matters for litigation or inquiry.
Is Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner not a stakeholder or a partner of the OHRC?
Commission initiated-applications, inquiries or interventions can even come from the public. Is Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner not a member of the public?
Minister Lecce and the entire Conservative Government are lacking the ability, the capacity, the experience and the political will to address systemic discrimination in education.
To further prove my point, on February 7, 2020 the Board of Trustees in the Durham District School Board (DDSB) reached out to Minister Lecce asking for the assistance of an external advisor/facilitator, because they are struggling with a serious harassment situation as well as other related and serious human rights issues at the senior management level. Minister Lecce promised to “expeditiously” review their request. This was nearly five months ago. Robert Cerjanec, Executive Officer, Communications and Public Relations with the DDSB confirmed via email on June 11, 2020 that a facilitator still hasn’t been assigned.
This is not responding “expeditiously” to the problem. This is not responding at all.
On June 9, 2020, I received a letter from Assistant Deputy Minister Patrick Case, who was responding on behalf of Minister Lecce, to a letter I had sent to Minister Lecce on May 19, 2020.
This is the first time Minister Lecce responded to any of my letters since he was first elected. I had asked Minister Lecce what he was going to do about the situation in the PDSB, in the DDSB and across the province.
In his letter, Mr. Case explained that following the Review of the PDSB, Minister Lecce had issued 27 binding Directions on March 13, 2020, and Minister Lecce’s concern about the PDSB’s ability to comply with those Directions had led to the appointment of investigator Arleen Huggins on April 28, 2020. Mr. Case also explained that Ms. Huggins submitted her report to Minister Lecce on May 18, and Mr. Case kindly offered a link where I could access the full report.
I had already read both the PDSB Review and the Huggins’ Report by the time Minister Lecce got around to directing Mr. Case to respond to my letter!
In fact, I had already written my previous letter to you, Mr. Dhir, letting the Ontario Human Rights Commission know that the PDSB trustees were deliberately defying Minister Lecce’s direction to remove themselves from hiring panels for all employees, expect for the director of education, and that trustees in the KPRDSB were taking the same defiant stance! I even gave you evidence of this defiant stance; it was recorded in the minutes of a Chairpersons’ Committee meeting.
Minister Lecce completely ignored my question about his plans for the province. He also ignored my question about when he would be assigning an external adviser/facilitator to assist the DDSB.
On June 14, 2020, Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca told Robert Benzie, Queen’s Park Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star (see “Doug Ford’s Conservatives are starving the human-rights system, says Del Duca,”) that Premier Doug Ford’s Conservatives have “slowly and deliberately starved to death” human rights protections, that “the equality and human rights fought for by Black Ontarians are being eroded by the Ford government,” and that Premier Ford has “left positions at the human rights commission vacant, cut or eliminated, resulting in unacceptable delays for those seeking justice.”
Premier Ford also named Randall Arsenault, an active-duty Toronto, officer, as a part-time commissioner on the human rights commission in January, while ignoring a short list put forward by the human rights commissioner to fill vacant positions, and instead chose to appoint commissioners with ties to the Progressive Conservative party.
Additionally, in 1993 when the Ministry of Education released its Antiracism and Ethnocultural Equity in School Boards Guidelines for Policy Development and Implementation document, within a month of taking office, Premier Mike Harris scrapped the entire initiative. He also fired Deputy Minister Charles Pascal because of the advice Dr. Pascal was giving.
The Conservative Party of Ontario never has the political will to deal with these types of problems.
This begs the following questions:
Why do we put elected officials in charge of our complicated and complex education system anyway?
And shouldn’t anti-racism initiatives be hands off when it comes to the chopping block?
In her book, Policing Black Lives, Robyn Maynard cites the persistent anti-Blackness in schools across Canada, explaining the degradation, harm and psychological violence many Black students face.
In 2015, it was exposed that in the Halifax Regional School Board, nearly half of the students placed on Individual Program Plans were Black.
In Mississauga, Ontario, a six-year old Black girl was placed in handcuffs after misbehaving at school, and the OHRT ruled it was discriminatory.
A 2017 report called Towards Race Equity in Education found that Black children face hyper-surveillance of their behaviour in schools. They are excluded from class from often, disciplined more frequently, suspended and expelled from schools at higher rates, pushed into non-academic streams in school, and Black boys in particular are disengaging from school as early as age seven. The report’s main author, Carl James, a professor of Education at York University, says this means not wanting to go to school, not feeling safe, and not feeling welcomed in classrooms that are not designed for them.
The PDSB Review shows that information gleaned from the Board’s own data discloses a prima facie case of race based anti-Black discrimination.
Arleen Huggins’ report shows that, “the collective Board and the Director’s Office is lacking both the ability and capacity, and perhaps even more importantly, the will, to address the findings in the Report, and therefore future non-compliance with the Minister’s binding Directions is probable.”
The DDSB is struggling
The YRDSB is struggling.
The KPRDSB is struggling.
Many school boards are struggling.
On June 19, 20202, the Ministry of Education announced, in a News Release called ‘Ontario Makes Historic Investment in Public Education,’ that it is investing $736 million more in public education for the 2020-21 school year, increasing the total to more than $25.5 billion, and this represents the largest investment in public education in Ontario’s history.
This new investment will support:
special education,
mental health and well-being,
language instruction,
Indigenous education, and
STEM programming.
There was no mention of Anti-Black Racism.
In 1991, leadership professors Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal outlined a Four-Frame model for leadership saying that all stakeholders have access to various forms of power and all compete for their share of scarce resources in a limited “organizational pie.” Bolman and Deal also said conflict is central to organizational dynamics and power is the most important resource.
In 1990, Seymour Bernard Sarason, a Professor of Psychology at Yale University, blamed the constant failure of educational reform on existing power relationships in schools. Sarason firmly believed that any effort to reform schools must deal with the nature and allocation of power.
Therefore, I am officially requesting that the OHRC apply to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, under section 35 of the Ontario Human Rights Code, and ask for the following Orders:
1. That the Ontario Government dissolve local school Boards, eliminating the role of trustee, in favour of regionally appointed race and gender balanced advisory councils. Dr. Avis Glaze made a similar recommendation to the Ministry of Education in Nova Scotia in January 2018 through her Raise the Bar: A Coherent and Responsive Education Administrative System for Nova System report.
2. That the Ontario Government strengthen Ontario’s Education Equity Action Plan by giving Ontario’s Chief Equity Officer the right to intervene on discriminatory matters that are brought to the attention of the Chief Equity Officer.
3. That the Ontario Government strengthen the Ombudsman Act, giving Ontario’s Ombudsman the power to ensure boards of education comply with any recommendations the Ombudsman may make, and ensure the Ombudsman refers discriminatory matters to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
4. That the Ontario Government strengthen the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006 by ensuring that Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner refers discriminatory matters to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
5. That the Ontario Government ensure all English and French Public and Catholic professional educational associations and unions undertake equity training to better understand and fulfill their responsibility to provide leadership in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and other relevant legislation.
6. That the Ontario Government ensure all education leaders in Ontario undertake equity and consciousness training. The PDSB Review called for “educators and leaders – including elected leaders – who are aware of their own place in the world and who will bring a higher consciousness and personal commitment to the work of ensuring that every effort has been made to achieve success for all of the children for whom they are responsible.”
In order to survive the trials and challenges up ahead, we need leadership – actual leadership – to help us find our way forward, not leaders who play politics, practice “stage craft,” show themselves to their best advantage, hide their inadequacies and their limitations, and ignore complex problems.
I’d be pleased to assist the Ministry of Education with introducing consciousness training and an integral vision to Ontario’s education system. I trained with Ken Wilber – a scholar of the Integral stage of human development. Wilber also taught and influenced Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Bill Clinton, and John Mackey. Wilber is a colleague of Robert Kegan, and Kegan was the William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he taught for forty years until his retirement in 2016.
Consciousness curriculum would help address the systemic discrimination we are currently facing. It would also help school boards address other pressing and complicated psychosocial phenomenon such as the mental health and emotional wellbeing of staff and students.
It would complement the Ministry of Education’s Ontario Leadership Strategy and the Ontario Leadership Framework, which are designed to assist school boards with responding intelligently to the complex challenges they face.
It would enhance the Systems Thinking section of the Ontario Leadership Framework in particular, which states that leaders must be able “to understand the dense, complex, and reciprocal connections among different elements of the organization,” and have “foresight to engage the organization in likely futures and consequences for action.”
Additionally, consciousness curriculum would enhance the Proactivity section of the Ontario Leadership Framework, which states that leaders must be able “to stimulate and effectively manage change on a large scale under complex circumstances,” and show “initiative and perseverance in bringing about meaningful change.”
I have faith in the Ministry of Education’s Chief Equity Officer, Patrick Case, to bring about meaningful change. He is a former Human Rights Commissioner after all. But Mr. Case takes direction from Minister Lecce, who takes direction from Premier Ford, neither of whom have the expertise, wisdom, experience, capacity or political will to solve this problem.
Not only is the systemic discrimination we are currently facing in education a gross violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code, it also constitutes gross mismanagement in the work of the Public Service of Ontario as outlined in the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006.
In his book A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science and Spirituality, Wilber wrote that our governing bodies stand in dire need of a more integral approach. “It is our educational institutions...that are desperate for a more integral vision. It is our business practices, saturated with fragmented gains, that cry out for a more balanced approach. It is our health-care facilities that could greatly benefit from the tender mercies of an integral touch. It is the leadership of the nations that might appreciate a more comprehensive vision of their own possibilities. In all these ways and more, we could indeed use an integral vision for a world gone slightly mad.”
The ORHC can access all evidence referred to in this letter by accessing HRTO FILE: 2019 – 38872 – I.
Please intervene.
Yours truly,
Debbie L. Kasman
M. Ed, Policy Studies, OISE/University of Toronto, Education Re-imagined, Analyst & Researcher, Author & Speaker
[Editor’s note: On June 22, the Ministry of Education announced the appointment of former Deputy Minister of Education Bruce Rodrigues as Supervisor to the Peel DSB. Minister Lecce wrote in the News Release, “We know there is more to do - provincewide - which is why we will continue to work to confront racism, including anti-Black racism, in all Ontario schools across our province.”
On June 23, Mr. Rodrigues informed Director of Education Peter Joshua that he was terminating Mr. Joshua’s employment as the Board’s Director, effective immediately.
On June 25, Bruce Rodrigues appointed Jaspal Gill as temporary Interim Director of Education.
On July 16, Mr. Rodrigues appointed Colleen Russell-Rawlins as the permanent Interim Director of Education.
On November 18, 2020, Interim Director Russell-Rawlins announced that Associate Director Mark Haarmann was no longer a member of the Peel DSB’s senior leadership team.
On July 22, 2020, Ena Chadha was appointed as the interim Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Chadha was the 2019 recipient of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce's Female Professional of the Year Award. She was also one of the Peel District School Board Reviewers.
As it currently stands, racist trustees are allowed to remain in their role as school board trustee.
On August 14, 2020, the Ontario Human Rights Commission responded to my letter stating that the well-being of Black, Indigenous and racialized students in the province must become a government priority, especially during the pandemic when issues of inequality are exacerbated, and that the Commission is monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of the PDSB Review, and several of the recommendations would address my concerns. The Commission specifically pointed to Directive #2 restricting trustees from participating on hiring, promotion and appointment panels, for positions other than the director of education, as one of the necessary provincial changes.
Minister Lecce still has not made this provincial change.
On September 8, 2020, I made a formal request through the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal that Minister Lecce confirm in writing that trustees will be restricted from hiring panels for all positions, except director of education, in school boards across the province.
Minister Lecce did not respond. Rather than doing the right thing – removing trustees from hiring panels – Minister Lecce ignored my request, thereby ignoring the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal as well.
On November 13, 2020, I received a letter from Shaheen Azmi, Director of Policy, Education, Monitoring and Outreach at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, confirming that the Commission did not receive a response from Minister Lecce to its June 5th letter.
This means Minister Lecce is ignoring the Ontario Human Rights Commission as well. When I pointed this out publicly on November 23, 2020, Minister Lecce met with the Ontario Human Rights Commission - 7 business days later.
On September 7, 2021, the Ministry of Education announced it was seeking input from the public on how to strengthen accountability for school board trustees.
On November 1, 2021, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) wrote to Minister Lecce in response to the consultation on strengthening accountability for school board trustees, noting the Commission was particularly interested in measures to ensure trustees are held accountable if they fail to fulfill their legal obligations under the Ontario Human Rights Code (Code).
The OHRC noted it is concerned about reports of trustees engaging in discriminatory conduct including making homophobic, Islamophobic and racist comments, stating it is “particularly troubling when such behaviour is exhibited by education leaders entrusted with the responsibility to ensure school systems uphold and champion human rights.”
The new Chief Commissioner, Patricia DeGuire, wrote:
The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that school boards must foster an atmosphere of tolerance and respect and cannot rely on the personal views of some individuals to deny equal recognition for the human rights of other members of the school community.
The minimum standards for codes of conduct should require school board trustees to respect, protect and promote human rights at the board and throughout the education system they govern. They should state that school boards and their trustees have a legal duty under the Code to maintain an inclusive environment, free from discrimination and harassment for trustees, student trustees, board staff, students, parents and guardians and members of the public. Boards and their trustees must take steps to prevent and respond appropriately to violations of the Code or they may be held “liable” and face monetary penalties or other orders from a tribunal or court.
To support these minimum standards and Code obligations, all board members should be required to successfully complete Ministry-approved education and training on human rights. Required training should include anti-racism, as well as content on Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) cultural sensitivity and cultural safety that is developed and delivered by the Indigenous communities served by their board.
The OHRC strongly recommends that boards be required to establish a complaint process that ensures all allegations of discrimination by a trustee, including complaints made by student trustees, board staff, students, parents and guardians and other members of the public, are brought to the board’s attention. The process should make clear that, in accordance with the Code no person shall be negatively treated for raising a complaint, providing information related to a complaint or helping to resolve a complaint. Moreover, information about the availability of a complaint process should be easily accessible and widely publicized.
School boards have a duty to take complaints alleging a breach of the Code seriously and to act upon them promptly. Human rights jurisprudence has established that a duty holder’s failure to investigate and address allegations of discrimination and harassment in a timely and effective manner can cause and/or exacerbate the harm of discrimination.
School boards have a Code duty to take action when a trustee is found to have engaged in discrimination. Since the goal of human rights legislation is preventative and remedial rather than punitive, steps must be taken to both remedy the effects of the discrimination and prevent future occurrences.
The Education Act sets out potential sanctions for a trustee’s breach of the code of conduct, including censure and barring a trustee’s participation in board meetings and committees (s.218.3(3). The OHRC submits that, in certain circumstances, other measures may be necessary and appropriate to meet the remedial and preventative goals of human rights law. For example, mandating participation in additional human rights training could serve to prevent further Code breaches. Stronger sanctions, such as removal from office where the law permits, may be necessary in the case of a very serious breach. The OHRC recommends that school boards have all of the authority necessary to remedy human rights violations.
The Education Act requires school boards to vote publicly on determinations of code of conduct breaches and the imposition of sanctions. The OHRC recommends that boards be required to publicly report aggregate data on all complaints and their outcomes, on an annual basis.
The OHRC calls on the Ontario government to undertake any legislative, regulatory and/or policy changes necessary to implement these recommendations.
You can read the Commission's full letter to Minister Lecce here:
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CC: Premier Doug Ford
Education Minister Stephen Lecce
Doug Downey, Attorney General
Violetta Igneski, OHRC Commissioner
Randall Arsenault, OHRC Commissioner
Patrick Case, Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education
Nancy Naylor, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education
J. David Wake, Integrity Commissioner
Paul Dubé, Ombudsman
Peter Joshua, Director of Education, PDSB
Louise Sirisko, Director of Education, YRDSB
Norah Marsh, Acting Director of Education, DDSB
Jennifer Leclerc, Director of Education, KPRDSB
Tony Pontes, Executive Director, CODE
Ontario Public School Boards’ Association
Ontario Public Supervisory Officials’ Association
Dr. Charles Pascal, OISE/U of T
Dr. Avis Glaze, Edu-quest International Inc.
Annie Kidder, People for Education
** I will be making this letter public on my website at www.debbielkasman.com.