Ontario education minister will allow trustees to be sworn in at supervised boards after all - CBC

Education Minister Paul Calandra says he was planning not to swear trustees in at some boards, but has now reversed course. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)Social SharingOntario’s education minister says he’s ditching his plan to delay swearing in some elected trustees, suggesting there was a risk they would have broken code of conduct rules if they weren’t officially in office. 

The swearing in comes more than a year after the Ford government began putting school boards in Ontario under its direct control, appointing supervisors, sidelining elected trustees and suspending their pay. 

The Toronto public and Toronto Catholic boards, as well as the two major boards in Peel Region and the Ottawa Carleton board are among those now directed by the province, instead of elected trustees.

While trustees still ran in Monday’s elections, those seeking to represent parents in English-speaking public supervised boards faced the prospect of not being sworn in.

Not being sworn in would have effectively meant the winning candidates were not officially trustees, although that wouldn't have materially changed their abilities at supervised boards, where they currently have no power anyway.

Trustees at supervised Catholic boards were always scheduled to be sworn in because they have additional, constitutionally protected faith-related roles.

“It had been my intention, in all honesty, to delay the swearing in,” Education Minister Paul Calandra told reporters at Queen’s Park on Thursday. 

The minister, however, said he had heard rumbling trustees would take the opportunity of not being sworn in to break the rules. 

“Almost immediately, many of them started talking about how by not being sworn in, they wouldn’t be subject to the code of conduct and some of them seemed to be excited by that,” Calandra added. 

“So, upon reflection, we will swear them in.”

Calandra did not say which trustees he was referring to, but at least one in Toronto has announced plans to hold meetings with parents while she's sidelined.

Toronto Catholic representative Maria Rizzo said she's been frustrated by a government she believes isn’t helping, and is planning to hold her own public meetings – potentially convening a Toronto school board in exile. 

She said the meetings will be live-streamed, something the province banned at supervised school boards.

“It’s exactly a direct challenge to that,” Rizzo told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning. 

Those meetings, she said, would take place in church basements, libraries or community centres.

Will trustees on sidelined Ontario education boards be on the ballot this fall?

Asked about the meetings, Calandra highlighted the integrity commissioner’s role and said they would investigate trustees who broke the rules. Integrity commissioners investigate whether or not rules in the code of conduct have been broken by trustees.

Rizzo said she wasn’t clear on the code of conduct rules that might stop her plan to hold meetings, but welcomed the fact all trustees will now be sworn in.

“He’s doing the right thing, obviously, for all the wrong reasons,” she added. “Not to respect the voters, not to recognize the role of trustees, not to support children and parents and not to serve out school communities. This is about reigning in trustees like me.”

After he started taking over school boards last year, Calandra mused that he might eliminate trustees altogether, but in the spring he opted instead to curtail their responsibilities. 

The province stripped trustees across Ontario of their financial decision-making and gave that job to newly created board CEOs. The trustee role in collective bargaining was also given to a body representing education directors.

The legislation left trustees with their traditional advocacy work on behalf of students and parents. In addition to that, Catholic trustees still control denominational issues.

But at supervised boards, even the advocacy work is supposed to be paused while trustees are sidelined. 

There is no timeline for when school boards could be returned to trustees.

“They got elected. One day they might be assuming those responsibilities in boards and they need to be subject to that code of conduct,” Calandra said.

Calandra said he expected trustees to be sworn in, as provincial legislation dictates, around the middle of November.