July 24, 2023
Dear Premier Ford,
While this is an open letter to you, it's also a letter of condolence to Richard Bilkszto's family, a call to action to the provincial government and the Ontario Human Rights Commission, as well as an offer to assist Ms. Bildy, Richard Bilkszto’s lawyer, with the family’s lawsuit as well as an offer to assist the colleagues of Richard Bilkszto with their lawsuit against the provincial government.
I’ve written this as an open letter to you, sir, so Mr. Bilkszto’s family, his lawyer, the education system, and members of the public can read it because there’s a lot going on that they need to understand.
I highly recommend you read, Premier Ford, and govern yourself accordingly.
I am deeply and profoundly saddened – and disturbed – by the death of Richard Bilkszto, a retired principal with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).
Truthfully, Mr. Ford, I am gutted.
You’ve known for quite some time that what happened to Richard Bilkszto also happened to me – slightly differently, mind you, but with many similarities.
Ontario’s education system is in a deep state of crisis and you’ve known that for quite some time, too.
In fact, it’s your government that is creating the crisis - or, at the very least, allowing the crisis to occur.
We first spoke about the crisis in education on the telephone on Sunday, June 2, 2019, sir, when you called me by accident. You were looking for a teacher named Peter, and found me on the other end of the telephone instead. I told you Ontario’s education system was in a deep state of crisis then and you needed to do a review of the governance structure of the education system in Ontario. You told me you would “love” to do that, but you didn’t think you could “get away with it.”
Your government has known about the extreme state of chaos and crisis within Ontario’s education system since the 1990’s, sir, when Premier Mike Harris was elected and launched the “Common Sense Revolution.”
At that time, Harris said he believed schools, school districts, and teaching staff were ineffective and inefficient, and he was seeking to bring a degree of restraint to a system that he deemed was out of control and in chaos.
In September 1995, Harris’ education minister, John Snobelen, was even caught on tape announcing his government’s mandate to create a crisis in education intentionally in order to gain public support for reform. The tape became public and efforts to control the damage began. Snobelen later said he had made the case for greater accountability in education sound more critical than it actually was as a way of back-paddling.
Well, sir, the education system really is in an extreme state of chaos and crisis now.
Mr. Bilkszto is dead.
Some people are saying that you want more chaos, sir, so the public education system will fall apart – a public education system that was called an education “superpower” by the BBC in 2017 because Canada’s international test scores were so high – because then you can create charter schools, force more students to learn online, and save a lot of money.
We are descending into the final levels of chaos now – and you are letting it happen –which makes you a large part of the problem.
“Wokeism” is on the rise within Ontario’s education system, sir, and you appear to be letting that happen, too. The extremism that we are now seeing on the political Left – performative, virtue signalling, intolerance for conflicting perspectives and free speech, and bullying to get one’s point across, is a backslide away from healthy pluralism and diversity.
I’m on the political “Left,” sir, just not “far” Left, and I can tell you that “wokeism” is not a good thing. “Wokeism” is not the same thing as “awake” or “enlightened.”
People who are truly “awake,” not “woke,” are pluralistic in their attitudes, empathetic, and tolerant. They aren’t intolerant of conflicting perspectives, they don’t try to cancel free speech, and they don’t bully people into submission in order to get their point across.
Those who are “woke,” just think they are “awake,” but if they were truly “awake” or “enlightened,” they would understand that it’s okay for people to question things, and they would let people question things – because that’s how people learn, and that’s how we improve things. People who are “awake,” not “woke,” try to understand what it is others are saying. They don’t bully them into submission.
“Post woke” is the land of “awake,” sir, and it’s the land of profound common sense.
Everybody is right, sir, and this is what you and those who work at upper levels in the education system need to understand. More specifically, everybody has some important pieces of truth, and all of those pieces need to be honoured and included as much as possible.
Another way to think of this is that there is partial truth in everything. So we need to listen to others. A lot. Nothing is 100% right or wrong. No one is 100% good or evil. All knowledge is a work in progress.
We cannot be too quick to tell someone they’re wrong just because their perspective is different than ours. That’s “woke.”
Two people can both be right at the same time. That’s “awake” or “post woke.”
We need to put really smart people at the top of our education organizations, sir, – people who have a “more enlightened sense,” (not a “woke” sense) of the “bigger picture,” and a better understanding of what it means to be truly inclusive.
You may not have personally created this problem, sir, but it’s your problem to fix. In addition to speaking to you about the crisis in education on Sunday, June 2, 2019, I wrote to MPP Lorne Coe about the problem and he hand delivered my letter to Education Minister Lisa Thompson in the Legislature. Kathy Beattie, Mr. Coe’s Constituency Office Manager, emailed to tell me on November 1, 2018, that Mr. Coe had hand delivered my letter to Ms. Thompson in the Legislature the previous week.
Here’s a copy of that letter, sir, which was also published as a Letter to the Editor in The Peterborough Examiner on November 7, 2018:
You’ve also known about this problem for a long time, sir, because I took it upon myself to write to all 122 Members of your Provincial Parliament in 2018 – and I know my letter made it through because:
MPP Marit Stiles (Davenport) gave me a fulsome response;
MPP Tibollo's office (Vaughan – Woodbridge) forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Dunlop’s office (Simcoe – North) replied to say that MPP Dunlop would hand deliver my letter to Minister Thompson at a caucus meeting;
MPP Monteith-Farrell's office (Thunder Bay – Atikokan) sent my letter to Minister Thompson's office with a covering letter requesting that Minister Thompson respond directly to me;
MPP Thanigasalam’s office (Scarborough – Rouge Park) forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Kernaghan's office (London – North Centre) delivered my letter to Minister Thompson's office;
MPP Lalonde's office (Orléans Liberal) emailed my letter to Minister Thompson;
MPP Crawford's office (Oakville) forwarded my letter to Minister Thompson's office, and followed up on February 15, 2019 saying that the Ministry of Education acknowledged receipt of my correspondence and would be responding to me directly.
The Ministry of Education, under Lisa Thompson, never followed up.
You also knew about this problem when I filed two complaints with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, one on October 1, 2019 and another on February 16, 2021. Education Minister Stephen Lecce received copies of both of these because I sent them to him.
I also filed a Request to Expedite the second Application on the same day, and a Declaration to support the request to expedite as well as an Order During Proceedings on September 8, 2020. Minister Lecce received copies of all of these as well.
Furthermore, I wrote to Nancy Naylor, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education, and Patrick Case, Assistant Deputy Minister of Education, numerous times. You can read some of those letters here:
https://debbielkasman.com/blog/2022/4/28/yfcpwbc1o4jbvas3ej8pn90iekjq25
https://debbielkasman.com/blog/2021/4/30/z3jpged1bcxydsvhy1v9jx8s8ynz6d
https://debbielkasman.com/blog/2021/4/22/rb7s4tbrm4bc2dng2r82n12kgftrv7
I also wrote an Open Letter to the Registrar at the Ontario College of Teachers on June 21, 2021, which I sent to the Ministry of Education, and which you can read here:
https://debbielkasman.com/blog/2021/6/25/nbqdpi3vbdegvikz7pb8ph073dr7gt
Moreover, I explained to the public why Minister Lecce was ignoring the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) here:
Furthermore, I wrote an Open Letter to Ontario’s Attorney-General, Doug Downey, your Attorney-General, sir, on November 18, 2022, and sent it to you, MPP Coe, your parliamentary assistant, and to the Ministry of Education, which you can read here:
I also emailed you directly, with a solution, and gave copies of that email to MPP Coe and Mr. Downey. Those emails were on June 6, 2022, October 13, 2022, October 24, 2022, and November 15, 2022.
Furthermore, I emailed you on April 3, 2023 giving you a detailed and robust plan for solving the problem. I even told you which education experts to hire to assist with implementing the solution and solving the problem.
On June 8, you passed the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act (“Bill 98”), saying the Bill and future regulations would have the potential to create a strong foundation for government, school boards, and duty-holders in the education system to help meet their human rights obligations, and that it was critical that those appointed to these positions be adequately supported to carry out their roles.
Your government called the Bill “significant and transformative.”
You rushed this Bill through, sir, with very little consultation even though Ontario’s Ombudsman, Paul Dubé, told the Submission to the Standing Committee on Social Policy that important aspects of his previous proposals were missing and even though Annie Kidder, director of the advocacy group People for Education, said, “This is a big piece of legislation and it appears to have been crafted with no previous consultation. It seems to be a surprise to everybody working in the system.”
I wrote to you again, sir, and told you that a Toronto law firm was paying the alcohol bill on the opening night of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association’s (OPSBA’s) Annual General Meeting and Program. This is the association that represents public school boards of all sizes from all regions across the province of Ontario. I also told you this was the same law firm that had been telling school board trustees that they didn’t need to remove themselves from hiring panels for all positions – except for director of education – even though it was leading to significant discrimination in school boards across the entire province.
Why is a law firm paying the alcohol bill for school board trustees?
Because it’s a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” relationship, sir. The law firm stated when it paid for the alcohol bill that it was looking forward to “embracing the future” with Ontario school board trustees, the people who “run” Ontario’s school boards. This is how Ontario’s education system works, sir, and it’s been running that way for a very long time. There’s no oversight – just a bunch of self-governed systems that do whatever they want with complaint mechanisms that don’t actually lead anywhere, except loop back and forth amongst each other, with no one taking responsibility for anything.
You don’t appear to understand, Mr. Ford.
The constant failure of educational reform is because of existing power relationships and any effort to reform the education system must deal with the nature and allocation of power.
It’s not just me who’s saying this, sir. Seymour Sarason, a professor of psychology at Yale University, said this in 1990 just before Mike Harris launched his “Common Sense Revolution.”
It was a revolution all right – there was an Ontario-wide teacher strike affecting more than two millions student, and it was the largest education strike in North American history – but there was no “common sense” to the changes. You don’t solve problems by creating chaos, sir. You just fix the problems.
Tinkering at the edges of Ontario’s 200-year old governance structure – as governments of all political stripes have been doing for a very long time (and this includes your Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act Bill 98) will only create more chaos.
Einstein was right, sir, when he said you cannot solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that created the problem in the first place.
Do you understand, sir, that our education system won't be healthy until every last student and educator are healthy, that the education system is about more than economics, that it's our job to "grow” healthy, happy and productive kids, and not just produce widgets in a factory, while banging staff over the head with giant hammers?
It’s an out of control ego, sir, that values money more than it values life.
It’s the same out of control ego that sent five people to their deaths in the OceanGate Expeditions underwater tour of the Titanic, sir.
The CEO of that company was clearly told the diving vessel wasn’t safe by a lot of different people. He even died himself.
If you were to completely redesign the education governance structure in Ontario, sir, by eliminating school board trustees in favour of some other governance model, it would solve the bullying, harassment and discrimination problem.
It would still be a democratic model because the Ontario government – elected officials – would still be in charge, just not school board trustees.
You could increase power at the school level by encouraging more parents to join school councils – they are also elected officials, just not municipally elected – and these parents wouldn’t be caught between a rock and a hard place like school board trustees currently are. Parents would do a much better job of advocating for their children, which is exactly what school board trustees should be doing.
Every school should have a student council, too. Then students would have a voice at the table and a say in their own education.
So what’s the problem, sir?
You don’t really want to do this, do you, sir, because your government would lose its education “whipping posts.” In other words, your government can currently pass whatever education laws its wants, and take money away from school boards and kids, while blaming it all on school board trustees – who are predominantly female - which, by the way, is a form of gender discrimination.
If chaos, confusion, and more death isn’t what you want, sir, then you need to prove it.
Because Richard Bilkszto is dead.
School boards are political and organizational inventions, sir, not natural and inevitable ones, as Stephen Anderson, a professor at OISE wrote in a 2003 paper. “It is therefore quite reasonable to question and critique the role that districts can play in promoting and sustaining quality education,” he wrote.
Think about it, sir.
Chris Selley pointed out in the National Post in 2017, we don’t directly elect people to provide health care, justice or social services. So why do we do it in education? As it currently stands, barely anyone bothers voting for school board trustee anymore. The curriculum is provincial, funding is provincial, and most problems get created and solved at the school level, not at the board.
Furthermore, study upon study shows that the closer you are to the classroom, the more impact you have. This means it’s the teachers, vice-principals, and principals like Richard Bikszto, sir, who make the most difference. Volunteers and parents matter a lot, too. Not school board trustees.
While you’re giving this some thought, sir, I will be contacting Mr. Bilkszto’s family and his lawyer, Lisa Bildy, and Mr. Bilkszto’s colleagues, offering to give them all the evidence I’ve collected over the past 10 years, and walking them through it - for free - which will prove that they have a prima facie case of discrimination on their hands. That means proveable, sir.
Your government has known about this problem for a very long time.
I’ll even testify if the family and Mr. Bilkszto’s colleagues would like me to.
If this isn’t the case, sir, if you really do want to solve the problem, then I suggest you govern yourself accordingly.
Should the TDSB apologize?
Yes.
Should the Kojo Institute apologize?
Yes.
Should there be a lawsuit?
Yes – and the Bilkszto family and Mr. Bilkszto’s colleagues who are launching a lawsuit should also name Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario as represented by the Ministry of Education in its lawsuit – because your government is not fixing the problem – and it’s your government that created the problem in the first place.
Does all of the blame for this fall on your shoulders, sir?
No, it does not. I wrote to Premier Kathleen Wynne about the bullying and harassment problem in Ontario’s education system, and she didn’t fix the problem, either. I can prove that, too. But for now the problem is yours to solve, sir, because you are the current Premier and Richard Bilkszto is dead.
Were there other factors in Mr. Bilkszto’s death?
Probably. Experts say suicide is rarely caused by a single circumstance or event, and there are usually many contributing factors that have developed over a period of time, as the Toronto Star reported.
Should Minister Lecce investigate the matter?
There was already an investigation, conducted by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, and that decision awarded Mr. Bilkszto compensation in 2021, saying the TDSB failed to protect Mr. Bilkszto from bullying and harassment. According to the National Post, who obtained copies, TDSB didn’t dispute Bilkszto’s recollection of events to the compensation board, nor did it appeal the compensation board’s award, and the deadline for disputing the claim has passed.
Should there be an Inquiry?
As you know, sir, public inquiries examine the facts underlying an issue or event, including any factors that may have caused or contributed to it, and provide recommendations to the government to improve public policy. Most inquiries involve an investigative stage and some form of public hearing. The inquiry ends with the publication of a final report. But the recommendations in the report aren’t binding on the government. So why would taxpayer’s or Mr. Bilkszto’s family support an Inquiry?
Public inquiries are often lengthy, expensive and complex and may involve thousands (or millions) of documents and dozens of witnesses. Public inquiries do not give rise to criminal or civil liability. They serve a broader purpose – to promote transparency and accountability and improve policy in areas of real importance to the public.
You already know how to solve this problem, sir.
The culture of fear was first detected in a December 2007 Falconer Report of the TDSB, after a Black student named Jordan Manners was killed in the hallway of C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute in May of that same year. In response to the shooting, the TDSB convened a School Community Safety Advisory Panel, and schools across the city were investigated. Julian Falconer, one of Canada’s top constitutional and human rights lawyers, steered the investigation, and he and his team produced a 1000-page report with 126 recommendations.
Falconer concluded that the culture of fear at C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute was “endemic,” that there were violence and sexual assaults happening in the hallways of the school, and staff and students were afraid to speak out, which contributed to the tragic death of young Jordan Manners. Falconer’s report also identified numerous problems within TDSB high schools, including the under-reporting of violent incidents, a culture of silence that reprimanded whistleblowers, and a shortfall of necessary support staff such as social workers and youth counsellors.
TDSB implemented some, but not all, of Falconer’s recommendations, and one year later, Falconer told the Toronto Star that TDSB schools were no safer because the province had not provided enough money to implement the most crucial recommendations, such as additional support staff.
Doug Jolliffe, president of the secondary school teachers’ union at the time, said he was frustrated with the board’s inaction on the report’s recommendations. “We don’t feel like the board has listened, really, to anything Falconer recommended,” he told the Toronto Star. “Things have stayed pretty much the same.”
Six years later, an Ernst and Young Forensic Audit of the TDSB, detected the culture of fear in the TDSB again, this time saying it was “permeating” the school board.
Then in 2015, Margaret Wilson concluded in her Review of the TDSB, because of massive dysfunction, that there was a culture of fear, silence, and retribution in the board, and it was becoming noticeably worse and threatening public confidence in the education system. She noted that trustees were sitting on hiring panels for positions other than the director of education, even though the Ministry of Education told trustees to remove themselves, and this, according to Wilson, was a major contributor to the culture of fear, silence, and retribution in that board.
Wilson actually wrote, “Co-operation between trustees is too often focused on making deals for mutual support. The level of trust between the senior administration and the trustees is low…there has, to date, been no attempt to review the Board’s governance model to remove the trustees from day-to-day operational decision making and to prevent interference on the part of many trustees, in the operation of ‘their schools in their wards.’ ”
Wilson wrote in 2015 that she was “deeply disturbed by the acute level of distress” which was apparent in the TDSB. She said she did not include all the evidence she found of the culture of fear in her report because it would be too easy to identify some of the individuals. Many staff members feared they would be fired if they could be identified.
The Liberal government set up a panel of civic leaders and former trustees to examine whether the problems at TDSB were rooted in its size. Barbara Hall led this panel, and in her letter to Education Minister Liz Sandals, Hall wrote that the panel heard serious concerns about the board's capacity to maintain achievements and create real opportunities for all children, unless significant changes in governance were made.
The panel also heard a very strong message that change was urgent, and children and their communities were vulnerable. In the Executive Summary, Hall wrote, “One of the most frequent messages we heard was that people know that there are many positive experiences for children in schools across the TDSB but, at the same time, all they hear about is bad, unacceptable behaviour throughout the organization with no apparent consequences. They want this to stop.”
Hall confirmed for a third time that a culture of fear existed in TDSB and it was having substantial and detrimental consequences for those working at the board. The panel discovered that the culture of fear was also trickling down into classrooms.
The panel concluded that governance dysfunction was perpetuating inequities of opportunity and success across the board, and it was the panel’s view that the culture had developed over many years and under the watch of several different directors, board chairs, and senior administrators, and could not be allowed to continue.
The panel made it clear to the provincial government that a comprehensive cultural shift was required.
An Inquiry will be a waste of money, sir. You already have the answer.
You need to change the governance structure. Otherwise, there will be more chaos, death, and destruction in Ontario’s public education system.
Ideally, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) should step in and request that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal order your government to comply, sir, – or the OHRC will assign a Supervisor for Minister Lecce stripping him of his powers.
But I doubt the OHRC will do that because it’s stacked with Conservative “players,” and those players won’t step in unless you tell them to.
How do I know this?
Because the OHRC supported the Better Schools and Student Outcomes Act (Bill 98) saying the bill had the potential to create a strong foundation for government, school boards, and duty-holders in the education system to help meet their human rights obligations, which is the message you wanted the OHRC to give.
Raj Dhir, was named Executive Director and Chief Legal Officer of the OHRC in October 2018, four months after you were elected Premier, sir, and he is now the Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the Policy Division as of April 2023.
Were these patronage appointments, sir?
In fairness to the OHRC, the OHRC did say in its Submission to the Standing Committee on Social Policy on Bill 98, that Bill 98 needs to account for the experiences that education officials are currently facing while doing human rights work, that it is critical that those appointed to these positions be adequately supported to carry out their roles.
On February 16, 2023, the OHRC also issued a statement called “Code Obligations of Education Officials,” writing that it is concerned about the increasing violence targeted at education officials for doing human rights work, and that the Code requires that the people engaged in this work be able to do so without being subjected to discrimination and harassment and without fear for their safety and security.
These are your own people, sir - the OHRC - telling you this.
And discrimination cuts both ways.
Discrimination is not about the colour of your skin.
It’s about the level of your psychological development.
If you, Mr. Dhir, the OHRC and the current government are truly serious about fixing the bullying, discrimination and harassment problem in Ontario’s education system, you will commission a Review of the governance structure – and Doug Downey, Ontario’s Attorney-General, Patrick Case, Ontario’s Chief Equity Officer at the Ministry of Education, Lorne Coe, your parliamentary assistant, and Raj Dhir, Assistant Deputy Attorney General of the Policy Division will help you implement the recommendations.
Richard Bilkszto was an advocate, a member of the Toronto chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), an advocacy organization dedicated to civil rights and anti-discrimination, which he took the lead in establishing.
Richard Bilkszto wasn’t “racist,” he was a wonderful human being, and ultimately, he wasn’t afforded his legal right to work in an environment free from discrimination and harassment without fear for his own safety and security.
Not only would a Review of Ontario’s governance structure fix the problem, sir, it would be an appropriate response to Richard Bilkszto’s death – and to the death of young Jordan Manners, and would deliver a very clear message to the entire education system:
Stop the bullying, harassment, and discrimination in Ontario’s education system!
Once and for all!
I would think this sort of deep change would bring a measure of peace to Mr. Bilkszto’s family and his colleagues who are about to sue you – and perhaps even a measure of compassion toward your government, sir – if they knew the problem was being properly dealt with.
It might help Jordan Manners’ family – and the entire Black community – heal, too.
Debbie L. Kasman, M. Ed, Policy Studies, OISE/University of Toronto
Education Re-imagined
Analyst & Researcher, Author & Speaker
www.debbielkasman.com
[Update: The Toronto School Administrators’ Association, representing over 1,000 principals and vice-principals, issued a statement supporting Richard Bilkszto as well. So did the Ontario Principals’ Council, which represents all vice-principals and principals in Ontario.
Within hours of these statements - and mine - Minister Lecce announced, “I have tasked my officials to review what happened in this instance in the TDSB and bring me options to reform professional training and strengthen accountability on school boards so this never happens again” (my italics).
This will be no ordinary review.
I believe it may be the beginning of the end of the role of school board trustee in Ontario.
The clue can be found in the italics above.
Note: The media has been aware of the problem all along. To date, not a single journalist has picked up on the story or its critical connections.]