School Board Elections: Risk of Electoral Fraud
TORONTO – Election campaigns are the ideal time to separate the wheat from the chaff. Let me more precise. It may be more frequently true at the local or school board level. Political party affiliation at the provincial or federal level gives candidates “more cover” – people will “swallow” all the warts just because… well, he/she is one of ours; whatever that may be.
In a jam, the candidate can wrap herself in the flag, or he can mutter some ideological position that makes sense “to somebody”. Catholic school board trustee-candidates have no such cover. They either run on their record, on their ability to fulfill their role with purpose intended by law – assuming they know what that is – or on the charisma they project.
Over this last week, because of advanced voting, several candidates have brought to the Corriere’s attention the issue of potential voter fraud made possible by “defects/shortcomings in the” voting process. These generally fall into the category of lax or indifferent supervision by the electoral officials entrusted with verification of candidates and/or voters.
To be a candidate, one must first be a citizen; have completed one’s eighteenth birthday, reside in the municipality where they are a candidate or voter. If they are Catholic, they must provide proof of adherence to Catholicism (this is a vote for a Catholic organization and nothing else). As well they must be listed on the assessment role as such.
If you do not provide proof of either or both, you are ineligible. For example, a non-Catholic student should not have been allowed to run for trustee just because a “lazy” official did not check that the signature of the Minister of Immigration on her ID card was that of a Minister in office when she was bur a child in another country.
Another candidate, expert in the realm of subterfuge, distraction, dissembling and disdain for things Catholic and unwilling even to be designated as Catholic on assessment rolls, still ran for the role of Catholic Trustee.
The Director of Education is the Elections returning Officer for the Catholic board. That would be the same official who authorizes presentations of financial and pedagogical documentation for Board approval before they are sent to the Ministry. If school boards have been placed under supervision, check the Director of education and the trustees who followed his/her advice. Throw them both out.
Remember this election is about the education – the future – of your children. It is not about the recommendations of some political action committee of this or that party or some teachers‘ organization. It is about the mess that some trustees and their Senior Staff foisted on us as property owners and taxpayers must now absorb.