To the Editor,
There has been a great deal written about the Ministry of Education taking over various school boards, Toronto District and Thames Valley to name two, because of financial and other mismanagement.
Residents in the Grand Erie and Brant-Haldimand-Norfolk Catholic district school boards should not be surprised if the GEDSB and BHNCDSB are next on the Ministry’s list.
Four BHNCDSB members abused their positions of trust by taking an expensive trip abroad to Italy to buy art for a new separate school in Caledonia.
The taxpayers were billed nearly $50,000 for those trustees’ ‘holiday sojourn’, plus $100,000 for artwork and now over $60,000 in legal fees. Those art pieces could have been easily viewed online with today’s technology. But hey, it’s only the taxpayers’ money; the taxpayers have deep pockets.
GEDSB is not much better, having engaged in an expensive war of attrition because of personality clashes and petty and juvenile dislikes of a fellow trustee.
There have been several hearings, appeals, etc. to the Divisional Court of Ontario and GEDSB has lost every hearing and every appeal. An amount of $250,000 has been released as to what the GEDSB has spent on this.
Now, according to a recent article in the Simcoe Reformer, GEDSB’s lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter to a Toronto resident who has made a ‘hobby’ of looking into school board’s mismanagement of taxpayers’ dollars – threatening potential legal action, demanding this person get a lawyer, turn over any and all material he has to GEDSB and, incredibly, ordering this person to not disclose the GEDSB’s letter to anyone.
To this person’s credit, he told the GEDSB’s lawyer to go pound salt.
Both the GEDSB and the BHNCDSB are out of control and all of them need to be swept out on Monday, October 26, 2026 and a whole new slate elected.
Even if only ‘dead yellow dogs’ run against these incumbents, please vote for the dead yellow dog. You will get more for your tax dollar.
Enough of the visceral abuse of tax dollars.
Whether that is using tax payers’ dollars through frivolous, out-of-country trips, or using sanctions and legal actions to conduct costly and irresponsible actions to settle scores against a trustee they do not like for whatever reason.
Next municipal/school board elections, separate and public, get rid of all the incumbents.
Allison Gowling,
A Haldimand native
