Candidates debate school board’s handling of hot topics

Trustee candidates at last Tuesday’s Brandon School Division election forum were asked to look back on the board’s current term and identify one decision they believe could have been handled differently.

The question prompted a debate around the division’s handling of a contentious town hall on library books, trustees’ conduct during a presentation on residential schools and the board’s rules of procedure.

Vice-chair and incumbent trustee Duncan Ross pointed to the controversy surrounding the board’s handling of a book-banning debate.

Ross said seven of the nine trustees were found to have breached the board’s code of conduct over comments related to the issue that were made during a school board meeting.

“People got really fired up, rightly so,” Ross said, adding that while he believed the underlying cause was important and was ultimately resolved, some trustees may have made comments they should not have.

“I think there’s a way to resolve these kinds of issues without hurting feelings,” he said.

A town hall on the controversial topic should not have been held, incumbent trustee Lorraine McConnell said.

In May 2023, the school board hosted a public meeting at Vincent Massey High School to give residents an opportunity to air their views on the proposal to establish a committee to review and potentially ban books dealing with gender identity and sexual health. At the end of the more-than-six-hour meeting, trustees voted 6-1 against the proposal.

McConnell, who joined the board through a byelection and was not a trustee when the controversy occurred, said she reviewed videos of the meeting after joining the board and believed trustees were trying to listen to the community.

But, she said, the division had an obligation to uphold its policies rather than entertain views that contradicted them.

“I think it was a nice try. But I don’t think it should have been done,” McConnell said.

Board chair Linda Ross disagreed.

She said the town hall was organized because the board had received an unusually large amount of feedback from residents.

Normally, letters to the board are read at a board meeting or referred to a committee, she said, but the volume of feedback made it important to provide residents with an opportunity to speak directly.

“I think it was really important that we did that,” Linda Ross said. “It was important to hear from the community, and I was never so proud of Brandon as I was that night.”

Trustee Kim Fallis also defended the meeting, saying it was an emotional night that brought important issues to the forefront.

“I think that night woke a lot of people up,” she said. “As a very proud mother of a gay man — and I support every child out there, and especially those that have been marginalized — I was very proud of Brandon (that night) as well, especially when I had over 100 emails when I got home, commenting on how well that ran and how everyone had a chance to speak.”

For challenger Jim McCrae, the lesson from the board’s recent controversies was different.

He said incidents discussed during the forum demonstrated the need for trustees to have a clear understanding of the rules and how they should be applied.

“Let’s review the rules and see if they are going to continue to work for us in the future,” McCrae said.

Incumbent trustee Kirk Carr identified a different moment he believed he could have handled better.

Carr referred to McCrae’s presentation to the board concerning residential schools in June 2024, during which Carr repeatedly called McCrae out of order.

“I’ve actually rewatched that over again, and I may have been a little bit too harsh at that time, even though I truly believed in what I did. But I may have been a little too harsh at that time, and that’s the only thing I can really think of at this moment,” he told the audience.

The discussion later returned to the presentation, with McCrae defending his decision to bring the matter before the board and criticizing the way his presentation was handled.

McCrae said he had been accused of being a residential-school “denialist” after proposing a book for school libraries and believed he should have been given an opportunity to respond.

“I was cut right off, and that was the end of it and some people walked out of the room,” he said.

McConnell said she was the first one to excuse herself from the meeting.

“I knew what the presentation was and what was coming. I reached out to my friends and family who are Indigenous and asked them, as a white woman, being put in that situation, what they would want me to do, and they said, ‘We want you to walk out,’” she said.

“I did contact the Manitoba School Board Association and asked if that, in fact, was something that I would be allowed to do, or that it was acceptable for me to do. And they said, ‘Absolutely. If you feel you’re listening to speech that is harmful for other individuals, you absolutely have the right to walk out.’”

Carr offered a different account, saying trustees were prepared to hear McCrae explain how they had erred but became concerned when the presentation moved beyond that issue.

Carr said McCrae began discussing his views about residential schools rather than focusing on the board’s conduct.

“I do not regret walking out … I would do it again. We don’t give a platform for hate,” Carr said.

Candidate Hosteen Bungon urged the candidates and the public to look beyond the controversies of the current term.

“I just wanted to say that we are dwelling in the past a lot,” Bungon said. “Let’s move on into the future.”

The forum was hosted by the Brandon Teachers’ Association in partnership with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 737, The Brandon Sun, WCGtv and Brandon University.

It was held at Evans Theatre at Brandon University as candidates seeking election to the Brandon School Division board faced questions from panellists and the public ahead of the Oct. 28 civic election.

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