Ontario school board faces legal challenge over land acknowledgements

The Waterloo Region District School Board is now facing a legal challenge over mandatory land acknowledgements.

Source: Waterloo Region District School Board

The Waterloo Region District School Board is now facing a legal challenge over mandatory land acknowledgements. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced it has filed a judicial review on behalf of Geoff Horsman, who argues that mandatory land acknowledgements and a ban on debating them violate his Charter rights to freedom of conscience and expression and exceed the board’s authority under the Education Act.

Horsman has asked an Ontario court to overturn a Waterloo Region District School Board decision that forces school councils to begin meetings with land acknowledgements and bans any discussion about them.

In his court application, Horsman argues that being required to sit through a statement he believes is racially discriminatory violates his freedom of conscience, and that being told the topic is “off limits” at school council meetings violates his freedom of expression.

He says the board has gone beyond its legal powers because provincial rules give school councils the right to set their own procedures and bylaws, not have them dictated by the board.

Horsman told True North that he tried to discuss the matter with board staff through the appropriate channels. But when the board “unequivocally” stated that land acknowledgements were “mandatory at school council” and “could not be discussed,” he decided a legal challenge was his final option.

The legal challenge follows intervention from school board leadership. The WRDSB director of education, Scott Miller, attempted to control the administrative procedures of its Parent Involvement Committee last September after parent member, Cristina Bairos Fernandes, raised a procedural objection to opening meetings with a land acknowledgement.

The chair agreed to note the objection in the minutes. Director of Education Scott Miller then stepped in and told the committee that “as far as objections being noted in the minutes… we won’t be recording that,” citing the board’s commitment to Truth and Reconciliation.

Despite that direction, the committee ultimately voted at its November meeting to record that a parent had objected but chose not to include Miller’s attempt to block it. Fernandes and Horsman argued that leaving out the interference would give the public an incomplete view of parents’ views.

Fernandes has previously succeeded in having land acknowledgements removed from her own school’s parent council meetings. Now, Horsman has taken the broader issue to court.

Horsman says that school councils never properly debated whether land acknowledgements were appropriate. He says that “students are not presented with different perspectives on the issue.”

At Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate, he says, land acknowledgements can run close to ten minutes and sound “almost like a religious statement,” eating into limited time for other business.

What troubles him most is that the board is “imposing ideological statements on a captive audience” while forbidding any discussion. He hopes the case will remind officials that “not everyone agrees with the ultra-progressive agenda” and encourage parents to stop staying silent out of fear. “The costs of speaking your mind are much smaller than the costs of not speaking,” he said.