Education: the difference between a clap and a slap

Joe Volpe October 9, 2026

TORONTO – When two hands come together it is usually a sign of prayer or jubilation. When one hand strikes the head or face, it is usually a slap, delivered in the kindest of expressions as “a wake-up call”. Hello Frank Benedetto, current Supervisor over the entire operations of the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB).

Please tell us into which category the communications debacle referenced below falls. The “facts” are available publicly on Trustee [former Chair] Markus de Domenico’s social page in preparation for an “debate/information session” in Etobicoke’s Ward 2 in October (in the screenshot below, the post). And yes, it is about the money. Money owed to Catholic ratepayers (parents) to educate their children.

When Minister Calandra placed the TCDSB, and seven other school boards, under supervision in June of 2025, a full fifteen months ago, he did so because, from an operations point of view, they had convinced an independent auditing firm that they were administratively inadequate, likely fiscally incompetent and from a governance perspective, “short of a full deck”. The Minister and the premier took pains to say that the government was not touching denominational rights.

They took aim at the $100 million in-year projected surplus reported in February of 2024. It turned into a projected deficit by November 2024 and rose to $48 million deficit by May of 2025, when the Minister lost patience and sought powers to vest all Operational authority of the Boards in his “office” or in delegates appointed by him, as in Frank Benedetto.

Anyone would be rightly shocked at the $ 148 million turn around, 10% of the annual transfer from the Ministry to the TCDSB. Rather than seek a rational way out or a penitent approach, DeDomenico and his side kick Maria Rizzo along with their allies on the Board chose “to mock” the Minister’s politics while they continued their profligate ways.

Blatant case in point was the decision to insist on transferring students of Bishop Allen H.S. in Ward 3 to the now vacated Dante Alighieri Academy/Don Bosco S.S., eleven kms to the north instead of the Scarlet Heights S.S. six kms northwest. Parents objected strenuously and turned to their trustee Teresa Lubinski. I personally attended meetings where Board officials disrespected the entreaties and facts Ms. Lubinski put forward.

This included a reference by Board official to a loss of six hundred students in enrolment suffered by Dante Alighieri Academy because of the move from the Yorkdale campus to the Don Bosco site, eleven kms away. At circa $14,600 per student, this represents a loss in revenue of $8,760,000 at a minimum per year, every year. Cost of doing business, or so the saying goes.

De Benedetto’s last report projects a board-wide loss in enrolment of six hundred students for this year and beyond (read our on-going reports on StatsCanada birthrates) – another $8,760,000 annual shortfall.

De Domenico, Rizzo and company had argued that the fund ($26.4 million) allocated for acquiring [part of] Scarlet Heights S.S. would have been more than enough to prepare the school for students “beating down the doors to get in”.

They may have been sold “a pig in a poke”. According to none other than De Domenico, the “current estimate for renovation has risen from $26.4 million to $48 million in two years” (an increase of 81%).

Interestingly, until yesterday everyone lauded the deal the TCDSB got from Toronto Lands, the Real Estate arm of the Toronto District School Board. Toronto Lands is run by John Filion, former City Councillor and employer of Maria Rizzo, a former constituent and still fellow member of the “progressive party” in Toronto.

International Languages anyone?

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