WRDSB taken to court by seasoned trustee

Trustee Mike Ramsay and the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) are in the thick of a legal battle.

After a formal inquiry on the basis of a complaint from one of Ramsay’s fellow trustees, the long-time Kitchener representative was suspended for three months on the grounds of a breach of the code of conduct between June and September 2022.

The complaint was born from a board meeting in January 2022 where Carolyn Burjoski, a teacher with the school board, had her delegation cut off by then-Chair Scott Piatkowski when she raised concerns about books that were being made available at libraries within the school board that she felt were not age appropriate.

Ramsay felt that Burjoski should not have been cut off, and was very critical of that decision in the meeting and online. That’s where other trustees believed his conduct crossed the line.

Hatim Kheir, a staff lawyer with Charter Advocates Canada, is representing Ramsay in his attempt to clear his name of any wrongdoing. He told CityNews that they think the process that led to the board’s 6-3 vote in favour of the suspension of Ramsay was unfair, unreasonable and unconstitutional.

“Trustee Ramsay is a believer in the right to free expression. He believes that Ms. Burjoski should have been allowed to speak and also that he should be allowed to be critical of those decisions and that this was a move by the board to prevent him from being critical.”

As for their argument, Kheir said that the board improperly held their deliberation in private, which removes the accountability factor of holding a public meeting. Ramsay also believes that the chair was biased, based on the numerous pages of evidence provided by Piatkowkski proving that Ramsay breached the code. Kheir said they were provided prior to the report from the Integrity Commissioner and were outside of the scope of the investigation.

Ramsay believes this shows a bias from the chair which may have impacted the vote. Kheir explained why this result is still significant over a year later.

“Having the court step in and weigh in that what’s occurred was unreasonable, unfair and unconstitutional would provide vindication for Trustee Ramsay’s position.”

The board’s response has been that the chair wasn’t biased and that they were acting under authority from the education act to deliberate in private.

Most recently, at Tuesday’s online proceedings, the Zoom call was hijacked by a member of the public, who was sharing their screen displaying pornographic content and playing audio with racial slurs. Kheir said this delayed the hearing by 90 minutes.

“It was frankly, a vile and disgusting attack against Trustee Ramsay and against the administration of justice as a whole,” said Kheir.

He added that they were thankful that the hearing was able to continue and finish on Microsoft Teams.